1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-08-14
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
34 * When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
35 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
37 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
38 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
39 Postscript files are included.
41 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
44 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
45 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
47 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
48 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
49 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
50 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
51 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
52 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
55 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
56 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
57 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
58 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
60 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
61 a version-dependent component.
63 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
64 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
65 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
66 character is still bound as before.
68 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
71 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
72 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
75 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
76 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
77 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
78 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
79 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
80 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
81 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
84 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
85 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
86 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
87 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
88 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
89 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
90 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
91 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
92 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
94 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
95 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
98 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
99 point in a pop-up window.
102 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
103 displays all characters in that character set.
105 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
106 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
109 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
110 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
111 defined on newcomment.el.
114 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
116 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
117 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
120 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
121 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
122 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
123 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
126 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
127 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
128 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
129 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
132 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
133 on the display using several methods
136 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
137 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
138 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
141 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
142 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
144 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
146 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
147 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
150 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
151 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
152 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
153 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
156 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
157 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
158 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
160 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
161 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
164 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
165 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
168 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
169 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
173 ** New X resources recognized
175 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
176 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
177 is useful for debugging X problems.
181 emacs.synchronous: true
183 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
184 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
185 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
186 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
187 visual class names are
196 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
197 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
200 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
201 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
202 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
207 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
209 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
210 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
211 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
212 resource values are `true' or `on'.
216 emacs.privateColormap: true
218 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
219 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
220 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
222 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
223 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
224 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
228 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
231 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
232 all frames except the selected one.
234 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
235 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
237 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
238 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
239 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
240 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
242 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
243 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
245 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
246 read mail from the menu etc.
248 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
249 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
251 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
253 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
257 -------------------------
264 ** Changes in Outline mode.
266 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
267 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
268 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
270 ** Changes to Emacs Server
272 *** There new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
273 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
274 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
275 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
276 buffers to kill, as before.
278 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
279 i.e. buffers visited which `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
282 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
284 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
285 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
286 use. Default is 1000.
288 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
289 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
292 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
293 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
294 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
298 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
299 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
302 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
303 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
305 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
306 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
307 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
309 ** Faces and frame parameters.
311 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
312 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
313 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
314 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
315 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
316 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
317 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
319 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
320 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
321 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
322 `default' face and vice versa.
326 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
327 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
328 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
331 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
333 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
334 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
335 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
336 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
338 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
339 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
340 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
342 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
345 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
347 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
348 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
349 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
350 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
353 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
355 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
356 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
357 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
358 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
361 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
362 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
363 under Lisp changes, below.
365 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
368 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
369 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
370 otherwise, it is hollow.
372 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
373 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
374 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
375 customizing face `fringe'.
377 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
378 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
382 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
383 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
385 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
387 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
388 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
389 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
390 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
391 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
394 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
395 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
396 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
397 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
398 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
399 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
401 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
402 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
403 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
404 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
405 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
406 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
408 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
409 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
410 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
411 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
412 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
414 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
416 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
417 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
418 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
421 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
423 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
424 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
425 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
426 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
427 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
432 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
433 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
438 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
439 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
440 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
443 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
445 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
446 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
447 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
450 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
451 have to do anything to activate it.
453 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
455 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
456 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
457 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
458 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
460 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
463 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
465 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
467 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
470 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
473 ** Hscrolling in C code.
475 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
476 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
481 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
482 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
485 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
487 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
488 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
489 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
490 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
491 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
493 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
495 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
498 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
499 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
501 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
503 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
504 `*') toggles the status.
506 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
508 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
510 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
511 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
514 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
516 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
517 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
518 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
519 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
520 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
521 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
526 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
527 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
528 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
531 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
532 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
533 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
534 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
535 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
536 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
538 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
540 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
542 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
543 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
544 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
546 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
547 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
549 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
550 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
551 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
553 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
555 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
556 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
557 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
558 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
560 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
561 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
562 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
563 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
565 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
566 notably at the end of lines.
568 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
569 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
572 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
574 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
575 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
576 after each match to get the replacement text.
578 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
579 you edit the replacement string.
581 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
582 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
583 lisp-complete-symbol.
585 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
587 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
588 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
589 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
590 window size by setting the following variable:
592 - User option: max-mini-window-height
594 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
595 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
596 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
600 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
602 ** Changes to hideshow.el
604 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
605 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
607 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
609 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
610 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
611 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
612 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
613 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
614 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
616 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
617 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
618 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
619 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
621 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
623 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
624 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
625 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
626 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
627 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
629 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
630 something like this in your .emacs.
632 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
634 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
636 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
639 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
640 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
641 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
644 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
648 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
651 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
652 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
654 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
655 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
656 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
657 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
659 ** Changes in Font Lock
661 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
662 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
665 ** Comint (subshell) changes
667 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
668 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
669 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
670 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
671 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
672 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
673 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
674 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
676 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
677 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
679 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
680 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
681 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
683 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
684 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
685 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
687 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
688 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
689 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
690 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
692 ** Changes to Rmail mode
694 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
695 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
696 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
697 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
698 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
701 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
702 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
703 regexp matching your mail addresses.
705 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
706 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
707 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
708 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
709 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
711 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
714 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
715 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
718 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
719 in which folder to put messages automatically.
721 ** Changes to TeX mode
723 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
726 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
728 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
729 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
730 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
731 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
732 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
733 can be edited from that buffer.
735 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
736 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
737 `A' to use all marked entries).
739 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
740 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
742 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
743 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
744 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
747 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
748 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
749 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
750 in column 1 are always made leaves.
752 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
753 has the following new features:
755 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
756 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
757 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
758 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
760 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
761 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
762 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
763 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
764 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
767 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
773 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
774 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
775 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
777 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
778 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
779 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
780 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
785 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
786 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
787 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
789 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
790 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
793 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
794 between custom options. Example:
796 (defcustom default-input-method nil
797 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
798 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
799 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
801 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
802 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
804 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
805 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
806 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
808 ** New features in evaluation commands
810 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
811 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
812 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
813 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
814 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
816 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
817 code when called with a prefix argument.
821 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
822 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
823 spell-checks the current buffer.
825 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
828 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
829 correction is made and re-checked.
831 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
833 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
836 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
839 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
844 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
845 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
846 is, delete only empty directories.
848 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
849 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
850 copy directories recursively.
852 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
853 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
854 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
856 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
857 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
860 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
861 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
862 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
863 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
864 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
866 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
869 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
870 use the -f option when sending mail.
874 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
875 current user setups (although it's believed that these
876 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
877 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
878 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
879 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
882 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
883 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
884 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
885 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
886 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
889 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
890 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
891 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
892 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
893 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
894 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
896 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
897 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
898 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
899 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
900 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
901 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
902 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
903 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
905 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
906 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
907 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
908 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
911 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
912 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
913 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
914 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
915 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
916 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
917 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
918 function documentation for more info.
920 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
921 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
922 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
923 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
924 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
925 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
926 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
927 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
929 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
931 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
932 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
934 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
935 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
936 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
937 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
938 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
941 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
942 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
943 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
946 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
947 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
948 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
949 chapter about this in the manual.
951 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
952 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
953 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
954 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
955 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
957 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
958 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
959 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
961 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
962 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
964 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
965 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
966 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
969 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
970 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
971 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
972 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
975 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
976 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
977 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
980 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
981 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
982 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
983 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
986 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
987 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
988 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
989 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
992 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
993 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
994 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
996 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
998 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
999 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1000 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1001 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1003 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1004 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1005 the column specified by comment-column.
1007 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1008 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1009 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1010 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1011 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1012 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1014 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1015 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1018 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1020 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1021 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1022 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1023 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1026 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1028 ** Makefile mode changes
1030 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1032 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1033 Fontlock mode is active.
1037 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1038 so that searches can be resumed.
1040 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1041 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1042 that started the search.
1044 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1045 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1047 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1049 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1050 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1051 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1052 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1053 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1054 `secondary-selection'.
1056 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1057 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1058 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1059 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1060 usual snappy response.
1062 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1063 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1064 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1065 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1067 ** Changes in sort.el
1069 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1070 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1071 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1074 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1077 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1078 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1079 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1081 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1082 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1084 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1085 output ^M at the end of lines.
1087 ** Shell script mode changes.
1089 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1090 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1091 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1095 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1097 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1098 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1099 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1100 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1101 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1103 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1104 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1106 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1107 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1109 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1112 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1114 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1116 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1119 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1120 variables are tagged.
1122 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1124 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1127 ** Changes in etags.el
1129 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1130 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1131 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1133 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1134 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1136 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1137 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1138 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1139 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1141 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1143 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1144 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1146 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1148 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1149 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1150 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1152 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1153 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1155 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1156 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1159 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1160 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1161 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1163 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1164 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1165 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1166 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1169 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1170 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1171 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1173 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1176 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1178 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1179 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1180 expression from that list, are not checked.
1182 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1183 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1184 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1185 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1187 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1189 ** New modes and packages
1192 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1193 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1194 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1195 on certain projects.
1197 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1198 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1200 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1202 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1203 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1204 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1205 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1206 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1207 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1208 corresponding file is read.
1211 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1214 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1215 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1217 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1218 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1219 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1222 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1223 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1224 separate Texinfo file.
1227 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1228 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1229 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1230 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1231 enter checkin log messages.
1234 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1235 without invoking external programs.
1237 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1238 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1239 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1240 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1241 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1243 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1244 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1246 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1247 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1249 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1250 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1251 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1252 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1253 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1256 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1257 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1258 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1259 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1262 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1263 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1264 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1266 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1269 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1271 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1273 ; comment (until end of line)
1277 $A default non-terminal
1278 $"C" default terminal
1279 $?C? default special
1280 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1281 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1282 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1283 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1284 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1285 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1286 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1287 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1288 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1289 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1290 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1291 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1292 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1293 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1294 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1296 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1298 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1299 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1300 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1301 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1302 equal signs of assignments.
1305 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1306 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1309 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1310 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1311 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1312 customize the package.
1314 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1316 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1317 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1318 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1319 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1320 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1321 which answers different needs.
1324 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1325 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1326 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1327 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1328 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1332 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1333 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1336 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1339 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1341 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1343 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1346 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1349 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1352 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1354 *** whitespace.el ???
1356 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1357 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1358 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1359 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1360 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1361 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1362 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1364 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1366 Here is an example of columns:
1369 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1370 porcupine strawberry airplane
1372 Doing the following settings:
1374 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1375 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1376 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1377 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1380 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1382 M-x delimit-columns-region
1386 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1387 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1388 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1390 delim-col has the following options:
1392 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1395 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1396 between each column.
1398 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1401 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1404 delim-col has the following commands:
1406 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1407 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1410 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1411 were operated on recently.
1413 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1415 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1416 recentf at Emacs startup.
1418 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1419 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1420 file list can be displayed:
1422 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1423 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1424 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1426 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1427 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1429 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1433 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1434 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1435 specific to Message mode.
1438 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1439 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1440 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1443 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1444 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1445 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1447 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1448 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1451 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1453 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1454 minibuffer with completion.
1456 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1457 with the diary features.
1459 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1460 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1462 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1465 ** Withdrawn packages
1467 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1468 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1470 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1472 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1475 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1476 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1479 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1480 is running in batch mode. For example,
1482 (message "%s" (read t))
1484 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1488 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1489 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1491 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1492 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1495 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1498 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1500 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1501 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1503 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1505 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1506 comparison is done with `eq'.
1508 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1510 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1514 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1515 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1516 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1518 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1519 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1521 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1522 function was declared obsolete.
1524 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1525 retained as an alias).
1527 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1528 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1529 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1531 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1533 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1535 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1536 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1538 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1540 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1542 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1544 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1545 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1546 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1547 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1550 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1551 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1552 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1553 minibuffer even if it is active.
1555 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1556 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1557 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1558 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1559 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1560 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1562 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1563 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1564 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1565 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1566 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1567 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1568 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1570 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1571 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1572 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1574 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1575 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1576 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1577 Default value is nil.
1579 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1582 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1583 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1584 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1586 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1589 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1590 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1591 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1592 than replacing the local map.
1594 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1595 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1597 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1599 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1602 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1604 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1606 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1607 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1608 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1609 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1611 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1612 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1613 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1614 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1616 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1617 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1618 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1619 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1621 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1622 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1623 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1625 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1626 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1627 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1628 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1629 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1630 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1631 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1634 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1636 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1637 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1638 character set as previously.
1640 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1641 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1642 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1644 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1645 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1646 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1647 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1649 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1650 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1652 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1653 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1656 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1657 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1659 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1660 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1661 buffers and strings.
1663 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1664 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1665 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1666 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1667 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1668 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1669 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1672 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1673 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1674 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1676 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1677 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1678 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1679 may differ between buffer and string text.
1681 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1682 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1684 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1685 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1686 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1687 `composition' from STRING.
1689 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1690 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1692 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1695 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1696 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1697 character set is not used.
1699 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1700 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1701 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1704 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1705 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1706 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1709 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1710 that offset in the file before writing.
1712 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1713 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1715 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1716 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1717 from which the command was issued.
1719 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1720 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1721 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1722 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1725 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1726 to `window-buffer-height'.
1728 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1730 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1731 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1732 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1734 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1737 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1738 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1740 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1741 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1742 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1744 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1745 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1746 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1747 is currently displayed in some window.
1749 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1750 argument function's results.
1752 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1753 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1755 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1756 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1758 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1759 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1761 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1762 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1765 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1766 nil don't display a cursor
1767 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1768 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1769 others display a box cursor.
1771 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1772 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1773 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1774 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1776 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1777 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1778 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1779 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1783 (string-to-syntax "()")
1786 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1789 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1790 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1797 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1802 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1807 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1814 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1815 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1818 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1819 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1820 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1821 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1824 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1826 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1827 for a regexp in a string.
1829 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1830 `mouse-position-function'.
1832 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1833 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1835 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1836 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1839 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1842 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1843 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1846 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1847 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1848 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1849 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1853 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1854 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1857 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1858 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1859 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1860 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1863 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1864 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1865 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1866 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1869 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1870 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1871 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1874 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1875 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1878 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1880 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1881 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1882 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1886 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1887 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1890 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1891 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1894 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1895 instead of being optional.
1898 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1899 modify read-only text.
1902 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1904 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1905 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1906 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1907 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1908 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1910 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1911 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1912 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1913 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1914 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1915 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1916 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1919 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1920 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1921 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1925 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1926 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1929 ** New function `propertize'
1931 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1932 strings with text properties.
1934 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1936 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1937 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1938 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1939 specified value of that property. Example:
1941 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1944 ** push and pop macros.
1946 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1947 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1948 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1950 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1951 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1952 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1954 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1956 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1957 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1959 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1960 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1961 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1962 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1964 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1965 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1966 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1967 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1970 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1971 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1973 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1974 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1975 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1976 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1977 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1979 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1981 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1982 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1983 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1984 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1985 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1986 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1987 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1988 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1989 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1990 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1991 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1992 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1993 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1994 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1995 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1998 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2000 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2002 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2004 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2005 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2009 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2010 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2011 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2015 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2016 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2018 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2020 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2021 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2022 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2023 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2024 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2026 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2028 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2029 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2030 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2034 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2035 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2036 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2037 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2038 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2040 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2042 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2044 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2046 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2048 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2050 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2053 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2055 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2057 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2059 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2061 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2063 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2065 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2067 Returns the size of TABLE.
2069 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2071 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2073 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2075 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2077 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2081 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2083 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2086 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2088 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2089 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2091 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2093 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2095 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2097 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2098 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2100 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2102 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2104 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2106 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2107 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2108 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2109 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2110 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2112 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2114 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2115 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2116 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2118 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2119 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2121 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2122 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2124 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2125 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2127 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2128 'case-fold-string-hash))
2130 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2133 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2135 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2136 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2137 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2140 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2142 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2143 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2146 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2147 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2148 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2149 is too short to reach that column.
2152 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2153 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2154 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2155 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2157 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2158 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2159 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2162 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2163 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2166 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2167 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2170 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2171 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2172 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2173 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2174 temporary-file-directory instead.
2177 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2178 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2179 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2180 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2183 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2184 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2187 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2189 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2190 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2191 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2194 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2196 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2197 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2198 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2199 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2200 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2201 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2203 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2204 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2205 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2206 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2209 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2211 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2212 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2213 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2216 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2217 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2221 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2223 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2224 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2227 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2230 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2232 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2233 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2236 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2238 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2239 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2245 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2246 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2248 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2249 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2250 to enable sound support.
2252 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2253 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2254 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2255 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2256 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2258 The following sound properties are supported:
2262 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2263 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2267 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2268 may be present, but not both.
2272 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2273 0..1. This property is optional.
2275 Other properties are ignored.
2277 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2279 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2282 ** Changes to garbage collection
2284 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2285 of live and free strings.
2287 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2288 strings that have been consed so far.
2291 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2295 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2297 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2300 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2302 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2304 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2305 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2306 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2307 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2308 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2310 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2311 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2314 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2317 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2319 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2320 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2321 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2322 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2325 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2327 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2328 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2329 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2330 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2332 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2333 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2335 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2336 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2337 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2338 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2339 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2340 just display it black instead.
2342 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2345 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2349 ** New face implementation.
2351 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2352 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2357 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2359 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2361 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2362 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2364 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2366 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2368 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2370 6. Foreground color.
2372 7. Background color.
2374 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2376 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2378 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2380 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2382 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2385 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2386 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2388 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2389 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2390 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2391 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2392 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2393 attributes mentioned above.
2395 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2396 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2399 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2400 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2406 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2407 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2408 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2409 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2410 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2411 results in a fully-specified face.
2414 *** Face realization.
2416 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2417 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2418 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2419 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2420 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2421 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2423 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2424 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2425 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2426 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2428 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2429 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2430 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2431 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2432 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2434 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2435 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2436 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2437 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2438 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2441 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2442 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2443 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2444 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2447 **** Clearing face caches.
2449 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2450 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2456 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2457 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2458 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2460 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2461 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2462 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2463 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2464 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2466 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2467 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2468 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2470 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2472 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2473 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2474 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2475 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2476 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2477 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2478 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2480 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2481 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2487 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2488 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2491 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2492 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2493 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2494 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2495 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2498 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2500 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2503 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2505 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2507 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2508 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2509 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2511 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2512 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2513 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2514 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2515 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2516 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2517 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2518 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2519 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2520 of the face font sort order.
2522 - Function: x-font-family-list
2524 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2525 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2526 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2527 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2529 - Variable: font-list-limit
2531 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2532 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2533 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2536 *** Setting face attributes.
2538 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2539 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2540 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2543 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2544 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2546 The following attributes are recognized:
2550 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2551 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2552 and `?' are allowed.
2556 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2557 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2558 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2559 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2563 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2568 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2569 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2570 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2574 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2575 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2578 `:foreground', `:background'
2580 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2584 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2585 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2586 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2591 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2592 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2593 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2598 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2599 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2600 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2601 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2605 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2606 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2607 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2608 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2609 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2610 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2611 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2612 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2613 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2614 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2615 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2616 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2617 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2618 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2619 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2620 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2625 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2626 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2630 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2631 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2632 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2633 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2634 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2635 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2637 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2638 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2642 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2643 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2644 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2647 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2648 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2649 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2651 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2654 *** Face attributes and X resources
2656 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2659 Face attribute X resource class
2660 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2661 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2662 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2663 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2664 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2665 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2666 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2667 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2668 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2669 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2670 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2671 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2672 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2673 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2674 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2675 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2676 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2677 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2678 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2679 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2682 *** Text property `face'.
2684 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2685 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2686 specification can be
2688 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2690 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2691 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2692 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2693 for face attribute names.
2695 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2696 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2697 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2700 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2702 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2703 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2704 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2705 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2706 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2707 used to clear the mapping table.
2709 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2711 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2712 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2713 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2714 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2715 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2716 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2717 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2718 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2719 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2720 modify their color-related behavior.
2722 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2725 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2727 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2728 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2729 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2730 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2731 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2732 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2733 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2734 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2735 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2738 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2740 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2742 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2743 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2744 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2746 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2748 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2749 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2750 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2752 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2753 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2754 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2755 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2756 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2757 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2758 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2761 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2762 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2763 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2765 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2767 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2769 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2771 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2772 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2773 constrained position if that is is different.
2775 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2776 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2777 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2778 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2779 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2780 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2781 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2782 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2783 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2785 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2786 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2787 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2788 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2789 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2791 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2792 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2794 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2796 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2798 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2799 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2800 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2802 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2804 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2805 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2806 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2807 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2808 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2810 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2812 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2813 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2814 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2815 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2816 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2818 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2820 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2821 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2822 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2824 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2826 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2827 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2828 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2833 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2834 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2835 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2836 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2838 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2839 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2840 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2841 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2844 IMAGE is an image specification.
2846 *** Image specifications
2848 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2849 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2850 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2851 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2852 described below are ignored.
2854 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2858 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2859 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2860 to use for its ascent.
2862 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2863 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2865 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2866 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2867 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2868 overlays that apply to the image.
2872 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2873 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2877 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2882 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2883 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2884 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2885 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2887 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2889 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2890 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2891 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2892 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2893 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2894 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2895 background of the image.
2899 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2900 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2901 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2902 may be present in the image specification.
2906 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2907 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2908 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2909 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2911 *** Supported image types
2913 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2915 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2916 properties supported are
2920 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2921 is the frame's foreground.
2925 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2926 the frame's background color.
2928 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2929 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2930 instead of a `:file' property.
2934 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2938 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2944 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2945 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2947 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2949 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2952 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2953 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2956 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2958 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2959 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2960 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2961 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2963 Additional image properties supported are:
2965 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2967 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2968 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2971 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2972 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2974 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2975 to display compressed images.
2977 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2979 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2980 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2983 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2985 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2986 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2989 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2991 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2992 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2995 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2997 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2998 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3000 Additional image properties supported are:
3004 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3005 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3007 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3008 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3009 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3012 (defun show-anim (file max)
3013 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3014 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3016 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3019 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3022 (goto-char (point-min))
3023 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3024 (insert-image img "x"))
3025 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3027 **** PNG, image type `png'
3029 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3030 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3033 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3035 Additional image properties supported are:
3039 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3040 integer. This is a required property.
3044 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3045 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3049 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3050 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3051 files. This is an required property.
3053 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3058 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3059 which are supported in the current configuration.
3061 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3062 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3063 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3064 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3065 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3067 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3069 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3070 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3071 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3072 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3073 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3079 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3082 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3083 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3084 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3085 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3086 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3087 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3088 of the display margins.
3090 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3091 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3092 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3093 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3099 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3100 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3101 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3102 that have a `help-echo' property.
3104 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3105 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3106 the window in which the help was found.
3108 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3109 `help-echo' text property was found.
3111 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3112 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3114 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3115 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3118 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3119 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3121 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3122 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3123 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3124 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3125 used as help string.
3127 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3128 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3129 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3132 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3134 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3135 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3137 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3138 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3139 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3140 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3143 (global-set-key [A-down]
3146 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3147 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3148 (global-set-key [A-up]
3151 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3152 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3155 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3157 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3158 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3159 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3160 is called with one argument, POS.
3162 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3163 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3164 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3165 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3166 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3169 ** Tool bar support.
3171 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3172 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3173 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3174 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3175 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3176 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3178 *** Tool bar item definitions
3180 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3181 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3182 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3184 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3185 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3186 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3187 property (see below).
3189 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3190 binding are currently ignored.
3192 The following properties are recognized:
3196 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3201 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3205 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3206 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3207 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3209 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3211 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3212 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3216 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3217 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3218 meaning of each of the four elements:
3220 Index Use when item is
3221 ----------------------------------------
3222 0 enabled and selected
3223 1 enabled and deselected
3224 2 disabled and selected
3225 3 disabled and deselected
3227 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3228 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3230 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3232 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3233 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3235 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3237 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3238 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3239 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3241 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3242 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3244 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3245 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3246 pixels. Default is 1.
3248 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3249 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3251 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3253 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3256 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3257 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3258 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3260 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3262 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3264 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3267 ** Mode line changes.
3270 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3272 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3273 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3274 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3276 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3277 a `local-map' text property.
3279 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3280 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3282 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3283 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3284 `local-map' property.
3286 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3287 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3290 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3291 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3294 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3295 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3298 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3300 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3301 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3302 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3303 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3306 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3309 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3310 position in the header-line.
3313 ** Text property `display'
3315 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3316 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3317 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3318 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3320 *** Variable width and height spaces
3322 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3323 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3324 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3325 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3326 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3327 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3328 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3330 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3331 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3332 properties described below.
3334 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3335 characters having the `display' property.
3339 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3340 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3342 - :relative-width FACTOR
3344 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3345 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3346 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3347 width of that character by FACTOR.
3351 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3352 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3354 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3358 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3361 - :relative-height FACTOR
3363 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3364 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3368 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3369 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3370 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3373 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3377 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3378 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3379 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3380 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3381 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3382 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3383 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3384 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3385 as display specification.
3387 *** Other display properties
3389 - :space-width FACTOR
3391 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3392 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3397 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3399 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3400 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3401 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3402 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3403 a font is available counts as a step.
3405 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3406 as tall as the frame's default font.
3408 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3409 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3411 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3412 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3416 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3417 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3418 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3419 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3420 `:height' subproperty.
3422 *** Conditional display properties
3424 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3425 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3426 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3427 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3428 the text having the `display' property.
3430 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3434 ** New menu separator types.
3436 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3437 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3438 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3439 to specify other menu separator types.
3441 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3443 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3446 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3448 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3450 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3452 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3454 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3456 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3458 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3460 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3462 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3464 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3465 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3467 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3469 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3471 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3473 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3475 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3477 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3479 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3481 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3483 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3485 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3487 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3489 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3491 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3493 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3495 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3496 the corresponding single-line separators.
3499 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3501 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3502 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3503 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3504 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3505 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3506 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3507 default foreground is black.
3509 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3510 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3511 `ScrollBarBackground').
3513 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3514 settings for scroll bar colors.
3517 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3518 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3521 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3522 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3523 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3524 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3525 the original window start.
3528 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3529 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3530 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3533 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3535 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3536 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3537 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3538 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3540 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3541 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3543 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3545 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3546 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3547 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3548 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3549 temporarily to nil, for example
3551 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3552 (enlarge-window 10))
3554 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3555 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3557 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3558 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3559 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3560 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3561 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3562 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3566 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3568 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3571 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3573 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3575 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3576 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3577 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3578 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3579 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3581 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3585 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3587 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3590 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3592 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3593 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3595 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3597 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3599 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3600 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3601 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3603 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3604 is the one that is used.
3606 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3607 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3608 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3609 separate from the command's regular output.
3610 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3611 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3612 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3615 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3616 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3617 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3618 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3620 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3621 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3622 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3623 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3625 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3626 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3627 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3628 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3630 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3631 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3632 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3633 they never ignore case.
3635 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3636 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3637 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3638 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3639 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3640 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3641 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3643 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3644 the same format that was used in the file before.
3646 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3647 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3649 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3650 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3651 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3653 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3654 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3655 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3656 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3657 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3658 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3659 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3661 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3662 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3663 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3664 format. You can now customize these variables.
3666 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3667 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3668 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3669 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3671 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3672 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3673 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3675 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3676 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3677 doesn't have any effect.
3679 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3682 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3683 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3684 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3686 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3687 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3688 `auto-show-mode' command.
3690 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3691 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3692 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3693 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3694 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3696 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3697 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3699 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3700 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3701 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3703 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3704 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3705 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3706 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3708 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3710 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3711 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3712 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3713 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3714 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3716 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3717 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3719 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3720 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3721 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3722 `?' on other systems.
3724 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3725 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3728 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3729 current codepage when it starts.
3733 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3734 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3735 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3736 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3737 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3738 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3742 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3743 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3745 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3746 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3747 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3748 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3749 buffer-file-coding-system.
3751 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3752 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3755 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3756 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3757 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3758 list of possible coding systems.
3762 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3763 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3764 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3765 docstring for details.
3767 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3768 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3769 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3770 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3771 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3773 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3774 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3776 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3777 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3779 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3780 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3781 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3782 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3785 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3786 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3788 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3789 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3790 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3791 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3793 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3794 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3795 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3796 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3797 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3799 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3801 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3803 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3804 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3806 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3808 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3809 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3810 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3811 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3812 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3816 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3817 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3818 Gnus manual for the full story.
3820 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3821 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3822 group, which is created automatically.
3824 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3827 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3829 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3830 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3832 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3835 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3837 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3838 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3840 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3842 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3843 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3845 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3846 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3848 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3849 control over simplification.
3851 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3853 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3856 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3858 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3860 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3861 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3862 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3864 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3865 `a' forces normal posting method.
3867 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3870 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3873 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3874 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3876 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3879 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3881 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3883 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3884 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3886 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3887 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3889 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3891 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3894 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3895 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3897 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3898 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3900 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3902 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3904 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3906 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3908 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3909 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3910 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3912 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3913 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3914 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3915 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3916 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3918 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3919 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3920 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3921 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3923 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3924 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3925 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3928 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3930 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3931 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3933 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3934 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3935 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3936 removed from the label.
3938 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3939 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3941 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3942 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3944 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3945 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3948 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3950 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3952 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3953 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3955 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3956 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3957 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3959 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3960 changes with a special face.
3962 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3963 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3964 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3966 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3968 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3969 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3970 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3971 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3972 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3974 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3975 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3976 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3978 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3979 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3980 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3981 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3982 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3983 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3984 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3985 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3986 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3988 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3989 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3990 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3991 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3992 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3995 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3996 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3997 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3998 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3999 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4000 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4002 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4003 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4004 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4005 was not documented clearly before.
4007 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4008 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4010 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4012 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4013 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4014 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4015 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4017 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4018 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4019 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4021 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4023 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4024 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4026 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4027 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4030 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4031 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4032 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4033 file names and attributes are returned.
4035 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4036 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4037 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4038 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4041 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4042 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4044 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4046 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4047 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4048 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4051 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4052 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4055 The new function process-running-child-p
4056 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4057 terminal to its own child process.
4059 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4060 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4061 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4062 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4064 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4065 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4067 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4068 :included is an alias for :visible.
4070 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4071 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4072 to move or copy menu entries.
4074 ** Multibyte editing changes
4076 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4077 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4078 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4079 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4080 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4081 (setq char (sref str idx)
4082 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4083 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4085 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4086 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4087 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4089 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4090 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4091 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4093 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4095 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4096 across the boundary.
4098 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4099 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4100 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4101 contains 8-bit characters.
4102 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4103 contains invalid characters.
4105 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4106 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4107 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4108 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4111 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4112 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4113 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4114 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4116 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4117 compose Thai characters in a string.
4119 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4120 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4121 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4122 menus should always use the third argument.
4124 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4125 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4126 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4127 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4129 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4130 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4131 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4132 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4134 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4135 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4136 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4139 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4141 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4142 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4143 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4145 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4146 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4147 means to clear out that attribute.
4149 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4150 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4152 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4153 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4154 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4155 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4157 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4158 the gap of the current buffer.
4160 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4161 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4164 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4165 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4166 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4167 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4169 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4171 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4172 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4173 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4174 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4175 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4177 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4178 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4179 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4180 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4181 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4183 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4184 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4185 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4187 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4188 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4189 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4190 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4191 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4194 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4195 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4196 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4197 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4199 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4201 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4202 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4203 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4204 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4206 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4207 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4208 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4209 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4210 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4211 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4212 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4215 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4218 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4219 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4220 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4221 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4222 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4224 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4225 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4226 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4227 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4229 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4230 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4231 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4232 something that most users not do.
4234 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4235 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4236 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4239 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4242 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4243 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4244 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4245 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4248 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4249 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4250 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4251 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4252 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4255 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4256 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4257 to be confused by TeX commands.
4259 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4260 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4261 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4262 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4264 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4265 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4266 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4267 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4268 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4270 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4271 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4273 ** Changes in input method usage.
4275 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4276 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4279 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4281 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4282 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4284 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4285 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4287 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4289 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4291 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4292 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4294 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4295 given in the following case:
4296 o When you are using a complex input method.
4297 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4299 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4300 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4301 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4302 setting it to t is helpful.
4304 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4306 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4308 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4309 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4310 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4311 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4314 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4315 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4316 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4319 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4321 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4323 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4324 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4326 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4327 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4328 its owner and group.
4330 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4331 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4333 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4334 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4336 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4337 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4338 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4339 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4341 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4342 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4343 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4344 for writing keyboard macros.
4346 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4347 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4348 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4349 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4350 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4353 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4355 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4356 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4359 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4360 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4361 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4362 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4364 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4365 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4366 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4368 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4369 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4370 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4371 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4373 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4374 failure if the command produces no output.
4376 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4377 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4380 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4381 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4382 function and variable names.
4384 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4385 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4386 file-coding-system-alist.
4388 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4389 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4390 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4391 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4392 according to the current fontset.
4394 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4396 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4397 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4398 nonascii-insert-offset.
4400 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4401 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4402 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4403 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4405 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4406 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4408 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4409 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4411 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4412 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4415 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4416 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4418 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4419 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4420 all variables that have documentation.
4422 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4423 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4424 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4425 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4426 it should show; the default is 20.
4428 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4429 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4432 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4433 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4434 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4435 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4436 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4437 Newly added options are included as well.
4439 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4440 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4441 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4443 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4446 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4447 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4449 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4450 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4453 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4454 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4457 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4458 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4459 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4460 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4463 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4465 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4466 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4467 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4469 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4470 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4471 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4476 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4477 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4479 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4480 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4482 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4483 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4485 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4486 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4487 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4488 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4489 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4490 made invisible again.
4492 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4494 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4495 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4496 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4499 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4500 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4501 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4502 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4503 rmail-default-body-file.
4505 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4506 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4507 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4509 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4510 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4511 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4513 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4514 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4515 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4516 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4517 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4518 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4520 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4521 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4522 provided by feedmail are:
4524 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4525 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4526 there is also a queue for draft messages
4528 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4529 be prompted for confirmation
4531 **** does smart filling of address headers
4533 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4534 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4535 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4537 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4538 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4539 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4540 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4544 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4545 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4547 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4548 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4550 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4551 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4552 for a specified regexp.
4556 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4559 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4560 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4563 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4564 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4565 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4566 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4568 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4569 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4570 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4571 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4572 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4574 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4575 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4576 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4577 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4578 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4580 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4581 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4582 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4583 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4585 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4586 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4587 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4589 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4590 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4591 session to resolve them.
4593 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4594 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4595 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4598 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4599 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4600 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4601 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4602 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4603 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4606 ** Changes in Font Lock
4608 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4609 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4610 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4611 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4612 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4614 ** Frame name display changes
4616 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4617 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4618 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4619 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4621 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4622 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4625 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4627 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4628 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4629 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4631 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4633 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4634 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4635 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4637 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4638 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4641 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4642 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4643 previously sent input.
4645 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4646 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4647 as the search string.
4649 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4650 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4654 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4655 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4656 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4659 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4660 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4661 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4662 style is still the default however.
4664 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4666 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4667 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4668 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4670 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4671 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4673 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4674 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4676 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4677 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4679 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4680 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4682 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4683 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4684 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4685 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4687 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4689 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4690 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4691 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4693 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4694 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4695 expanding dynamically.
4697 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4698 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4700 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4701 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4702 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4703 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4705 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4707 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4709 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4710 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4711 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4712 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4713 against the first word in the title.
4715 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4716 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4717 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4718 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4719 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4720 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4722 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4723 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4724 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4725 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4727 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4729 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4730 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4731 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4732 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4733 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4734 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4736 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4737 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4739 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4740 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4741 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4743 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4744 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4748 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4749 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4750 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4752 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4753 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4754 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4755 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4758 o URLs are automatically skipped
4759 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4761 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4763 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4765 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4766 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4767 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4768 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4770 *** New recursive parser.
4772 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4773 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4774 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4776 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4778 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4779 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4780 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4782 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4784 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4786 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4788 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4790 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4792 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4793 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4795 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4797 *** References to external documents.
4799 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4800 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4801 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4802 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4803 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4804 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4805 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4807 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4809 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4810 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4812 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4813 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4815 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4817 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4818 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4820 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4822 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4823 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4824 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4825 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4826 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4827 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4830 *** Support for the varioref package
4832 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4836 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4837 and citations are created. These hooks are
4838 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4839 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4841 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4843 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4844 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4846 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4848 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4849 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4852 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4854 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4855 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4856 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4857 directories that contain the same file name.
4859 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4860 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4861 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4862 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4863 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4864 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4865 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4868 ** New modes and packages
4870 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4871 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4872 it, but some do not.
4874 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4877 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4878 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4881 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4883 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4884 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4885 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4886 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4888 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4889 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4890 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4892 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4893 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4894 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4895 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4896 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4899 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4900 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4902 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4903 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4904 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4905 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4907 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4909 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4910 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4911 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4912 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4913 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4914 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4915 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4916 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4917 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4918 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4919 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4921 Platform-specific modes:
4923 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4924 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4925 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4926 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4927 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4928 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4929 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4930 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4931 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4933 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4935 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4936 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4937 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4938 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4940 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4941 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4942 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4944 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4945 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4946 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4947 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4949 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4950 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4951 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4954 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4955 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4956 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4957 current input method for reading this one event.
4959 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4960 now control whether to output certain characters as
4961 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4962 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4963 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4964 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4966 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4968 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4969 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4971 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4972 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4973 always increases point by 1.
4975 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4976 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4978 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4980 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4981 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4982 default value changed. For example,
4984 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4989 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4992 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4993 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4994 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4995 `:version' in the top level group.
4997 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4999 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5000 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5002 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5003 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5004 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5007 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5008 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5011 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5012 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5013 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5015 ** Frame-local variables.
5017 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5018 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5019 local bindings for that variable.
5021 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5022 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5023 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5026 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5027 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5028 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5029 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5031 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5032 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5033 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5034 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5036 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5037 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5038 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5039 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5040 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5042 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5043 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5044 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5045 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5047 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5048 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5050 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5051 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5052 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5054 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5055 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5056 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5057 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5059 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5060 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5063 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5064 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5065 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5066 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5067 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5069 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5070 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5071 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5072 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5074 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5075 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5076 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5077 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5078 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5080 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5081 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5082 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5083 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5085 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5086 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5087 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5089 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5090 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5091 was directed to display this buffer.
5093 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5094 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5095 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5096 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5097 set-window-configuration.
5099 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5100 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5101 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5102 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5104 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5105 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5106 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5108 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5109 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5110 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5112 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5113 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5115 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5116 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5118 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5119 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5120 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5122 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5123 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5124 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5125 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5129 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5130 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5133 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5134 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5135 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5136 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5137 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5139 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5141 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5142 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5143 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5144 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5147 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5148 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5149 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5150 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5151 The supported properties include
5153 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5155 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5156 item should appear in the menu.
5158 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5159 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5160 It should return a binding to use instead.
5162 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5163 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5164 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5165 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5166 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5169 This means that the command normally has no
5170 keyboard equivalent.
5171 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5172 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5173 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5174 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5175 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5177 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5178 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5180 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5184 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5185 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5186 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5187 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5189 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5191 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5192 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5193 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5194 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5195 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5196 forward, away from the user.
5198 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5200 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5201 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5202 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5203 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5204 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5206 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5208 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5209 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5210 that were dragged and dropped.
5212 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5214 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5216 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5217 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5218 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5220 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5221 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5222 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5224 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5225 in Emacs 19 and before.
5227 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5228 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5230 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5231 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5232 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5233 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5235 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5236 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5237 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5238 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5239 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5241 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5242 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5243 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5244 consistent with the new representation.
5246 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5247 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5248 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5249 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5251 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5252 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5253 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5255 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5256 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5257 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5259 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5260 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5261 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5263 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5264 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5266 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5267 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5269 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5270 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5271 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5272 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5274 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5275 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5277 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5278 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5279 buffer or string being searched.
5281 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5282 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5283 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5284 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5285 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5286 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5287 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5289 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5291 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5292 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5293 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5294 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5295 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5296 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5297 define-coding-system-alias.
5299 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5300 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5301 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5302 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5303 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5304 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5305 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5308 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5309 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5310 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5311 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5313 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5314 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5315 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5316 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5318 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5319 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5320 This function requires a user interaction.
5322 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5323 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5324 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5325 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5326 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5327 select-safe-coding-system.
5329 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5330 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5331 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5334 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5335 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5336 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5338 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5339 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5340 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5341 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5343 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5344 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5345 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5348 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5349 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5351 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5352 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5353 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5354 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5355 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5356 range of characters.
5358 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5359 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5361 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5362 in the current buffer at position POS.
5364 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5365 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5366 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5367 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5368 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5369 binding input-method-function to nil.
5371 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5372 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5373 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5374 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5375 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5377 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5378 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5380 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5381 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5383 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5384 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5385 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5386 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5387 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5389 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5391 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5392 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5393 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5396 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5397 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5399 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5400 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5401 in your .emacs file.)
5403 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5404 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5406 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5407 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5409 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5410 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5413 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5414 delete the character before point, as usual.
5416 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5417 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5418 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5420 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5421 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5422 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5423 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5424 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5427 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5428 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5429 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5430 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5431 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5433 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5434 and is an alias for it.
5436 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5437 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5439 ** Scrolling changes
5441 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5442 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5444 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5445 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5448 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5449 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5450 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5451 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5453 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5454 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5455 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5456 recenters the window.
5458 ** International character set support (MULE)
5460 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5461 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5462 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5463 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5464 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5465 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5467 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5468 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5469 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5470 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5471 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5473 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5474 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5475 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5476 language, to make it possible to type them.
5478 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5479 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5481 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5482 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5484 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5486 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5488 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5489 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5490 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5491 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5492 characters for their work until they want to change.
5496 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5497 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5498 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5499 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5500 support several input methods.
5502 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5503 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5506 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5507 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5508 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5509 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5510 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5513 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5514 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5515 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5516 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5517 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5519 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5520 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5521 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5522 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5524 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5525 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5526 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5527 the first guess is wrong.
5529 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5530 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5532 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5533 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5534 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5535 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5537 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5538 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5539 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5540 translate automatically to and from either one.
5542 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5544 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5545 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5546 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5549 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5550 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5551 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5552 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5554 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5555 character conversion as well.
5557 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5559 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5560 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5561 requires using many fonts.
5563 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5564 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5566 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5567 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5568 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5569 you would use a font.
5571 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5572 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5573 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5575 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5576 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5577 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5578 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5579 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5581 *** Defining fontsets.
5583 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5584 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5585 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5587 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5588 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5589 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5590 standard fontset are created automatically.
5592 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5593 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5594 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5595 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5596 name is `fontset-startup'.
5598 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5599 The resource value should have this form:
5600 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5601 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5602 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5603 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5604 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5605 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5606 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5607 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5608 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5610 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5611 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5612 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5614 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5615 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5617 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5618 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5619 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5620 Here is the substitution rule:
5621 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5622 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5623 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5624 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5625 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5627 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5628 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5629 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5631 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5632 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5633 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5634 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5637 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5638 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5640 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5641 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5642 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5643 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5644 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5645 system for new files that you create.
5647 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5648 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5649 whole Emacs session.
5651 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5652 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5653 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5655 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5656 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5657 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5658 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5659 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5661 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5662 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5663 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5664 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5665 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5667 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5668 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5670 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5671 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5673 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5674 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5676 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5677 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5678 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5679 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5682 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5683 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5684 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5685 translated into that character code.
5687 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5688 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5690 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5692 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5693 the coding system for keyboard input.
5695 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5696 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5697 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5699 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5701 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5702 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5703 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5704 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5705 designed to work with terminals.
5707 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5708 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5709 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5710 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5711 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5712 in the corresponding buffer.
5714 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5716 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5717 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5718 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5720 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5721 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5722 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5725 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5726 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5728 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5729 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5730 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5731 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5733 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5734 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5735 related information.
5737 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5738 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5741 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5742 information about the support for a particular language.
5743 You specify the language as an argument.
5745 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5746 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5749 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5750 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5751 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5752 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5754 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5756 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5757 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5758 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5759 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5760 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5761 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5762 K euc-korea (Korean)
5765 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5768 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5769 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5770 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5774 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5775 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5776 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5777 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5779 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5780 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5782 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5783 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5784 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5785 Rmail files themselves.
5787 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5788 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5790 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5793 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5794 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5795 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5796 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5797 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5799 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5800 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5801 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5804 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5805 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5806 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5807 without any conversion.
5809 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5810 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5811 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5812 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5814 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5815 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5817 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5818 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5820 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5821 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5823 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5824 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5825 in the buffer before point.
5827 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5828 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5831 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5832 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5834 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5836 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5837 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5839 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5840 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5841 can become a bottleneck.
5843 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5844 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5845 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5846 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5847 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5848 so useful that the change is worth while.
5850 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5851 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5852 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5853 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5855 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5856 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5859 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5860 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5861 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5863 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5864 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5865 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5867 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5868 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5869 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5871 ** Changes in View mode.
5873 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5874 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5876 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5877 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5879 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5882 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5883 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5885 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5886 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5887 not just the selected window.
5889 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5890 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5891 turns View mode on or off.
5893 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5894 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5895 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5897 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5898 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5900 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5901 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5902 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5903 which version to compare with.
5905 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5906 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5908 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5909 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5910 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5911 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5913 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5914 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5915 blocks, all of them or none.
5917 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5918 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5921 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5922 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5923 However, the mode will not be changed if
5924 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5925 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5926 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5927 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5929 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5931 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5932 these commands do not change the major mode.
5934 ** M-x occur changes.
5936 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5937 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5939 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5940 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5941 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5943 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5944 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5945 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5946 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5947 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5949 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5950 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5951 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5952 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5954 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5955 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5956 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5958 ** Outline mode changes.
5960 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5962 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5964 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5965 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5966 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5969 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5970 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5973 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5974 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5976 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5978 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5979 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5980 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5981 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5983 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5984 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5985 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5987 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5988 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5991 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5992 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5993 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5994 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5996 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5997 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5998 can be. The default value is 30.
6000 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6002 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6003 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6004 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6005 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6006 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6009 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6010 compose-mail-other-frame.
6012 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6013 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6014 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6015 buffer that shows the original message.
6017 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6018 with separator lines around the contents.
6020 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6021 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6022 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6023 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6025 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6027 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6028 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6029 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6030 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6032 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6033 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6036 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6037 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6040 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6041 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6042 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6043 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6045 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6046 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6047 be taken to be magic.
6049 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6050 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6051 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6053 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6054 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6056 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6057 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6059 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6061 new key dired.el binding old key
6062 ------- ---------------- -------
6063 * c dired-change-marks c
6065 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6066 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6067 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6069 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6070 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6071 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6072 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6073 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6074 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6078 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6079 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6080 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6081 each time you run it.
6083 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6084 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6086 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6087 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6088 means to move in the opposite direction.
6090 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6091 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6093 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6094 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6095 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6096 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6101 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6103 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6106 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6107 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6109 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6112 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6114 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6116 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6118 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6119 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6120 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6122 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6124 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6126 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6127 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6129 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6130 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6131 used to pick articles.
6133 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6134 another have been added.
6136 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6138 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6139 generating lines in buffers.
6141 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6144 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6146 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6148 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6150 *** Scores can be decayed.
6152 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6154 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6155 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6157 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6160 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6162 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6163 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6165 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6167 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6168 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6170 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6171 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6173 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6176 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6177 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6179 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6181 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6183 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6185 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6187 Use the `Y c' command.
6189 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6191 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6193 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6195 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6196 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6198 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6200 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6202 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6203 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6205 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6207 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6208 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6209 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6210 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6213 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6214 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6215 particular news group. This can be done by:
6217 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6219 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6220 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6221 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6222 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6223 for reading and posting).
6225 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6226 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6227 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6228 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6231 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6232 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6234 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6235 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6236 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6237 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6238 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6240 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6241 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6245 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6246 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6247 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6248 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6249 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6252 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6253 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6254 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6255 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6256 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6257 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6259 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6260 of the current buffer.
6262 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6263 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6264 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6266 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6267 style that the Python developers like.
6269 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6270 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6271 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6275 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6276 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6277 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6279 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6280 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6283 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6284 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6286 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6287 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6288 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6289 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6291 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6292 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6294 ** Calendar changes.
6296 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6297 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6298 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6302 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6304 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6306 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6307 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6308 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6309 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6310 It defaults to `letter'.
6311 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6313 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6314 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6315 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6317 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6318 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6321 *** Horizontal layout
6323 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6324 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6325 All are measured in points.
6329 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6330 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6331 All are measured in points.
6335 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6336 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6337 margin above the text.
6339 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6340 framing box is printed around the header.
6342 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6343 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6345 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6346 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6347 `ps-header-font-size'.
6351 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6352 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6353 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6354 elements to this alist.
6356 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6357 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6359 ** hideshow changes.
6361 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6364 *** Support for java-mode added.
6366 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6367 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6369 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6370 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6371 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6373 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6374 robust and a lot faster.
6376 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6378 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6379 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6380 documentation for more details.
6382 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6384 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6385 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6386 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6387 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6388 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6390 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6391 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6392 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6393 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6399 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6400 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6401 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6402 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6403 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6404 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6406 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6408 *** Maximum decoration
6410 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6411 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6412 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6413 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6414 to get the old behavior.
6418 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6420 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6421 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6423 *** Configurable support
6425 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6426 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6427 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6428 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6429 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6430 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6431 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6433 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6434 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6435 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6437 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6439 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6440 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6443 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6445 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6451 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6452 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6453 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6454 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6456 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6458 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6459 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6460 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6462 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6464 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6465 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6466 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6467 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6468 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6469 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6470 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6472 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6473 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6474 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6475 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6476 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6477 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6479 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6481 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6482 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6483 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6484 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6486 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6489 ** Ada mode changes.
6491 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6492 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6493 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6494 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6497 *** There are two new commands:
6498 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6499 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6501 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6502 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6503 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6505 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6506 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6507 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6509 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6510 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6511 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6512 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6514 ** Scheme mode changes.
6516 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6517 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6518 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6519 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6522 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6523 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6524 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6525 variables as buffer-local variables.
6527 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6530 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6532 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6533 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6534 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6535 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6537 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6538 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6541 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6542 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6543 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6544 option takes precedence.
6546 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6547 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6548 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6550 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6551 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6554 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6555 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6557 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6558 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6561 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6562 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6563 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6564 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6565 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6566 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6568 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6569 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6570 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6571 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6573 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6574 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6575 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6576 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6577 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6579 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6580 since it applies only to the current frame.
6582 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6583 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6584 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6586 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6587 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6588 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6589 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6590 instead of just the file you are editing.
6594 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6595 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6596 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6597 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6598 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6601 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6602 knows which kind of label is needed.
6604 C-c ) reftex-reference
6605 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6606 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6608 C-c [ reftex-citation
6609 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6610 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6612 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6613 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6616 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6617 can quickly jump to every section.
6619 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6620 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6621 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6622 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6623 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6625 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6627 *** Info documentation is now available.
6629 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6630 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6632 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6633 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6635 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6636 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6638 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6639 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6640 appropriate functions.
6642 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6643 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6645 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6648 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6649 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6651 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6654 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6655 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6656 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6658 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6659 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6660 prefixed with `ALT'.
6662 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6663 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6664 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6667 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6668 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6669 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6671 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6672 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6674 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6675 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6676 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6678 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6680 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6682 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6685 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6686 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6689 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6692 *** Added support for imenu.
6694 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6695 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6696 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6697 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6699 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6700 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6702 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6704 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6706 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6707 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6708 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6711 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6712 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6714 ** browse-url changes
6716 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6717 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6718 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6719 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6720 customization variables.
6722 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6724 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6725 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6726 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6730 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6731 pops up the Info file for this command.
6733 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6734 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6735 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6738 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6739 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6740 files in the same directory.
6742 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6743 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6744 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6748 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6749 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6751 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6752 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6753 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6754 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6755 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6756 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6757 color when Viper is in insert state.
6758 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6759 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6760 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6764 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6765 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6766 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6767 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6768 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6770 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6772 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6773 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6775 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6776 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6777 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6779 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6780 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6781 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6782 methods and protocols.
6784 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6785 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6786 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6789 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6790 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6791 at least M times and as many as N times.
6793 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6794 in files has changed slightly.
6796 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6797 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6798 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6799 with old time-stamp-format values.
6801 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6802 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6803 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6806 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6807 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6808 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6809 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6810 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6811 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6813 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6814 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6815 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6817 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6818 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6819 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6820 recommended now will continue to work then.
6822 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6825 ** There are some additional major modes:
6827 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6828 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6829 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6831 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6832 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6835 ** New Lisp packages include:
6837 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6839 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6840 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6842 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6844 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6847 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6848 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6851 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6852 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6853 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6854 strings or comments.
6856 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6857 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6858 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6859 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6862 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6863 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6865 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6866 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6868 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6870 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6871 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6873 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6875 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6877 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6879 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6880 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6882 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6883 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6884 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6885 original place after inserting the copy.
6887 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6890 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6891 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6892 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6894 Enable mouse-drag with:
6895 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6897 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6899 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6900 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6902 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6903 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6907 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6908 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6909 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6910 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6911 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6912 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6913 instance) and vice versa.
6915 To use this package load it using
6916 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6917 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6918 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6919 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6920 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6921 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6923 *** Interface to ph.
6925 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6927 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6928 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6931 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6933 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6934 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6935 while the real cursor does not move.
6937 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6938 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6940 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6941 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6945 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6946 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6947 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6948 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6950 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6952 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6954 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6956 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6957 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6958 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6959 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6960 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6962 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6963 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6964 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6965 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6966 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6967 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6969 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6971 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6972 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6973 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6974 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6976 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6977 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6979 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6980 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6983 ** Basic Lisp changes
6985 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6986 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6988 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6989 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6992 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6994 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6996 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6997 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6999 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7000 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7003 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7005 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7007 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7009 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7010 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7011 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7014 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7015 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7016 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7018 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7019 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7020 adding one of these suffixes.
7022 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7023 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7024 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7026 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7027 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7029 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7031 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7032 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7034 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7035 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7037 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7039 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7040 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7042 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7043 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7044 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7045 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7047 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7048 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7051 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7052 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7053 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7056 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7057 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7060 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7062 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7063 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7064 Then it returns that string.
7066 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7068 (with-output-to-string
7069 (princ "The buffer is ")
7070 (princ (buffer-name)))
7072 returns "The buffer is foo".
7074 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7077 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7078 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7079 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7081 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7082 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7084 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7085 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7086 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7087 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7088 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7089 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7091 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7092 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7093 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7096 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7097 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7098 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7099 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7100 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7102 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7103 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7104 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7105 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7107 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7108 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7110 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7112 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7113 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7114 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7115 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7118 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7119 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7122 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7124 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7125 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7126 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7127 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7128 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7130 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7132 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7133 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7134 more than the number of characters.
7136 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7137 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7138 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7139 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7140 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7141 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7143 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7144 and returns a string containing those characters.
7146 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7147 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7148 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7149 character, sref signals an error.
7151 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7152 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7153 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7155 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7156 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7157 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7159 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7160 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7161 to a vector of the characters in it.
7163 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7164 of a string. You call it as follows:
7166 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7168 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7169 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7170 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7171 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7172 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7174 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7175 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7177 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7178 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7180 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7181 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7182 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7183 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7185 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7187 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7189 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7190 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7191 are not included in the resulting value.
7193 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7194 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7195 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7196 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7198 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7199 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7200 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7201 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7202 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7203 column START-COLUMN.
7205 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7206 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7207 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7208 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7209 changed text, before the change.
7211 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7212 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7213 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7215 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7217 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7219 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7220 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7222 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7223 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7224 which identify the character within that character set.
7226 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7227 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7228 opposite of split-char.
7230 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7231 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7233 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7234 of all the characters in a string.
7236 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7237 and specifying coding systems.
7239 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7240 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7241 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7242 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7243 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7244 as what to do about code conversion.)
7246 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7247 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7249 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7250 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7251 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7253 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7254 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7255 to match against a file name.
7257 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7258 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7259 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7260 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7261 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7262 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7264 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7265 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7267 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7268 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7270 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7271 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7272 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7275 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7276 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7277 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7278 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7279 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7280 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7282 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7283 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7285 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7286 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7287 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7288 start the subprocess.
7290 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7291 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7292 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7293 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7294 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7296 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7297 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7300 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7301 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7302 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7303 connection permanently or until overridden.
7305 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7306 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7307 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7308 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7309 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7310 system for one operation at a time.
7312 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7313 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7315 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7316 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7317 The value is a cons cell,
7318 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7319 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7320 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7321 input to the subprocess.
7323 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7324 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7326 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7327 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7328 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7330 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7331 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7332 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7333 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7336 Thus, instead of writing
7338 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7339 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7341 you would now write this:
7343 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7344 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7348 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7349 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7350 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7351 for a description of them.
7353 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7354 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7356 (defgroup ispell nil
7357 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7360 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7361 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7362 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7363 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7364 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7366 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7367 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7368 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7369 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7370 first-level subgroups.
7372 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7374 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7375 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7379 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7380 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7381 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7382 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7383 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7384 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7386 ** Text property changes
7388 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7391 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7392 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7393 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7394 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7395 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7397 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7398 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7399 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7400 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7402 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7403 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7404 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7406 ** Changes in invisibility features
7408 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7409 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7410 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7411 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7412 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7413 make the overlay visible.
7415 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7416 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7417 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7418 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7419 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7420 t when it should hide it.
7422 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7424 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7425 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7426 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7427 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7428 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7429 Here is an example of how to do this:
7431 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7432 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7433 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7434 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7437 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7440 ;; When done with the overlays:
7441 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7443 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7445 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7447 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7448 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7449 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7450 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7452 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7453 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7454 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7456 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7457 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7459 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7460 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7462 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7463 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7464 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7466 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7467 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7468 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7469 determine the syntax type of the character.
7471 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7472 of the current buffer.
7474 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7475 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7476 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7478 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7479 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7480 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7481 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7482 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7484 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7487 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7488 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7489 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7491 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7492 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7493 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7494 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7495 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7497 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7498 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7499 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7501 ** Changes in face features
7503 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7504 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7506 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7507 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7509 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7510 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7512 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7513 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7515 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7516 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7517 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7518 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7521 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7522 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7524 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7526 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7527 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7528 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7529 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7531 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7534 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7535 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7537 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7538 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7540 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7541 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7543 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7544 character code conversion as well as other things.
7546 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7547 (formerly it did not).
7549 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7550 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7552 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7553 instead of constant strings.
7555 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7556 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7557 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7559 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7560 in the same way as before.
7562 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7563 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7564 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7566 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7567 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7568 else, and returns nil.
7570 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7571 directory cannot be listed.
7573 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7575 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7576 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7577 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7578 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7581 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7582 It is available through the history command M-n.
7584 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7585 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7586 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7587 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7588 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7590 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7591 argument in this way.
7593 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7594 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7595 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7597 ** Echo area features
7599 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7600 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7601 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7602 after the echo area is cleared.
7604 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7605 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7607 ** Keyboard input features
7609 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7610 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7612 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7613 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7616 ** Frame-related changes
7618 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7619 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7620 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7622 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7623 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7624 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7626 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7627 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7628 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7629 in the selected frame.
7631 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7632 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7633 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7635 ** X Windows features
7637 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7638 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7639 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7641 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7642 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7644 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7645 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7646 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7648 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7649 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7651 ** Subprocess features
7653 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7654 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7657 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7658 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7660 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7661 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7663 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7664 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7666 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7667 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7668 goes after the other menu items.
7670 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7671 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7672 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7675 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7676 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7678 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7679 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7682 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7683 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7684 but its hook is still run.
7686 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7687 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7689 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7690 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7691 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7693 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7694 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7695 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7698 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7699 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7701 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7702 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7703 functions like display-time.
7705 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7706 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7708 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7709 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7710 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7712 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7713 if there is an error in compilation.
7715 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7716 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7717 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7718 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7720 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7721 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7722 the *scratch* buffer.
7724 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7725 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7726 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7727 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7729 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7730 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7731 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7733 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7734 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7735 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7736 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7738 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7739 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7740 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7742 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7743 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7744 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7745 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7746 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7749 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7750 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7751 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7752 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7754 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7755 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7756 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7757 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7759 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7761 ** imenu.el changes.
7763 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7764 item from menu created by imenu.
7766 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7767 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7768 select one of those items.
7770 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7772 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7774 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7775 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7777 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7778 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7779 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7781 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7783 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7784 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7786 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7787 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7788 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7789 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7790 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7793 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7794 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7796 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7797 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7798 as in previous Emacs versions.
7800 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7801 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7802 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7805 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7806 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7807 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7808 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7811 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7812 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7813 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7814 line and then executing the macro.
7816 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7818 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7819 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7820 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7825 *** Font Lock support modes
7827 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7828 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7829 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7830 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7831 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7833 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7835 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7841 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7842 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7843 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7844 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7845 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7846 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7847 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7849 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7851 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7853 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7855 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7857 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7860 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7865 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7866 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7867 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7868 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7870 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7871 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7873 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7874 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7877 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7878 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7880 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7882 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7884 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7886 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7889 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7891 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7893 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7895 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7897 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7900 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7902 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7904 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7906 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7908 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7910 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7912 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7914 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7917 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7919 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7922 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7924 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7925 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7927 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7929 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7931 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7933 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7935 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7938 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7940 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7941 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7943 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7944 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7945 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7947 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7948 articles with the `*' command.
7950 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7952 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7954 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7956 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7958 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7959 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7961 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7964 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7966 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7968 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7970 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7972 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7974 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7976 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7978 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7980 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7982 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7983 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7985 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7988 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7990 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7991 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7993 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7995 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7997 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7999 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8002 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8004 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8006 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8007 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8009 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8011 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8013 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8015 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8017 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8019 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8022 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8024 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8025 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8026 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8029 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8032 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8035 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8036 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8039 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8040 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8041 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8042 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8043 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8046 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8048 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8050 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8051 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8052 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8053 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8054 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8056 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8057 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8058 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8060 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8062 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8063 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8064 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8065 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8066 chapter of the manual for details.
8068 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8069 customization variables take effect.
8071 ** Marking with the mouse.
8073 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8074 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8075 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8077 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8079 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8081 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8082 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8084 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8085 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8086 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8087 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8088 applications, these problems are significant.
8090 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8091 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8092 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8093 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8094 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8096 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8097 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8099 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8100 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8101 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8102 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8103 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8104 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8106 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8108 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8109 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8110 minibuffer contains.
8112 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8114 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8115 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8116 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8117 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8119 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8120 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8121 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8122 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8124 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8125 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8127 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8128 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8129 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8131 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8132 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8133 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8134 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8136 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8138 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8139 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8141 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8143 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8144 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8145 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8146 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8147 immediately after the selected one.
8149 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8150 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8152 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8154 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8155 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8156 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8157 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8160 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8161 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8164 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8165 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8166 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8167 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8168 now that the bug is fixed.
8170 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8172 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8173 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8174 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8175 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8177 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8178 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8179 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8180 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8182 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8183 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8184 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8186 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8187 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8188 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8189 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8192 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8193 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8195 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8196 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8197 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8198 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8200 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8201 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8202 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8203 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8204 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8205 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8207 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8208 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8209 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8210 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8212 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8213 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8214 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8216 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8217 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8218 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8219 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8220 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8221 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8222 to a limitation in font-lock).
8224 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8226 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8227 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8228 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8231 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8232 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8234 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8236 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8238 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8240 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8242 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8243 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8244 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8245 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8246 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8247 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8249 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8252 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8253 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8255 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8260 *** Global Font Lock mode
8262 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8263 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8264 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8265 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8266 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8268 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8270 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8274 *** Local Refontification
8276 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8277 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8278 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8279 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8281 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8282 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8283 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8284 above and below point.
8286 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8290 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8291 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8292 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8293 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8294 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8297 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8299 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8300 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8302 ** hide-show changes.
8304 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8305 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8308 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8309 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8311 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8312 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8313 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8317 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8318 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8320 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8321 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8323 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8325 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8326 pressing both mouse buttons.
8328 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8329 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8332 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8335 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8337 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8338 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8340 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8342 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8344 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8346 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8348 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8350 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8352 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8353 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8354 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8355 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8356 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8358 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8360 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8361 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8362 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8365 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8368 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8370 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8371 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8373 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8374 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8376 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8377 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8378 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8380 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8381 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8384 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8386 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8387 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8388 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8390 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8391 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8392 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8394 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8395 up if too much time passes.
8397 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8399 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8400 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8401 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8404 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8405 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8406 call looks like this:
8408 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8410 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8411 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8412 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8415 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8416 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8419 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8420 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8421 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8422 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8424 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8425 idle for SECS seconds.
8427 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8428 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8429 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8432 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8433 there is no answer within a certain time.
8435 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8437 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8438 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8439 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8441 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8442 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8443 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8444 arguments in between are ignored.
8446 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8447 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8449 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8450 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8451 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8452 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8455 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8456 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8457 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8458 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8459 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8460 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8462 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8463 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8464 systems with limited file name syntax.
8466 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8467 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8468 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8471 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8472 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8473 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8475 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8476 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8477 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8478 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8479 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8481 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8482 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8483 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8485 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8486 marker from its buffer position.
8488 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8489 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8490 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8492 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8493 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8494 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8495 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8496 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8497 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8499 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8500 errors that happen often during editing.
8502 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8503 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8504 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8506 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8507 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8509 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8510 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8511 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8512 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8513 and not get-buffer-window.
8515 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8516 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8517 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8519 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8520 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8521 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8522 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8523 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8524 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8525 over and over for the same text.
8527 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8529 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8530 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8532 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8535 in addition to the normal
8539 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8540 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8541 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8545 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8547 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8548 Copyright information:
8550 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8552 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8553 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8554 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8555 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8557 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8558 of this document, or of portions of it,
8559 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8560 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8564 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"