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.
243 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
244 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
246 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
247 read mail from the menu etc.
250 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
251 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
253 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
255 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
259 -------------------------
266 ** Changes in Outline mode.
268 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
269 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
270 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
272 ** Changes to Emacs Server
275 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
276 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
277 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
278 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
279 buffers to kill, as before.
281 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
282 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
285 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
287 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
288 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
289 use. Default is 1000.
292 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
293 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
296 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
297 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
298 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
302 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
303 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
306 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
307 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
309 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
310 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
311 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
313 ** Faces and frame parameters.
315 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
316 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
317 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
318 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
319 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
320 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
321 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
323 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
324 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
325 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
326 `default' face and vice versa.
331 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
332 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
333 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
336 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
338 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
339 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
340 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
341 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
343 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
344 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
345 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
347 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
350 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
352 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
353 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
354 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
355 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
358 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
360 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
361 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
362 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
363 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
366 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
367 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
368 under Lisp changes, below.
370 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
373 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
374 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
375 otherwise, it is hollow.
377 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
378 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
379 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
380 customizing face `fringe'.
382 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
383 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
387 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
388 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
390 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
392 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
393 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
394 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
395 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
396 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
399 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
400 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
401 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
402 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
403 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
404 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
406 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
407 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
408 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
409 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
410 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
411 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
413 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
414 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
415 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
416 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
417 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
419 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
421 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
422 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
423 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
426 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
428 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
429 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
430 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
431 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
432 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
438 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
439 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
444 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
445 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
446 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
449 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
451 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
452 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
453 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
456 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
457 have to do anything to activate it.
459 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
461 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
462 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
463 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
464 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
466 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
469 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
471 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
473 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
476 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
480 ** Hscrolling in C code.
482 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
483 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
488 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
489 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
492 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
494 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
495 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
496 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
497 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
498 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
500 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
502 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
505 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
506 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
508 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
510 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
511 `*') toggles the status.
513 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
515 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
517 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
518 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
521 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
523 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
524 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
525 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
526 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
527 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
528 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
533 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
534 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
535 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
538 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
539 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
540 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
541 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
542 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
543 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
545 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
548 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
550 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
551 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
552 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
555 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
556 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
558 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
559 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
560 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
562 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
564 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
565 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
566 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
567 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
569 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
570 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
571 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
572 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
574 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
575 notably at the end of lines.
577 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
578 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
581 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
583 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
584 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
585 after each match to get the replacement text.
588 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
589 you edit the replacement string.
591 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
592 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
593 lisp-complete-symbol.
596 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
598 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
599 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
600 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
601 window size by setting the following variable:
603 - User option: max-mini-window-height
605 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
606 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
607 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
611 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
613 ** Changes to hideshow.el
615 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
616 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
618 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
620 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
621 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
622 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
623 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
624 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
625 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
627 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
628 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
629 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
630 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
632 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
634 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
635 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
636 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
637 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
638 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
640 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
641 something like this in your .emacs.
643 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
645 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
647 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
650 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
651 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
652 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
655 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
659 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
663 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
664 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
667 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
668 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
669 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
670 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
672 ** Changes in Font Lock
674 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
675 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
678 ** Comint (subshell) changes
680 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
681 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
682 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
683 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
684 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
685 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
686 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
687 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
689 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
690 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
692 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
693 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
694 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
696 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
697 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
698 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
700 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
701 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
702 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
703 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
705 ** Changes to Rmail mode
707 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
708 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
709 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
710 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
711 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
714 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
715 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
716 regexp matching your mail addresses.
718 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
719 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
720 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
721 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
722 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
724 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
727 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
728 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
731 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
732 in which folder to put messages automatically.
734 ** Changes to TeX mode
736 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
739 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
741 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
742 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
743 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
744 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
745 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
746 can be edited from that buffer.
748 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
749 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
750 `A' to use all marked entries).
752 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
753 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
755 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
756 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
757 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
760 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
761 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
762 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
763 in column 1 are always made leaves.
765 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
766 has the following new features:
768 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
769 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
770 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
771 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
773 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
774 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
775 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
776 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
777 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
780 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
786 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
787 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
788 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
790 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
791 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
792 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
793 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
798 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
799 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
800 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
802 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
803 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
806 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
807 between custom options. Example:
809 (defcustom default-input-method nil
810 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
811 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
812 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
814 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
815 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
817 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
818 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
819 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
821 ** New features in evaluation commands
823 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
824 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
825 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
826 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
827 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
829 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
830 code when called with a prefix argument.
835 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
836 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
837 spell-checks the current buffer.
840 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
843 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
844 correction is made and re-checked.
846 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
848 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
851 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
854 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
859 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
860 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
861 is, delete only empty directories.
863 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
864 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
865 copy directories recursively.
867 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
868 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
869 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
871 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
872 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
875 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
876 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
877 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
878 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
879 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
881 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
884 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
885 use the -f option when sending mail.
889 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
890 current user setups (although it's believed that these
891 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
892 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
893 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
894 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
897 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
898 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
899 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
900 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
901 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
904 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
905 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
906 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
907 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
908 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
909 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
911 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
912 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
913 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
914 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
915 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
916 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
917 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
918 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
920 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
921 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
922 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
923 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
926 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
927 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
928 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
929 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
930 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
931 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
932 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
933 function documentation for more info.
935 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
936 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
937 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
938 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
939 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
940 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
941 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
942 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
944 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
946 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
947 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
949 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
950 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
951 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
952 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
953 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
956 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
957 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
958 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
961 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
962 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
963 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
964 chapter about this in the manual.
966 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
967 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
968 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
969 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
970 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
972 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
973 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
974 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
976 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
977 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
979 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
980 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
981 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
984 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
985 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
986 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
987 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
990 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
991 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
992 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
995 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
996 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
997 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
998 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1001 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1002 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1003 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1004 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1005 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1007 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1008 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1009 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1011 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1013 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1014 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1015 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1016 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1018 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1019 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1020 the column specified by comment-column.
1022 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1023 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1024 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1025 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1026 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1027 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1029 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1030 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1033 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1035 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1036 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1037 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1038 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1041 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1043 ** Makefile mode changes
1045 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1047 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1048 Fontlock mode is active.
1052 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1053 so that searches can be resumed.
1055 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1056 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1057 that started the search.
1059 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1060 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1063 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1065 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1066 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1067 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1068 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1069 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1070 `secondary-selection'.
1072 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1073 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1074 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1075 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1076 usual snappy response.
1078 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1079 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1080 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1081 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1083 ** Changes in sort.el
1085 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1086 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1087 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
1090 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1093 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1094 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1095 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1097 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1098 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1100 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1101 output ^M at the end of lines.
1103 ** Shell script mode changes.
1105 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1106 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1107 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1111 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1113 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1114 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1115 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1116 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1117 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1119 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1120 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1122 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1123 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1125 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1128 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1130 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1132 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1135 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1136 variables are tagged.
1138 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1140 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1143 ** Changes in etags.el
1145 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1146 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1147 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1149 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1150 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1152 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1153 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1154 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1155 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1157 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1159 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1160 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1162 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1164 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1165 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1166 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1168 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1169 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1171 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1172 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1175 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1176 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1177 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1179 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1180 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1181 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1182 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1185 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1186 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1187 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1189 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1192 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1194 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1195 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1196 expression from that list, are not checked.
1198 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1199 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1200 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1201 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1203 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1205 ** New modes and packages
1208 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1209 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1210 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1211 on certain projects.
1213 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1214 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1216 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1218 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1219 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1220 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1221 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1222 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1223 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1224 corresponding file is read.
1227 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1230 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1231 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1233 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1234 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1235 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1238 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1239 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1240 separate Texinfo file.
1243 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1244 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1245 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1246 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1247 enter checkin log messages.
1250 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1251 without invoking external programs.
1253 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1254 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1255 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1256 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1257 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1259 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1260 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1262 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1263 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1265 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1266 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1267 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1268 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1269 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1272 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1273 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1274 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1275 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1278 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1279 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1280 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1282 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1285 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1287 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1289 ; comment (until end of line)
1293 $A default non-terminal
1294 $"C" default terminal
1295 $?C? default special
1296 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1297 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1298 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1299 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1300 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1301 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1302 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1303 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1304 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1305 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1306 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1307 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1308 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1309 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1310 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1312 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1314 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1315 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1316 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1317 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1318 equal signs of assignments.
1321 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1322 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1325 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1326 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1327 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1328 customize the package.
1330 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1332 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1333 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1334 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1335 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1336 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1337 which answers different needs.
1340 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1341 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1342 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1343 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1344 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1348 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1349 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1352 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1355 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1357 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1359 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1362 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1365 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1368 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1370 *** whitespace.el ???
1372 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1373 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1374 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1375 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1376 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1377 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1378 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1380 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1382 Here is an example of columns:
1385 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1386 porcupine strawberry airplane
1388 Doing the following settings:
1390 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1391 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1392 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1393 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1396 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1398 M-x delimit-columns-region
1402 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1403 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1404 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1406 delim-col has the following options:
1408 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1411 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1412 between each column.
1414 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1417 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1420 delim-col has the following commands:
1422 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1423 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1426 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1427 were operated on recently.
1429 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1431 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1432 recentf at Emacs startup.
1434 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1435 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1436 file list can be displayed:
1438 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1439 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1440 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1442 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1443 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1445 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1449 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1450 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1451 specific to Message mode.
1454 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1455 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1456 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1459 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1460 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1461 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1463 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1464 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1467 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1469 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1470 minibuffer with completion.
1472 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1473 with the diary features.
1475 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1476 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1478 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1481 ** Withdrawn packages
1483 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1484 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1486 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1488 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1491 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1492 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1495 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1496 is running in batch mode. For example,
1498 (message "%s" (read t))
1500 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1504 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1505 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1507 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1508 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1511 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1514 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1516 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1517 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1519 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1521 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1522 comparison is done with `eq'.
1524 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1526 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1530 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1531 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1532 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1534 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1535 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1537 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1538 function was declared obsolete.
1540 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1541 retained as an alias).
1543 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1544 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1545 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1547 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1549 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1551 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1552 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1554 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1556 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1558 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1560 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1561 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1562 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1563 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1566 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1567 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1568 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1569 minibuffer even if it is active.
1571 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1572 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1573 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1574 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1575 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1576 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1578 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1579 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1580 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1581 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1582 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1583 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1584 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1586 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1587 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1588 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1590 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1591 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1592 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1593 Default value is nil.
1595 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1598 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1599 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1600 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1602 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1605 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1606 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1607 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1608 than replacing the local map.
1610 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1611 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1613 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1615 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1618 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1620 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1622 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1623 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1624 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1625 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1627 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1628 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1629 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1630 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1632 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1633 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1634 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1635 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1637 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1638 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1639 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1641 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1642 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1643 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1644 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1645 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1646 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1647 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1650 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1652 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1653 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1654 character set as previously.
1656 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1657 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1658 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1660 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1661 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1662 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1663 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1665 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1666 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1668 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1669 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1672 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1673 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1675 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1676 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1677 buffers and strings.
1679 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1680 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1681 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1682 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1683 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1684 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1685 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1688 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1689 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1690 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1692 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1693 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1694 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1695 may differ between buffer and string text.
1697 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1698 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1700 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1701 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1702 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1703 `composition' from STRING.
1705 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1706 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1708 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1711 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1712 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1713 character set is not used.
1715 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1716 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1717 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1720 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1721 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1722 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1725 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1726 that offset in the file before writing.
1728 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1729 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1731 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1732 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1733 from which the command was issued.
1735 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1736 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1737 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1738 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1741 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1742 to `window-buffer-height'.
1744 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1746 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1747 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1748 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1750 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1753 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1754 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1756 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1757 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1758 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1760 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1761 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1762 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1763 is currently displayed in some window.
1765 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1766 argument function's results.
1768 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1769 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1771 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1772 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1774 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1775 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1777 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1778 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1781 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1782 nil don't display a cursor
1783 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1784 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1785 others display a box cursor.
1787 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1788 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1789 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1790 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1792 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1793 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1794 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1795 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1799 (string-to-syntax "()")
1802 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1805 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1806 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1813 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1818 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1823 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1830 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1831 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1834 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1835 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1836 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1837 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1840 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1842 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1843 for a regexp in a string.
1845 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1846 `mouse-position-function'.
1848 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1849 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1851 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1852 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1855 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1858 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1859 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1862 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1863 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1864 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1865 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1869 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1870 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1873 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1874 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1875 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1876 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1879 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1880 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1881 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1882 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1885 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1886 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1887 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1890 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1891 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1894 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1896 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1897 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1898 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1902 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1903 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1906 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1907 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1910 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1911 instead of being optional.
1914 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1915 modify read-only text.
1918 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1920 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1921 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1922 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1923 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1924 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1926 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1927 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1928 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1929 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1930 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1931 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1932 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1935 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1936 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1937 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1941 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1942 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1945 ** New function `propertize'
1947 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1948 strings with text properties.
1950 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1952 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1953 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1954 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1955 specified value of that property. Example:
1957 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1960 ** push and pop macros.
1962 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1963 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1964 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1966 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1967 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1968 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1970 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1972 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1973 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1975 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1976 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1977 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1978 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1980 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1981 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1982 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1983 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1986 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1987 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1989 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1990 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1991 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1992 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1993 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1995 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1997 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1998 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1999 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2000 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2001 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2002 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2003 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2004 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2005 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2006 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2007 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2008 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2009 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2010 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2011 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2014 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2016 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2018 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2020 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2021 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2025 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2026 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2027 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2031 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2032 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2034 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2036 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2037 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2038 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2039 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2040 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2042 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2044 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2045 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2046 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2050 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2051 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2052 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2053 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2054 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2056 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2058 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2060 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2062 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2064 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2066 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2069 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2071 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2073 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2075 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2077 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2079 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2081 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2083 Returns the size of TABLE.
2085 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2087 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2089 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2091 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2093 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2097 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2099 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2102 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2104 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2105 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2107 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2109 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2111 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2113 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2114 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2116 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2118 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2120 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2122 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2123 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2124 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2125 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2126 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2128 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2130 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2131 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2132 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2134 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2135 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2137 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2138 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2140 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2141 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2143 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2144 'case-fold-string-hash))
2146 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2149 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2151 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2152 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2153 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2156 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2158 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2159 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2162 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2163 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2164 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2165 is too short to reach that column.
2168 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2169 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2170 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2171 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2173 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2174 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2175 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2178 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2179 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2182 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2183 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2186 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2187 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2188 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2189 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2190 temporary-file-directory instead.
2193 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2194 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2195 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2196 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2199 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2200 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2203 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2205 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2206 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2207 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2210 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2212 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2213 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2214 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2215 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2216 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2217 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2219 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2220 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2221 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2222 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2225 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2227 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2228 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2229 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2232 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2233 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2237 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2239 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2240 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2243 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2246 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2248 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2249 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2252 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2254 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2255 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2261 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2262 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2264 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2265 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2266 to enable sound support.
2268 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2269 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2270 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2271 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2272 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2274 The following sound properties are supported:
2278 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2279 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2283 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2284 may be present, but not both.
2288 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2289 0..1. This property is optional.
2291 Other properties are ignored.
2293 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2295 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2298 ** Changes to garbage collection
2300 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2301 of live and free strings.
2303 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2304 strings that have been consed so far.
2307 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2311 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2313 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2316 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2318 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2320 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2321 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2322 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2323 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2324 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2326 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2327 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2330 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2333 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2335 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2336 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2337 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2338 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2341 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2343 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2344 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2345 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2346 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2348 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2349 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2351 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2352 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2353 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2354 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2355 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2356 just display it black instead.
2358 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2361 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2365 ** New face implementation.
2367 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2368 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2373 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2375 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2377 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2378 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2380 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2382 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2384 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2386 6. Foreground color.
2388 7. Background color.
2390 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2392 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2394 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2396 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2398 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2401 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2402 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2404 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2405 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2406 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2407 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2408 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2409 attributes mentioned above.
2411 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2412 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2415 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2416 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2422 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2423 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2424 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2425 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2426 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2427 results in a fully-specified face.
2430 *** Face realization.
2432 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2433 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2434 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2435 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2436 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2437 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2439 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2440 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2441 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2442 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2444 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2445 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2446 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2447 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2448 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2450 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2451 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2452 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2453 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2454 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2457 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2458 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2459 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2460 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2463 **** Clearing face caches.
2465 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2466 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2472 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2473 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2474 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2476 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2477 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2478 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2479 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2480 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2482 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2483 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2484 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2486 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2488 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2489 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2490 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2491 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2492 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2493 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2494 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2496 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2497 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2503 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2504 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2507 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2508 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2509 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2510 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2511 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2514 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2516 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2519 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2521 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2523 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2524 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2525 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2527 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2528 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2529 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2530 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2531 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2532 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2533 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2534 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2535 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2536 of the face font sort order.
2538 - Function: x-font-family-list
2540 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2541 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2542 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2543 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2545 - Variable: font-list-limit
2547 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2548 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2549 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2552 *** Setting face attributes.
2554 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2555 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2556 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2559 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2560 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2562 The following attributes are recognized:
2566 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2567 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2568 and `?' are allowed.
2572 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2573 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2574 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2575 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2579 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2584 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2585 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2586 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2590 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2591 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2594 `:foreground', `:background'
2596 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2600 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2601 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2602 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2607 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2608 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2609 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2614 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2615 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2616 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2617 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2621 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2622 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2623 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2624 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2625 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2626 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2627 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2628 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2629 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2630 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2631 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2632 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2633 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2634 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2635 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2636 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2641 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2642 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2646 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2647 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2648 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2649 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2650 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2651 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2653 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2654 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2658 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2659 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2660 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2663 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2664 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2665 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2667 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2670 *** Face attributes and X resources
2672 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2675 Face attribute X resource class
2676 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2677 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2678 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2679 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2680 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2681 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2682 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2683 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2684 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2685 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2686 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2687 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2688 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2689 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2690 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2691 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2692 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2693 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2694 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2695 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2698 *** Text property `face'.
2700 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2701 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2702 specification can be
2704 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2706 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2707 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2708 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2709 for face attribute names.
2711 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2712 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2713 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2716 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2718 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2719 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2720 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2721 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2722 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2723 used to clear the mapping table.
2725 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2727 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2728 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2729 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2730 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2731 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2732 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2733 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2734 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2735 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2736 modify their color-related behavior.
2738 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2741 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2743 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2744 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2745 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2746 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2747 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2748 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2749 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2750 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2751 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2754 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2756 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2758 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2759 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2760 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2762 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2764 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2765 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2766 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2768 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2769 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2770 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2771 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2772 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2773 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2774 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2777 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2778 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2779 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2781 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2783 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2785 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2787 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2788 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2789 constrained position if that is is different.
2791 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2792 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2793 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2794 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2795 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2796 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2797 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2798 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2799 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2801 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2802 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2803 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2804 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2805 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2807 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2808 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2810 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2812 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2814 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2815 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2816 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2818 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2820 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
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.
2823 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2824 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2826 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2828 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2829 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2830 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2831 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2832 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2834 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2836 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2837 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2838 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2840 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2842 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2843 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2844 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2849 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2850 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2851 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2852 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2854 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2855 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2856 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2857 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2860 IMAGE is an image specification.
2862 *** Image specifications
2864 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2865 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2866 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2867 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2868 described below are ignored.
2870 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2874 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2875 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2876 to use for its ascent.
2878 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2879 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2881 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2882 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2883 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2884 overlays that apply to the image.
2888 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2889 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2893 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2898 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2899 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2900 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2901 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2903 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2905 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2906 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2907 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2908 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2909 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2910 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2911 background of the image.
2915 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2916 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2917 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2918 may be present in the image specification.
2922 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2923 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2924 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2925 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2927 *** Supported image types
2929 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2931 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2932 properties supported are
2936 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2937 is the frame's foreground.
2941 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2942 the frame's background color.
2944 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2945 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2946 instead of a `:file' property.
2950 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2954 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2960 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2961 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2963 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2965 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2968 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2969 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2972 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2974 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2975 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2976 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2977 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2979 Additional image properties supported are:
2981 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2983 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2984 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2987 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2988 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2990 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2991 to display compressed images.
2993 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2995 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2996 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2999 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3001 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3002 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3005 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3007 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3008 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3011 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3013 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3014 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3016 Additional image properties supported are:
3020 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3021 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3023 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3024 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3025 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3028 (defun show-anim (file max)
3029 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3030 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3032 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3035 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3038 (goto-char (point-min))
3039 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3040 (insert-image img "x"))
3041 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3043 **** PNG, image type `png'
3045 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3046 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3049 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3051 Additional image properties supported are:
3055 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3056 integer. This is a required property.
3060 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3061 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3065 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3066 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3067 files. This is an required property.
3069 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3074 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3075 which are supported in the current configuration.
3077 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3078 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3079 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3080 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3081 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3083 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3085 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3086 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3087 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3088 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3089 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3095 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3098 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3099 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3100 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3101 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3102 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3103 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3104 of the display margins.
3106 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3107 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3108 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3109 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3115 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3116 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3117 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3118 that have a `help-echo' property.
3120 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3121 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3122 the window in which the help was found.
3124 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3125 `help-echo' text property was found.
3127 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3128 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3130 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3131 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3134 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3135 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3137 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3138 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3139 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3140 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3141 used as help string.
3143 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3144 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3145 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3148 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3150 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3151 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3153 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3154 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3155 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3156 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3159 (global-set-key [A-down]
3162 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3163 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3164 (global-set-key [A-up]
3167 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3168 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3171 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3173 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3174 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3175 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3176 is called with one argument, POS.
3178 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3179 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3180 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3181 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3182 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3185 ** Tool bar support.
3187 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3188 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3189 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3190 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3191 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3192 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3194 *** Tool bar item definitions
3196 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3197 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3198 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3200 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3201 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3202 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3203 property (see below).
3205 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3206 binding are currently ignored.
3208 The following properties are recognized:
3212 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3217 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3221 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3222 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3223 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3225 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3227 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3228 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3232 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3233 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3234 meaning of each of the four elements:
3236 Index Use when item is
3237 ----------------------------------------
3238 0 enabled and selected
3239 1 enabled and deselected
3240 2 disabled and selected
3241 3 disabled and deselected
3243 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3244 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3246 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3248 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3249 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3251 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3253 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3254 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3255 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3257 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3258 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3260 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3261 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3262 pixels. Default is 1.
3264 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3265 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3267 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3269 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3272 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3273 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3274 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3276 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3278 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3280 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3283 ** Mode line changes.
3286 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3288 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3289 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3290 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3292 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3293 a `local-map' text property.
3295 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3296 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3298 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3299 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3300 `local-map' property.
3302 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3303 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3306 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3307 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3310 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3311 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3314 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3316 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3317 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3318 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3319 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3322 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3325 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3326 position in the header-line.
3329 ** Text property `display'
3331 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3332 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3333 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3334 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3336 *** Variable width and height spaces
3338 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3339 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3340 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3341 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3342 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3343 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3344 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3346 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3347 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3348 properties described below.
3350 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3351 characters having the `display' property.
3355 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3356 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3358 - :relative-width FACTOR
3360 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3361 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3362 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3363 width of that character by FACTOR.
3367 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3368 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3370 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3374 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3377 - :relative-height FACTOR
3379 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3380 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3384 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3385 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3386 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3389 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3393 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3394 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3395 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3396 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3397 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3398 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3399 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3400 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3401 as display specification.
3403 *** Other display properties
3405 - :space-width FACTOR
3407 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3408 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3413 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3415 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3416 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3417 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3418 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3419 a font is available counts as a step.
3421 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3422 as tall as the frame's default font.
3424 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3425 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3427 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3428 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3432 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3433 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3434 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3435 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3436 `:height' subproperty.
3438 *** Conditional display properties
3440 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3441 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3442 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3443 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3444 the text having the `display' property.
3446 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3450 ** New menu separator types.
3452 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3453 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3454 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3455 to specify other menu separator types.
3457 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3459 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3462 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3464 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3466 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3468 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3470 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3472 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3474 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3476 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3478 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3480 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3481 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3483 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3485 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3487 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3489 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3491 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3493 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3495 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3497 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3499 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3501 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3503 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3505 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3507 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3509 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3511 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3512 the corresponding single-line separators.
3515 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3517 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3518 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3519 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3520 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3521 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3522 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3523 default foreground is black.
3525 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3526 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3527 `ScrollBarBackground').
3529 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3530 settings for scroll bar colors.
3533 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3534 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3537 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3538 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3539 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3540 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3541 the original window start.
3544 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3545 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3546 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3549 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3551 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3552 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3553 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3554 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3556 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3557 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3559 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3561 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3562 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3563 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3564 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3565 temporarily to nil, for example
3567 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3568 (enlarge-window 10))
3570 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3571 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3573 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3574 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3575 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3576 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3577 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3578 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3582 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3584 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3587 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3589 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3591 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3592 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3593 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3594 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3595 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3597 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3601 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3603 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3606 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3608 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3609 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3611 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3613 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3615 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3616 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3617 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3619 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3620 is the one that is used.
3622 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3623 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3624 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3625 separate from the command's regular output.
3626 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3627 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3628 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3631 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3632 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3633 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3634 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3636 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3637 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3638 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3639 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3641 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3642 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3643 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3644 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3646 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3647 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3648 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3649 they never ignore case.
3651 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3652 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3653 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3654 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3655 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3656 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3657 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3659 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3660 the same format that was used in the file before.
3662 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3663 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3665 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3666 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3667 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3669 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3670 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3671 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3672 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3673 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3674 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3675 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3677 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3678 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3679 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3680 format. You can now customize these variables.
3682 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3683 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3684 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3685 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3687 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3688 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3689 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3691 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3692 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3693 doesn't have any effect.
3695 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3698 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3699 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3700 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3702 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3703 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3704 `auto-show-mode' command.
3706 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3707 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3708 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3709 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3710 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3712 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3713 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3715 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3716 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3717 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3719 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3720 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3721 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3722 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3724 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3726 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3727 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3728 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3729 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3730 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3732 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3733 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3735 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3736 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3737 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3738 `?' on other systems.
3740 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3741 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3744 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3745 current codepage when it starts.
3749 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3750 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3751 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3752 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3753 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3754 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3758 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3759 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3761 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3762 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3763 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3764 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3765 buffer-file-coding-system.
3767 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3768 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3771 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3772 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3773 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3774 list of possible coding systems.
3778 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3779 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3780 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3781 docstring for details.
3783 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3784 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3785 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3786 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3787 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3789 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3790 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3792 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3793 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3795 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3796 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3797 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3798 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3801 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3802 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3804 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3805 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3806 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3807 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3809 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3810 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3811 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3812 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3813 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3815 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3817 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3819 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3820 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3822 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3824 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3825 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3826 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3827 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3828 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3832 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3833 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3834 Gnus manual for the full story.
3836 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3837 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3838 group, which is created automatically.
3840 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3843 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3845 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3846 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3848 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3851 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3853 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3854 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3856 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3858 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3859 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3861 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3862 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3864 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3865 control over simplification.
3867 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3869 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3872 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3874 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3876 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3877 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3878 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3880 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3881 `a' forces normal posting method.
3883 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3886 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3889 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3890 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3892 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3895 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3897 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3899 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3900 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3902 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3903 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3905 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3907 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3910 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3911 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3913 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3914 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3916 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3918 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3920 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3922 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3924 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3925 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3926 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3928 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3929 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3930 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3931 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3932 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3934 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3935 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3936 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3937 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3939 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3940 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3941 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3944 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3946 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3947 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3949 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3950 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3951 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3952 removed from the label.
3954 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3955 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3957 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3958 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3960 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3961 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3964 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3966 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3968 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3969 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3971 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3972 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3973 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3975 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3976 changes with a special face.
3978 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3979 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3980 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3982 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3984 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3985 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3986 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3987 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3988 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3990 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3991 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3992 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3994 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3995 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3996 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3997 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3998 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3999 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4000 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4001 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4002 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4004 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4005 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4006 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4007 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4008 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4011 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4012 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4013 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4014 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4015 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4016 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4018 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4019 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4020 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4021 was not documented clearly before.
4023 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4024 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4026 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4028 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4029 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4030 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4031 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4033 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4034 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4035 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4037 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4039 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4040 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4042 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4043 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4046 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4047 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4048 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4049 file names and attributes are returned.
4051 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4052 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4053 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4054 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4057 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4058 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4060 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4062 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4063 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4064 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4067 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4068 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4071 The new function process-running-child-p
4072 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4073 terminal to its own child process.
4075 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4076 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4077 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4078 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4080 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4081 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4083 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4084 :included is an alias for :visible.
4086 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4087 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4088 to move or copy menu entries.
4090 ** Multibyte editing changes
4092 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4093 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4094 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4095 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4096 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4097 (setq char (sref str idx)
4098 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4099 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4101 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4102 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4103 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4105 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4106 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4107 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4109 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4111 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4112 across the boundary.
4114 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4115 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4116 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4117 contains 8-bit characters.
4118 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4119 contains invalid characters.
4121 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4122 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4123 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4124 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4127 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4128 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4129 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4130 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4132 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4133 compose Thai characters in a string.
4135 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4136 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4137 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4138 menus should always use the third argument.
4140 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4141 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4142 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4143 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4145 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4146 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4147 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4148 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4150 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4151 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4152 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4155 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4157 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4158 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4159 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4161 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4162 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4163 means to clear out that attribute.
4165 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4166 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4168 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4169 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4170 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4171 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4173 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4174 the gap of the current buffer.
4176 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4177 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4180 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4181 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4182 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4183 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4185 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4187 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4188 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4189 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4190 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4191 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4193 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4194 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4195 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4196 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4197 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4199 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4200 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4201 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4203 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4204 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4205 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4206 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4207 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4210 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4211 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4212 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4213 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4215 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4217 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4218 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4219 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4220 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4222 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4223 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4224 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4225 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4226 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4227 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4228 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4231 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4234 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4235 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4236 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4237 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4238 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4240 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4241 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4242 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4243 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4245 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4246 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4247 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4248 something that most users not do.
4250 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4251 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4252 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4255 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4258 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4259 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4260 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4261 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4264 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4265 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4266 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4267 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4268 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4271 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4272 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4273 to be confused by TeX commands.
4275 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4276 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4277 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4278 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4280 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4281 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4282 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4283 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4284 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4286 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4287 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4289 ** Changes in input method usage.
4291 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4292 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4295 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4297 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4298 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4300 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4301 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4303 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4305 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4307 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4308 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4310 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4311 given in the following case:
4312 o When you are using a complex input method.
4313 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4315 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4316 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4317 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4318 setting it to t is helpful.
4320 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4322 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4324 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4325 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4326 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4327 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4330 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4331 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4332 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4335 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4337 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4339 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4340 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4342 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4343 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4344 its owner and group.
4346 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4347 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4349 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4350 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4352 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4353 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4354 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4355 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4357 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4358 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4359 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4360 for writing keyboard macros.
4362 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4363 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4364 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4365 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4366 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4369 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4371 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4372 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4375 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4376 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4377 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4378 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4380 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4381 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4382 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4384 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4385 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4386 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4387 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4389 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4390 failure if the command produces no output.
4392 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4393 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4396 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4397 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4398 function and variable names.
4400 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4401 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4402 file-coding-system-alist.
4404 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4405 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4406 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4407 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4408 according to the current fontset.
4410 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4412 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4413 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4414 nonascii-insert-offset.
4416 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4417 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4418 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4419 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4421 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4422 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4424 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4425 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4427 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4428 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4431 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4432 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4434 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4435 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4436 all variables that have documentation.
4438 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4439 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4440 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4441 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4442 it should show; the default is 20.
4444 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4445 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4448 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4449 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4450 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4451 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4452 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4453 Newly added options are included as well.
4455 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4456 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4457 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4459 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4462 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4463 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4465 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4466 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4469 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4470 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4473 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4474 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4475 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4476 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4479 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4481 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4482 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4483 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4485 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4486 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4487 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4492 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4493 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4495 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4496 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4498 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4499 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4501 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4502 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4503 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4504 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4505 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4506 made invisible again.
4508 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4510 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4511 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4512 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4515 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4516 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4517 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4518 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4519 rmail-default-body-file.
4521 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4522 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4523 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4525 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4526 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4527 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4529 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4530 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4531 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4532 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4533 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4534 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4536 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4537 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4538 provided by feedmail are:
4540 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4541 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4542 there is also a queue for draft messages
4544 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4545 be prompted for confirmation
4547 **** does smart filling of address headers
4549 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4550 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4551 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4553 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4554 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4555 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4556 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4560 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4561 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4563 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4564 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4566 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4567 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4568 for a specified regexp.
4572 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4575 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4576 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4579 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4580 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4581 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4582 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4584 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4585 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4586 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4587 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4588 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4590 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4591 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4592 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4593 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4594 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4596 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4597 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4598 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4599 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4601 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4602 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4603 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4605 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4606 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4607 session to resolve them.
4609 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4610 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4611 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4614 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4615 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4616 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4617 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4618 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4619 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4622 ** Changes in Font Lock
4624 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4625 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4626 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4627 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4628 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4630 ** Frame name display changes
4632 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4633 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4634 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4635 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4637 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4638 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4641 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4643 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4644 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4645 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4647 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4649 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4650 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4651 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4653 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4654 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4657 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4658 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4659 previously sent input.
4661 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4662 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4663 as the search string.
4665 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4666 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4670 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4671 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4672 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4675 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4676 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4677 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4678 style is still the default however.
4680 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4682 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4683 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4684 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4686 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4687 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4689 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4690 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4692 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4693 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4695 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4696 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4698 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4699 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4700 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4701 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4703 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4705 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4706 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4707 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4709 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4710 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4711 expanding dynamically.
4713 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4714 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4716 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4717 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4718 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4719 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4721 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4723 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4725 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4726 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4727 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4728 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4729 against the first word in the title.
4731 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4732 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4733 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4734 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4735 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4736 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4738 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4739 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4740 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4741 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4743 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4745 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4746 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4747 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4748 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4749 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4750 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4752 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4753 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4755 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4756 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4757 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4759 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4760 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4764 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4765 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4766 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4768 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4769 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4770 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4771 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4774 o URLs are automatically skipped
4775 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4777 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4779 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4781 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4782 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4783 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4784 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4786 *** New recursive parser.
4788 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4789 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4790 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4792 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4794 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4795 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4796 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4798 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4800 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4802 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4804 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4806 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4808 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4809 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4811 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4813 *** References to external documents.
4815 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4816 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4817 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4818 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4819 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4820 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4821 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4823 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4825 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4826 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4828 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4829 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4831 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4833 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4834 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4836 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4838 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4839 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4840 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4841 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4842 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4843 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4846 *** Support for the varioref package
4848 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4852 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4853 and citations are created. These hooks are
4854 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4855 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4857 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4859 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4860 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4862 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4864 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4865 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4868 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4870 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4871 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4872 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4873 directories that contain the same file name.
4875 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4876 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4877 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4878 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4879 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4880 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4881 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4884 ** New modes and packages
4886 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4887 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4888 it, but some do not.
4890 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4893 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4894 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4897 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4899 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4900 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4901 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4902 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4904 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4905 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4906 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4908 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4909 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4910 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4911 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4912 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4915 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4916 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4918 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4919 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4920 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4921 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4923 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4925 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4926 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4927 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4928 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4929 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4930 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4931 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4932 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4933 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4934 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4935 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4937 Platform-specific modes:
4939 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4940 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4941 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4942 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4943 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4944 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4945 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4946 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4947 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4949 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4951 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4952 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4953 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4954 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4956 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4957 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4958 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4960 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4961 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4962 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4963 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4965 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4966 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4967 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4970 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4971 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4972 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4973 current input method for reading this one event.
4975 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4976 now control whether to output certain characters as
4977 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4978 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4979 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4980 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4982 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4984 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4985 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4987 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4988 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4989 always increases point by 1.
4991 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4992 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4994 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4996 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4997 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4998 default value changed. For example,
5000 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5005 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5008 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5009 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5010 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5011 `:version' in the top level group.
5013 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5015 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5016 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5018 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5019 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5020 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5023 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5024 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5027 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5028 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5029 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5031 ** Frame-local variables.
5033 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5034 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5035 local bindings for that variable.
5037 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5038 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5039 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5042 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5043 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5044 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5045 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5047 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5048 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5049 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5050 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5052 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5053 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5054 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5055 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5056 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5058 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5059 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5060 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5061 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5063 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5064 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5066 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5067 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5068 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5070 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5071 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5072 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5073 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5075 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5076 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5079 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5080 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5081 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5082 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5083 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5085 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5086 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5087 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5088 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5090 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5091 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5092 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5093 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5094 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5096 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5097 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5098 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5099 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5101 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5102 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5103 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5105 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5106 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5107 was directed to display this buffer.
5109 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5110 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5111 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5112 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5113 set-window-configuration.
5115 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5116 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5117 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5118 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5120 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5121 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5122 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5124 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5125 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5126 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5128 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5129 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5131 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5132 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5134 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5135 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5136 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5138 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5139 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5140 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5141 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5145 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5146 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5149 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5150 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5151 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5152 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5153 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5155 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5157 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5158 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5159 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5160 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5163 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5164 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5165 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5166 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5167 The supported properties include
5169 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5171 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5172 item should appear in the menu.
5174 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5175 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5176 It should return a binding to use instead.
5178 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5179 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5180 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5181 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5182 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5185 This means that the command normally has no
5186 keyboard equivalent.
5187 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5188 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5189 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5190 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5191 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5193 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5194 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5196 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5200 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5201 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5202 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5203 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5205 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5207 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5208 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5209 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5210 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5211 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5212 forward, away from the user.
5214 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5216 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5217 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5218 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5219 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5220 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5222 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5224 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5225 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5226 that were dragged and dropped.
5228 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5230 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5232 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5233 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5234 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5236 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5237 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5238 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5240 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5241 in Emacs 19 and before.
5243 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5244 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5246 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5247 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5248 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5249 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5251 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5252 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5253 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5254 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5255 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5257 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5258 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5259 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5260 consistent with the new representation.
5262 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5263 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5264 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5265 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5267 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5268 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5269 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5271 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5272 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5273 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5275 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5276 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5277 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5279 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5280 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5282 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5283 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5285 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5286 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5287 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5288 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5290 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5291 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5293 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5294 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5295 buffer or string being searched.
5297 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5298 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5299 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5300 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5301 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5302 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5303 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5305 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5307 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5308 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5309 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5310 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5311 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5312 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5313 define-coding-system-alias.
5315 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5316 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5317 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5318 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5319 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5320 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5321 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5324 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5325 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5326 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5327 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5329 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5330 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5331 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5332 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5334 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5335 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5336 This function requires a user interaction.
5338 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5339 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5340 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5341 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5342 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5343 select-safe-coding-system.
5345 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5346 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5347 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5350 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5351 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5352 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5354 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5355 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5356 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5357 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5359 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5360 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5361 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5364 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5365 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5367 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5368 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5369 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5370 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5371 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5372 range of characters.
5374 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5375 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5377 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5378 in the current buffer at position POS.
5380 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5381 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5382 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5383 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5384 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5385 binding input-method-function to nil.
5387 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5388 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5389 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5390 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5391 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5393 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5394 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5396 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5397 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5399 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5400 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5401 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5402 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5403 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5405 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5407 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5408 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5409 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5412 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5413 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5415 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5416 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5417 in your .emacs file.)
5419 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5420 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5422 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5423 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5425 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5426 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5429 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5430 delete the character before point, as usual.
5432 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5433 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5434 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5436 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5437 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5438 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5439 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5440 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5443 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5444 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5445 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5446 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5447 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5449 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5450 and is an alias for it.
5452 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5453 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5455 ** Scrolling changes
5457 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5458 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5460 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5461 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5464 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5465 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5466 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5467 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5469 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5470 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5471 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5472 recenters the window.
5474 ** International character set support (MULE)
5476 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5477 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5478 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5479 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5480 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5481 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5483 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5484 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5485 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5486 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5487 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5489 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5490 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5491 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5492 language, to make it possible to type them.
5494 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5495 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5497 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5498 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5500 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5502 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5504 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5505 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5506 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5507 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5508 characters for their work until they want to change.
5512 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5513 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5514 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5515 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5516 support several input methods.
5518 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5519 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5522 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5523 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5524 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5525 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5526 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5529 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5530 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5531 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5532 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5533 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5535 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5536 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5537 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5538 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5540 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5541 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5542 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5543 the first guess is wrong.
5545 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5546 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5548 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5549 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5550 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5551 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5553 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5554 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5555 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5556 translate automatically to and from either one.
5558 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5560 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5561 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5562 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5565 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5566 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5567 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5568 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5570 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5571 character conversion as well.
5573 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5575 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5576 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5577 requires using many fonts.
5579 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5580 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5582 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5583 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5584 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5585 you would use a font.
5587 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5588 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5589 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5591 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5592 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5593 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5594 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5595 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5597 *** Defining fontsets.
5599 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5600 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5601 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5603 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5604 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5605 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5606 standard fontset are created automatically.
5608 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5609 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5610 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5611 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5612 name is `fontset-startup'.
5614 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5615 The resource value should have this form:
5616 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5617 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5618 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5619 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5620 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5621 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5622 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5623 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5624 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5626 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5627 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5628 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5630 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5631 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5633 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5634 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5635 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5636 Here is the substitution rule:
5637 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5638 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5639 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5640 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5641 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5643 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5644 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5645 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5647 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5648 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5649 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5650 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5653 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5654 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5656 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5657 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5658 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5659 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5660 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5661 system for new files that you create.
5663 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5664 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5665 whole Emacs session.
5667 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5668 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5669 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5671 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5672 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5673 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5674 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5675 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5677 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5678 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5679 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5680 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5681 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5683 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5684 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5686 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5687 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5689 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5690 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5692 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5693 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5694 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5695 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5698 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5699 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5700 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5701 translated into that character code.
5703 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5704 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5706 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5708 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5709 the coding system for keyboard input.
5711 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5712 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5713 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5715 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5717 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5718 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5719 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5720 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5721 designed to work with terminals.
5723 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5724 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5725 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5726 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5727 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5728 in the corresponding buffer.
5730 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5732 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5733 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5734 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5736 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5737 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5738 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5741 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5742 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5744 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5745 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5746 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5747 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5749 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5750 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5751 related information.
5753 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5754 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5757 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5758 information about the support for a particular language.
5759 You specify the language as an argument.
5761 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5762 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5765 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5766 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5767 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5768 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5770 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5772 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5773 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5774 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5775 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5776 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5777 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5778 K euc-korea (Korean)
5781 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5784 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5785 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5786 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5790 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5791 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5792 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5793 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5795 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5796 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5798 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5799 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5800 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5801 Rmail files themselves.
5803 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5804 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5806 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5809 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5810 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5811 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5812 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5813 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5815 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5816 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5817 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5820 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5821 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5822 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5823 without any conversion.
5825 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5826 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5827 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5828 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5830 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5831 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5833 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5834 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5836 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5837 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5839 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5840 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5841 in the buffer before point.
5843 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5844 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5847 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5848 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5850 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5852 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5853 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5855 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5856 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5857 can become a bottleneck.
5859 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5860 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5861 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5862 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5863 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5864 so useful that the change is worth while.
5866 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5867 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5868 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5869 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5871 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5872 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5875 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5876 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5877 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5879 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5880 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5881 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5883 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5884 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5885 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5887 ** Changes in View mode.
5889 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5890 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5892 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5893 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5895 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5898 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5899 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5901 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5902 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5903 not just the selected window.
5905 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5906 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5907 turns View mode on or off.
5909 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5910 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5911 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5913 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5914 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5916 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5917 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5918 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5919 which version to compare with.
5921 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5922 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5924 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5925 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5926 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5927 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5929 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5930 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5931 blocks, all of them or none.
5933 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5934 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5937 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5938 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5939 However, the mode will not be changed if
5940 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5941 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5942 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5943 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5945 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5947 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5948 these commands do not change the major mode.
5950 ** M-x occur changes.
5952 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5953 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5955 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5956 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5957 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5959 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5960 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5961 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5962 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5963 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5965 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5966 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5967 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5968 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5970 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5971 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5972 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5974 ** Outline mode changes.
5976 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5978 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5980 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5981 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5982 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5985 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5986 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5989 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5990 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5992 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5994 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5995 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5996 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5997 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5999 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6000 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6001 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6003 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6004 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6007 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6008 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6009 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6010 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6012 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6013 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6014 can be. The default value is 30.
6016 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6018 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6019 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6020 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6021 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6022 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6025 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6026 compose-mail-other-frame.
6028 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6029 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6030 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6031 buffer that shows the original message.
6033 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6034 with separator lines around the contents.
6036 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6037 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6038 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6039 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6041 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6043 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6044 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6045 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6046 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6048 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6049 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6052 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6053 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6056 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6057 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6058 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6059 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6061 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6062 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6063 be taken to be magic.
6065 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6066 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6067 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6069 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6070 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6072 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6073 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6075 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6077 new key dired.el binding old key
6078 ------- ---------------- -------
6079 * c dired-change-marks c
6081 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6082 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6083 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6085 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6086 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6087 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6088 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6089 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6090 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6094 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6095 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6096 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6097 each time you run it.
6099 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6100 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6102 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6103 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6104 means to move in the opposite direction.
6106 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6107 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6109 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6110 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6111 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6112 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6117 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6119 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6122 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6123 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6125 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6128 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6130 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6132 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6134 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6135 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6136 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6138 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6140 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6142 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6143 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6145 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6146 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6147 used to pick articles.
6149 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6150 another have been added.
6152 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6154 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6155 generating lines in buffers.
6157 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6160 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6162 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6164 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6166 *** Scores can be decayed.
6168 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6170 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6171 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6173 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6176 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6178 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6179 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6181 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6183 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6184 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6186 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6187 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6189 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6192 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6193 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6195 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6197 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6199 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6201 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6203 Use the `Y c' command.
6205 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6207 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6209 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6211 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6212 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6214 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6216 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6218 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6219 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6221 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6223 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6224 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6225 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6226 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6229 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6230 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6231 particular news group. This can be done by:
6233 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6235 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6236 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6237 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6238 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6239 for reading and posting).
6241 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6242 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6243 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6244 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6247 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6248 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6250 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6251 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6252 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6253 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6254 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6256 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6257 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6261 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6262 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6263 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6264 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6265 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6268 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6269 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6270 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6271 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6272 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6273 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6275 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6276 of the current buffer.
6278 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6279 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6280 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6282 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6283 style that the Python developers like.
6285 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6286 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6287 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6291 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6292 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6293 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6295 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6296 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6299 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6300 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6302 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6303 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6304 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6305 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6307 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6308 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6310 ** Calendar changes.
6312 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6313 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6314 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6318 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6320 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6322 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6323 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6324 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6325 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6326 It defaults to `letter'.
6327 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6329 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6330 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6331 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6333 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6334 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6337 *** Horizontal layout
6339 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6340 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6341 All are measured in points.
6345 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6346 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6347 All are measured in points.
6351 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6352 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6353 margin above the text.
6355 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6356 framing box is printed around the header.
6358 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6359 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6361 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6362 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6363 `ps-header-font-size'.
6367 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6368 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6369 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6370 elements to this alist.
6372 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6373 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6375 ** hideshow changes.
6377 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6380 *** Support for java-mode added.
6382 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6383 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6385 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6386 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6387 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6389 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6390 robust and a lot faster.
6392 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6394 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6395 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6396 documentation for more details.
6398 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6400 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6401 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6402 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6403 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6404 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6406 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6407 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6408 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6409 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6415 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6416 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6417 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6418 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6419 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6420 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6422 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6424 *** Maximum decoration
6426 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6427 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6428 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6429 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6430 to get the old behavior.
6434 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6436 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6437 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6439 *** Configurable support
6441 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6442 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6443 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6444 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6445 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6446 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6447 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6449 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6450 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6451 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6453 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6455 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6456 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6459 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6461 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6467 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6468 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6469 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6470 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6472 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6474 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6475 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6476 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6478 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6480 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6481 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6482 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6483 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6484 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6485 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6486 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6488 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6489 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6490 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6491 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6492 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6493 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6495 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6497 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6498 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6499 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6500 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6502 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6505 ** Ada mode changes.
6507 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6508 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6509 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6510 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6513 *** There are two new commands:
6514 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6515 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6517 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6518 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6519 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6521 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6522 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6523 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6525 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6526 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6527 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6528 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6530 ** Scheme mode changes.
6532 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6533 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6534 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6535 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6538 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6539 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6540 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6541 variables as buffer-local variables.
6543 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6546 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6548 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6549 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6550 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6551 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6553 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6554 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6557 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6558 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6559 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6560 option takes precedence.
6562 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6563 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6564 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6566 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6567 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6570 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6571 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6573 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6574 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6577 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6578 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6579 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6580 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6581 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6582 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6584 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6585 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6586 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6587 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6589 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6590 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6591 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6592 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6593 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6595 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6596 since it applies only to the current frame.
6598 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6599 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6600 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6602 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6603 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6604 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6605 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6606 instead of just the file you are editing.
6610 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6611 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6612 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6613 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6614 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6617 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6618 knows which kind of label is needed.
6620 C-c ) reftex-reference
6621 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6622 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6624 C-c [ reftex-citation
6625 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6626 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6628 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6629 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6632 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6633 can quickly jump to every section.
6635 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6636 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6637 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6638 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6639 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6641 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6643 *** Info documentation is now available.
6645 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6646 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6648 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6649 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6651 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6652 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6654 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6655 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6656 appropriate functions.
6658 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6659 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6661 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6664 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6665 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6667 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6670 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6671 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6672 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6674 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6675 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6676 prefixed with `ALT'.
6678 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6679 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6680 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6683 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6684 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6685 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6687 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6688 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6690 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6691 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6692 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6694 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6696 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6698 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6701 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6702 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6705 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6708 *** Added support for imenu.
6710 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6711 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6712 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6713 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6715 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6716 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6718 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6720 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6722 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6723 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6724 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6727 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6728 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6730 ** browse-url changes
6732 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6733 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6734 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6735 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6736 customization variables.
6738 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6740 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6741 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6742 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6746 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6747 pops up the Info file for this command.
6749 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6750 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6751 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6754 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6755 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6756 files in the same directory.
6758 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6759 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6760 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6764 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6765 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6767 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6768 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6769 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6770 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6771 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6772 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6773 color when Viper is in insert state.
6774 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6775 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6776 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6780 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6781 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6782 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6783 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6784 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6786 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6788 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6789 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6791 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6792 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6793 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6795 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6796 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6797 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6798 methods and protocols.
6800 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6801 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6802 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6805 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6806 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6807 at least M times and as many as N times.
6809 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6810 in files has changed slightly.
6812 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6813 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6814 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6815 with old time-stamp-format values.
6817 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6818 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6819 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6822 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6823 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6824 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6825 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6826 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6827 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6829 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6830 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6831 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6833 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6834 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6835 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6836 recommended now will continue to work then.
6838 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6841 ** There are some additional major modes:
6843 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6844 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6845 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6847 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6848 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6851 ** New Lisp packages include:
6853 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6855 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6856 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6858 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6860 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6863 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6864 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6867 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6868 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6869 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6870 strings or comments.
6872 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6873 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6874 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6875 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6878 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6879 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6881 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6882 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6884 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6886 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6887 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6889 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6891 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6893 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6895 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6896 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6898 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6899 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6900 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6901 original place after inserting the copy.
6903 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6906 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6907 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6908 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6910 Enable mouse-drag with:
6911 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6913 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6915 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6916 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6918 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6919 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6923 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6924 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6925 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6926 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6927 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6928 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6929 instance) and vice versa.
6931 To use this package load it using
6932 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6933 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6934 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6935 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6936 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6937 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6939 *** Interface to ph.
6941 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6943 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6944 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6947 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6949 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6950 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6951 while the real cursor does not move.
6953 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6954 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6956 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6957 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6961 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6962 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6963 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6964 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6966 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6968 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6970 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6972 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6973 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6974 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6975 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6976 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6978 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6979 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6980 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6981 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6982 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6983 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6985 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6987 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6988 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6989 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6990 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6992 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6993 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6995 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6996 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6999 ** Basic Lisp changes
7001 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7002 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7004 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7005 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7008 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7010 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7012 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7013 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7015 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7016 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7019 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7021 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7023 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7025 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7026 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7027 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7030 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7031 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7032 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7034 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7035 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7036 adding one of these suffixes.
7038 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7039 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7040 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7042 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7043 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7045 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7047 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7048 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7050 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7051 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7053 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7055 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7056 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7058 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7059 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7060 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7061 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7063 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7064 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7067 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7068 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7069 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7072 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7073 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7076 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7078 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7079 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7080 Then it returns that string.
7082 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7084 (with-output-to-string
7085 (princ "The buffer is ")
7086 (princ (buffer-name)))
7088 returns "The buffer is foo".
7090 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7093 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7094 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7095 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7097 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7098 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7100 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7101 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7102 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7103 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7104 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7105 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7107 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7108 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7109 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7112 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7113 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7114 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7115 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7116 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7118 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7119 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7120 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7121 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7123 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7124 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7126 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7128 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7129 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7130 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7131 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7134 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7135 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7138 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7140 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7141 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7142 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7143 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7144 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7146 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7148 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7149 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7150 more than the number of characters.
7152 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7153 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7154 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7155 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7156 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7157 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7159 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7160 and returns a string containing those characters.
7162 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7163 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7164 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7165 character, sref signals an error.
7167 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7168 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7169 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7171 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7172 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7173 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7175 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7176 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7177 to a vector of the characters in it.
7179 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7180 of a string. You call it as follows:
7182 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7184 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7185 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7186 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7187 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7188 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7190 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7191 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7193 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7194 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7196 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7197 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7198 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7199 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7201 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7203 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7205 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7206 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7207 are not included in the resulting value.
7209 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7210 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7211 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7212 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7214 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7215 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7216 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7217 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7218 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7219 column START-COLUMN.
7221 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7222 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7223 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7224 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7225 changed text, before the change.
7227 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7228 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7229 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7231 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7233 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7235 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7236 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7238 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7239 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7240 which identify the character within that character set.
7242 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7243 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7244 opposite of split-char.
7246 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7247 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7249 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7250 of all the characters in a string.
7252 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7253 and specifying coding systems.
7255 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7256 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7257 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7258 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7259 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7260 as what to do about code conversion.)
7262 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7263 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7265 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7266 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7267 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7269 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7270 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7271 to match against a file name.
7273 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7274 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7275 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7276 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7277 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7278 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7280 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7281 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7283 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7284 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7286 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7287 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7288 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7291 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7292 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7293 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7294 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7295 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7296 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7298 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7299 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7301 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7302 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7303 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7304 start the subprocess.
7306 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7307 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7308 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7309 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7310 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7312 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7313 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7316 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7317 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7318 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7319 connection permanently or until overridden.
7321 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7322 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7323 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7324 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7325 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7326 system for one operation at a time.
7328 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7329 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7331 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7332 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7333 The value is a cons cell,
7334 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7335 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7336 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7337 input to the subprocess.
7339 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7340 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7342 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7343 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7344 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7346 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7347 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7348 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7349 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7352 Thus, instead of writing
7354 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7355 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7357 you would now write this:
7359 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7360 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7364 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7365 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7366 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7367 for a description of them.
7369 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7370 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7372 (defgroup ispell nil
7373 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7376 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7377 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7378 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7379 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7380 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7382 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7383 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7384 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7385 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7386 first-level subgroups.
7388 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7390 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7391 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7395 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7396 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7397 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7398 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7399 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7400 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7402 ** Text property changes
7404 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7407 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7408 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7409 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7410 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7411 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7413 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7414 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7415 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7416 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7418 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7419 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7420 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7422 ** Changes in invisibility features
7424 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7425 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7426 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7427 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7428 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7429 make the overlay visible.
7431 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7432 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7433 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7434 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7435 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7436 t when it should hide it.
7438 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7440 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7441 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7442 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7443 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7444 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7445 Here is an example of how to do this:
7447 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7448 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7449 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7450 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7453 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7456 ;; When done with the overlays:
7457 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7459 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7461 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7463 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7464 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7465 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7466 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7468 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7469 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7470 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7472 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7473 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7475 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7476 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7478 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7479 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7480 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7482 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7483 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7484 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7485 determine the syntax type of the character.
7487 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7488 of the current buffer.
7490 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7491 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7492 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7494 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7495 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7496 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7497 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7498 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7500 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7503 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7504 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7505 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7507 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7508 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7509 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7510 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7511 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7513 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7514 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7515 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7517 ** Changes in face features
7519 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7520 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7522 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7523 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7525 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7526 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7528 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7529 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7531 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7532 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7533 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7534 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7537 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7538 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7540 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7542 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7543 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7544 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7545 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7547 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7550 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7551 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7553 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7554 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7556 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7557 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7559 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7560 character code conversion as well as other things.
7562 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7563 (formerly it did not).
7565 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7566 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7568 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7569 instead of constant strings.
7571 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7572 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7573 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7575 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7576 in the same way as before.
7578 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7579 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7580 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7582 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7583 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7584 else, and returns nil.
7586 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7587 directory cannot be listed.
7589 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7591 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7592 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7593 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7594 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7597 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7598 It is available through the history command M-n.
7600 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7601 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7602 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7603 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7604 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7606 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7607 argument in this way.
7609 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7610 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7611 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7613 ** Echo area features
7615 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7616 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7617 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7618 after the echo area is cleared.
7620 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7621 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7623 ** Keyboard input features
7625 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7626 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7628 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7629 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7632 ** Frame-related changes
7634 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7635 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7636 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7638 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7639 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7640 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7642 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7643 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7644 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7645 in the selected frame.
7647 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7648 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7649 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7651 ** X Windows features
7653 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7654 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7655 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7657 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7658 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7660 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7661 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7662 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7664 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7665 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7667 ** Subprocess features
7669 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7670 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7673 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7674 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7676 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7677 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7679 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7680 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7682 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7683 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7684 goes after the other menu items.
7686 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7687 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7688 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7691 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7692 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7694 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7695 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7698 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7699 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7700 but its hook is still run.
7702 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7703 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7705 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7706 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7707 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7709 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7710 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7711 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7714 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7715 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7717 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7718 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7719 functions like display-time.
7721 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7722 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7724 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7725 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7726 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7728 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7729 if there is an error in compilation.
7731 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7732 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7733 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7734 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7736 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7737 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7738 the *scratch* buffer.
7740 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7741 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7742 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7743 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7745 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7746 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7747 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7749 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7750 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7751 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7752 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7754 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7755 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7756 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7758 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7759 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7760 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7761 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7762 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7765 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7766 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7767 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7768 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7770 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7771 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7772 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7773 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7775 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7777 ** imenu.el changes.
7779 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7780 item from menu created by imenu.
7782 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7783 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7784 select one of those items.
7786 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7788 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7790 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7791 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7793 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7794 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7795 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7797 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7799 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7800 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7802 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7803 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7804 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7805 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7806 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7809 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7810 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7812 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7813 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7814 as in previous Emacs versions.
7816 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7817 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7818 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7821 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7822 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7823 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7824 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7827 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7828 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7829 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7830 line and then executing the macro.
7832 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7834 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7835 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7836 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7841 *** Font Lock support modes
7843 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7844 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7845 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7846 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7847 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7849 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7851 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7857 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7858 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7859 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7860 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7861 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7862 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7863 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7865 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7867 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7869 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7871 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7873 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7876 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7881 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7882 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7883 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7884 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7886 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7887 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7889 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7890 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7893 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7894 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7896 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7898 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7900 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7902 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7905 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7907 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7909 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7911 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7913 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7916 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7918 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7920 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7922 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7924 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7926 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7928 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7930 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7933 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7935 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7938 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7940 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7941 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7943 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7945 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7947 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7949 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7951 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7954 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7956 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7957 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7959 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7960 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7961 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7963 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7964 articles with the `*' command.
7966 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7968 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7970 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7972 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7974 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7975 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7977 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7980 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7982 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7984 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7986 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7988 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7990 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7992 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7994 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7996 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7998 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7999 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8001 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8004 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8006 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8007 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8009 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8011 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8013 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8015 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8018 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8020 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8022 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8023 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8025 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8027 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8029 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8031 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8033 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8035 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8038 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8040 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8041 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8042 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8045 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8048 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8051 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8052 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8055 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8056 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8057 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8058 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8059 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8062 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8064 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8066 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8067 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8068 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8069 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8070 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8072 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8073 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8074 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8076 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8078 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8079 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8080 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8081 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8082 chapter of the manual for details.
8084 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8085 customization variables take effect.
8087 ** Marking with the mouse.
8089 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8090 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8091 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8093 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8095 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8097 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8098 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8100 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8101 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8102 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8103 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8104 applications, these problems are significant.
8106 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8107 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8108 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8109 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8110 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8112 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8113 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8115 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8116 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8117 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8118 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8119 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8120 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8122 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8124 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8125 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8126 minibuffer contains.
8128 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8130 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8131 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8132 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8133 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8135 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8136 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8137 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8138 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8140 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8141 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8143 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8144 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8145 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8147 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8148 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8149 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8150 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8152 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8154 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8155 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8157 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8159 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8160 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8161 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8162 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8163 immediately after the selected one.
8165 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8166 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8168 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8170 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8171 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8172 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8173 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8176 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8177 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8180 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8181 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8182 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8183 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8184 now that the bug is fixed.
8186 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8188 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8189 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8190 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8191 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8193 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8194 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8195 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8196 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8198 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8199 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8200 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8202 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8203 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8204 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8205 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8208 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8209 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8211 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8212 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8213 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8214 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8216 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8217 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8218 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8219 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8220 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8221 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8223 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8224 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8225 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8226 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8228 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8229 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8230 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8232 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8233 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8234 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8235 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8236 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8237 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8238 to a limitation in font-lock).
8240 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8242 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8243 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8244 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8247 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8248 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8250 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8252 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8254 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8256 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8258 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8259 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8260 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8261 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8262 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8263 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8265 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8268 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8269 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8271 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8276 *** Global Font Lock mode
8278 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8279 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8280 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8281 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8282 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8284 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8286 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8290 *** Local Refontification
8292 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8293 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8294 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8295 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8297 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8298 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8299 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8300 above and below point.
8302 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8306 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8307 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8308 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8309 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8310 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8313 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8315 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8316 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8318 ** hide-show changes.
8320 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8321 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8324 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8325 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8327 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8328 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8329 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8333 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8334 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8336 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8337 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8339 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8341 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8342 pressing both mouse buttons.
8344 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8345 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8348 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8351 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8353 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8354 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8356 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8358 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8360 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8362 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8364 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8366 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8368 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8369 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8370 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8371 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8372 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8374 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8376 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8377 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8378 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8381 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8384 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8386 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8387 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8389 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8390 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8392 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8393 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8394 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8396 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8397 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8400 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8402 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8403 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8404 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8406 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8407 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8408 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8410 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8411 up if too much time passes.
8413 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8415 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8416 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8417 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8420 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8421 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8422 call looks like this:
8424 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8426 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8427 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8428 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8431 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8432 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8435 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8436 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8437 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8438 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8440 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8441 idle for SECS seconds.
8443 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8444 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8445 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8448 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8449 there is no answer within a certain time.
8451 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8453 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8454 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8455 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8457 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8458 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8459 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8460 arguments in between are ignored.
8462 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8463 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8465 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8466 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8467 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8468 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8471 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8472 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8473 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8474 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8475 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8476 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8478 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8479 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8480 systems with limited file name syntax.
8482 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8483 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8484 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8487 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8488 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8489 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8491 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8492 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8493 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8494 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8495 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8497 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8498 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8499 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8501 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8502 marker from its buffer position.
8504 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8505 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8506 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8508 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8509 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8510 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8511 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8512 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8513 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8515 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8516 errors that happen often during editing.
8518 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8519 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8520 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8522 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8523 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8525 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8526 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8527 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8528 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8529 and not get-buffer-window.
8531 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8532 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8533 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8535 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8536 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8537 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8538 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8539 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8540 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8541 over and over for the same text.
8543 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8545 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8546 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8548 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8551 in addition to the normal
8555 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8556 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8557 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8561 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8563 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8564 Copyright information:
8566 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8568 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8569 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8570 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8571 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8573 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8574 of this document, or of portions of it,
8575 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8576 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8580 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"