1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
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 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
15 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option to list them.
17 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
19 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
20 on the display using several methods
22 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
23 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
24 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
26 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
27 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
29 - By specifying `--line-spaceing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
31 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
32 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
34 ** The new command `clone-buffer-indirectly' can be used to create
35 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
36 command `clone-buffer-indirectly-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
37 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
39 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
40 `make-backup-file-name-function' are provided to control the placement
41 of backups, typically in a single directory or in an invisible
44 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
45 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
47 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
48 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
51 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
52 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
55 ** New X resources recognized
57 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
58 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
59 is useful for debugging X problems.
63 emacs.synchronous: true
65 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
66 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
67 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
68 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
69 visual class names are
78 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
79 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
82 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
83 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
84 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
89 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
91 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
92 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
93 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
94 resource values are `true' or `on'.
98 emacs.privateColormap: true
100 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
101 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
102 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
104 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
105 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
106 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
109 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
111 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
112 all frames except the selected one.
114 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
115 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
117 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
118 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
119 area or with tooltips.
121 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
122 read mail from the menu etc.
124 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
125 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
127 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
129 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
133 -------------------------
140 ** Changes in Outline mode.
142 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
143 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
144 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
146 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
147 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
149 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
150 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
151 several other special buffers.
153 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
154 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
157 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
158 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
160 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
161 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
162 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
164 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
165 is running in batch mode. For example,
167 (message "%s" (read t))
169 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
172 ** Faces and frame parameters.
174 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
175 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
176 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
177 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
178 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
179 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
180 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
182 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
183 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
184 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
185 `default' face and vice versa.
189 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
190 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
191 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
193 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
195 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
196 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
197 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
198 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
200 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
201 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
202 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
204 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
207 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
209 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
210 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
211 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
212 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
215 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
217 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
218 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
219 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
220 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
223 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
224 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
225 under Lisp changes, below.
227 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
229 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
230 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
233 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
234 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
235 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
236 customizing face `fringe'.
238 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
239 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
243 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
244 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
246 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
248 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
249 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
250 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
251 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
252 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
255 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
256 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
257 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
258 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
259 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
260 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
262 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
263 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
264 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
265 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
266 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
267 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
269 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
270 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
271 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
272 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
273 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
275 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
277 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
278 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
279 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
281 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
283 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
284 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
285 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
286 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
287 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
292 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
293 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
297 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
298 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
299 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
302 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
304 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
305 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
306 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
309 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
310 have to do anything to activate it.
312 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
314 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
315 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
316 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
317 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
319 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
321 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
323 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
325 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
328 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
331 ** Hscrolling in C code.
333 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
334 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
339 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
340 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
342 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
344 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
345 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
346 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
347 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
348 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
350 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
352 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
355 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
356 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
358 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
360 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
361 toggles the read-only status.
363 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
365 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
367 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
368 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
371 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
373 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
374 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
375 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
376 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
377 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
378 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
382 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
383 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
384 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
385 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
386 to enable sound support.
388 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
389 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
390 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
391 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
392 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
393 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
395 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
397 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
399 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
400 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
401 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
403 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
404 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
406 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
407 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
408 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
410 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
412 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
413 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
414 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
415 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
417 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
418 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
419 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
420 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
422 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
423 notably at the end of lines.
425 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
426 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
428 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
430 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
431 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
432 after each match to get the replacement text.
434 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
436 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
437 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
438 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
439 by setting the following variable:
441 - User option: max-mini-window-height
443 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
444 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
445 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
449 ** Changes to hideshow.el
451 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
452 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
454 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
456 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
457 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
458 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
459 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
460 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
461 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
463 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
464 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
465 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
466 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
468 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
470 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
471 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
472 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
473 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
474 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
476 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
477 something like this in your .emacs.
479 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
481 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
483 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
485 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
486 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
487 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
489 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
490 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
492 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
493 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
495 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
496 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
497 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
500 ** Changes in Font Lock
502 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
503 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
506 ** Comint (subshell) changes
508 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
509 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
511 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
512 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
513 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
515 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
516 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
517 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
519 ** Changes to Rmail mode
521 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
522 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
523 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
524 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
525 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
528 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
529 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
530 regexp matching your mail adresses.
532 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
533 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
534 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
535 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
536 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
538 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
541 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
542 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
545 ** Changes to TeX mode
547 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
550 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
552 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
553 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
554 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
555 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
556 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
557 can be edited from that buffer.
559 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
560 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
561 `A' to use all marked entries).
563 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
564 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
566 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
567 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
568 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
571 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
572 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
573 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
574 in column 1 are always made leaves.
576 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
577 has the following new features:
579 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
580 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
581 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
582 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
584 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
585 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
586 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
587 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
588 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
593 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
594 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
595 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
597 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
598 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
599 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
600 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
604 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
605 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
606 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
608 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
609 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
612 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
613 between custom options. Example:
615 (defcustom default-input-method nil
616 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
617 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
618 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
620 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
621 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
623 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
624 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
625 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
627 ** New features in evaluation commands
629 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
630 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
631 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
632 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
633 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
637 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
638 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
639 is, delete only empty directories.
641 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
642 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
643 copy directories recursively.
645 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
646 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
647 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
649 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
650 use the -f option when sending mail.
654 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
655 current user setups (although it's believed that these
656 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
657 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
658 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
659 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
662 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
663 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
664 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
665 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
666 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
667 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
668 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
669 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
671 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
672 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
673 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
674 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
677 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
678 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
679 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
680 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
681 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
682 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
683 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
684 function documentation for more info.
686 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
687 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
688 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
689 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
690 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
691 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
692 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
693 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
695 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
697 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
698 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
700 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
701 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
702 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
703 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
704 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
707 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
708 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
709 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
712 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
713 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
714 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
715 chapter about this in the manual.
717 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
718 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
719 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
720 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
721 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
723 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
724 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
725 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
727 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
728 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
730 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
731 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
732 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
735 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
736 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
737 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
738 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
741 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
742 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
743 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
746 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
747 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
748 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
749 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
752 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
753 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
754 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
755 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
758 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
759 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
760 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
762 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
764 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
765 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
766 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
767 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
769 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
770 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
771 the column specified by comment-column.
773 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
774 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
775 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
776 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
777 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
778 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
780 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
781 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
784 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
786 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
787 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
788 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
789 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
792 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
794 ** Makefile mode changes
796 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
798 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
799 Fontlock mode is active.
803 ** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
804 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
805 that started the search.
807 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
808 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
810 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
812 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
813 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
814 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
815 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
816 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
817 `secondary-selection'.
819 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
820 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
821 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
822 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
823 usual snappy response.
825 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
826 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
827 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
828 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
830 ** Changes in sort.el
832 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
833 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
834 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
837 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
839 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
840 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
841 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
843 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
844 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
846 ** Shell script mode changes.
848 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
849 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
850 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
854 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
856 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
857 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
858 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
859 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
860 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
862 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
863 declarations when given the --declarations option.
865 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
866 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
868 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
871 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
873 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
875 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
878 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
879 variables are tagged.
881 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
883 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
886 ** Changes in etags.el
888 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
889 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
890 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
892 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
893 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
895 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
896 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
897 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
898 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
900 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
902 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
903 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
905 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
907 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
908 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
909 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
911 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
912 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
914 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
915 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
917 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
918 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
919 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
921 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
922 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
923 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
924 currently no specific input method support for them.
926 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
927 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
928 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
930 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
932 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
934 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
935 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
936 expression from that list, are not checked.
938 ** New modes and packages
940 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
941 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
943 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
944 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
945 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
946 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
947 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
950 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
951 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
952 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
953 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
955 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
956 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
957 actually modifying content of a buffer.
959 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
962 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
964 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
966 ; comment (until end of line)
970 $A default non-terminal
971 $"C" default terminal
973 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
974 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
975 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
976 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
977 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
978 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
979 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
980 C+ one or more occurrences of C
981 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
982 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
983 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
984 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
985 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
986 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
987 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
989 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
991 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
992 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
993 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
994 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
995 equal signs of assignments.
997 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
998 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1000 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1001 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1002 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1003 customize the package.
1005 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1006 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1007 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1008 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1009 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1010 which answers different needs.
1012 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1013 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1014 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1015 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1016 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1019 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1020 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1022 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1024 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1026 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1028 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1031 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1034 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1036 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1038 *** whitespace.el ???
1040 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1041 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1042 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1043 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1044 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1045 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1046 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1048 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1050 Here is an example of columns:
1053 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1054 porcupine strawberry airplane
1056 Doing the following settings:
1058 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1059 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1060 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1061 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1064 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1066 M-x delimit-columns-region
1070 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1071 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1072 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1074 delim-col has the following options:
1076 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1079 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1080 between each column.
1082 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1085 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1088 delim-col has the following commands:
1090 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1091 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1093 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1094 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
1095 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
1097 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
1099 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
1101 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
1102 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
1104 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
1105 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
1107 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1110 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1111 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1112 specific to Message mode.
1114 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1115 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1116 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1118 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1119 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1120 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1122 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1123 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1127 ** Withdrawn packages
1129 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1130 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1132 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1134 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1136 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1138 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1139 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1140 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1141 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1143 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1144 to `window-buffer-height'.
1146 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1148 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1149 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1150 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1152 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1155 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1156 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1158 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1159 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1160 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1162 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1163 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1164 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1165 is currently displayed in some window.
1167 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1168 argument function's results.
1170 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1171 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1173 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1174 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1176 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1177 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1179 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1180 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1183 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1184 nil don't display a cursor
1185 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1186 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1187 others display a box cursor.
1189 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1190 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1191 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1192 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1194 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1195 specificationa in string form as accepted my `modify-syntax-entry' to
1196 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1197 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1201 (string-to-syntax "()")
1204 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1207 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1208 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1215 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1220 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1225 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1232 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1233 the given property to obtain a a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1236 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1237 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1238 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1239 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1242 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1244 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1245 for a regexp in a string.
1247 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1248 `mouse-position-function'.
1250 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1251 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1253 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1254 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1257 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1260 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1261 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1264 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1265 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1266 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1267 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1271 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1272 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1275 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1276 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1277 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1278 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1281 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1282 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1283 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1284 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1287 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1288 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1289 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1292 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1293 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1296 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1298 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1299 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1300 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1304 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1305 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1308 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1309 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1312 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1313 instead of being optional.
1316 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1317 modify read-only text.
1320 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1322 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1323 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1324 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1325 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1326 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1328 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1329 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1330 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1331 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1332 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1333 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1334 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1337 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1338 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1339 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1343 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1344 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1347 ** New function `propertize'
1349 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1350 strings with text properties.
1352 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1354 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1355 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1356 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1357 specified value of that property. Example:
1359 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1362 ** push and pop macros.
1364 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1365 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1366 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1368 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1369 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1370 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1372 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1374 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1375 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1377 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1378 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1379 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1380 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1382 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1383 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1384 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1385 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1388 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1389 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1391 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1392 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1393 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1394 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1395 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1397 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1399 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1400 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1401 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1402 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1403 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1404 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1405 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1406 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1407 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1408 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1409 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1410 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1411 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1412 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1413 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1416 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1418 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1420 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1422 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1423 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1427 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1428 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1429 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1433 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1434 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1436 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1438 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1439 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1440 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1441 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1442 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1444 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1446 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1447 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1448 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1452 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1453 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1454 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1455 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1457 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1459 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1461 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1463 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1465 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1467 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1470 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1472 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1474 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1476 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1478 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1480 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1482 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1484 Returns the size of TABLE.
1486 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1488 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1490 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1492 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1494 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1498 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1500 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1503 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1505 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1506 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1508 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1510 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1512 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1514 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1515 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1517 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1519 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1521 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1523 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1524 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1525 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1526 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1527 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1529 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1531 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1532 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1533 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1535 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1536 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1538 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1539 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1541 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1542 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1544 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1545 'case-fold-string-hash))
1547 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1550 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1552 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1553 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1554 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1557 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1559 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1560 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1563 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1564 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1565 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1566 is too short to reach that column.
1569 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1570 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1571 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1572 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1574 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1575 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1576 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1579 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1580 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1583 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1584 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1587 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1588 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1589 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1590 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1591 temporary-file-directory instead.
1594 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1595 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1596 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1597 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1600 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1601 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1604 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1606 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1607 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1608 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1611 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1613 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1614 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1615 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1616 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1617 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1618 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1620 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1621 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1622 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1623 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1626 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1628 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1629 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1630 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1633 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
1634 string where arguments appear in the result string.
1638 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
1640 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
1641 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
1644 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
1647 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
1649 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
1650 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
1653 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
1655 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
1656 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
1662 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
1663 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
1665 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
1666 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
1667 to enable sound support.
1669 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
1670 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
1671 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
1672 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
1673 sound to play, before playing the sound.
1675 The following sound properties are supported:
1679 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
1680 searched relative to `data-directory'.
1684 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
1685 may be present, but not both.
1689 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
1690 0..1. This property is optional.
1692 Other properties are ignored.
1694 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
1696 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
1699 ** Changes to garbage collection
1701 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
1702 of live and free strings.
1704 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
1705 strings that have been consed so far.
1708 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
1710 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1711 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1712 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1713 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1715 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
1716 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
1718 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
1719 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
1720 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
1721 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
1722 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
1723 just display it black instead.
1725 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
1728 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
1732 ** New face implementation.
1734 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
1735 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
1740 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
1742 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
1744 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
1745 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
1747 3. Font height in 1/10pt
1749 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
1751 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
1753 6. Foreground color.
1755 7. Background color.
1757 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
1759 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1761 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1763 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1765 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1768 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1769 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1771 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1772 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1773 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1774 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1775 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1776 attributes mentioned above.
1778 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1779 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1782 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1783 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1789 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1790 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1791 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1792 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1793 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1794 results in a fully-specified face.
1797 *** Face realization.
1799 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1800 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1801 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1802 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1803 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1804 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1806 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1807 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1808 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1809 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1811 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1812 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1813 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1814 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1815 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1817 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1818 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1819 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1820 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1821 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1824 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1825 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1826 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1827 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1830 **** Clearing face caches.
1832 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1833 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1839 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1840 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1841 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1843 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1844 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1845 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1846 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1847 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1849 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1850 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1851 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1853 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1855 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1856 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1857 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1858 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1859 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1860 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1861 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1863 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1864 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1870 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1871 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1874 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1875 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1876 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1877 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1878 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1881 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1883 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1886 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1888 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1890 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1891 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1892 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1894 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1895 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1896 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1897 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1898 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1899 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1900 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1901 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1902 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1903 of the face font sort order.
1905 - Function: x-font-family-list
1907 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1908 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1909 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1910 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1912 - Variable: font-list-limit
1914 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1915 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1916 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1919 *** Setting face attributes.
1921 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1922 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1923 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1926 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1927 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1929 The following attributes are recognized:
1933 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1934 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1935 and `?' are allowed.
1939 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1940 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1941 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1942 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1946 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1951 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1952 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1953 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1957 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1958 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1961 `:foreground', `:background'
1963 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1967 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1968 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1969 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1974 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1975 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1976 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1981 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1982 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1983 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1984 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1988 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1989 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1990 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1991 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1992 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1993 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1994 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1995 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1996 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1997 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1998 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1999 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2000 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2001 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2002 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2003 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2008 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2009 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2013 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2014 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2015 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2016 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2017 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2018 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2020 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2021 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2025 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2026 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2027 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2030 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2031 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2032 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2034 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2037 *** Face attributes and X resources
2039 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2042 Face attribute X resource class
2043 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2044 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2045 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2046 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2047 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2048 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2049 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2050 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2051 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2052 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2053 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2054 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2055 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2056 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2057 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2058 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2059 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2060 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2061 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2062 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2065 *** Text property `face'.
2067 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2068 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2069 specification can be
2071 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2073 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2074 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2075 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2076 for face attribute names.
2078 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2079 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2080 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2083 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2085 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2086 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2087 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2088 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2089 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2090 used to clear the mapping table.
2092 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2094 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2095 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2096 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2097 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2098 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2099 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2100 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2101 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2102 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2103 modify their color-related behavior.
2105 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2108 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2110 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2111 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2112 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2113 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2114 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2115 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2116 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2117 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2118 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2121 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2123 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2125 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2126 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2127 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2129 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2131 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2132 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2135 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2136 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2137 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2138 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2139 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2140 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2141 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2144 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2145 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2146 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2148 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2150 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2152 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2153 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2154 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2155 constrained position if that is is different.
2157 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2158 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2159 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2160 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2161 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2162 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2165 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2166 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2167 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2168 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2169 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2171 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2173 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2174 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2175 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2177 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2179 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2180 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2181 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2182 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2183 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2185 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2187 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2188 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2189 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2190 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2191 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2193 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2195 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2196 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2197 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2199 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2201 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2202 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2203 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2208 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2209 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2210 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2211 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2213 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2214 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2215 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2216 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2219 IMAGE is an image specification.
2221 *** Image specifications
2223 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2224 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2225 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2226 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2227 described below are ignored.
2229 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2233 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
2234 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
2238 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2239 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2243 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2248 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2249 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2250 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2251 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2253 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2255 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2256 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2257 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2258 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2259 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2260 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2261 background of the image.
2265 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2266 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2267 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2268 may be present in the image specification.
2272 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2273 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2274 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2275 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2277 *** Supported image types
2279 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2281 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2282 properties supported are
2286 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2287 is the frame's foreground.
2291 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2292 the frame's background color.
2294 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2295 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2296 instead of a `:file' property.
2300 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2304 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2310 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2311 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2313 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2315 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2318 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2320 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2321 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2322 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2323 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2325 Additional image properties supported are:
2327 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2329 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2330 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2333 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2334 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2336 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2337 to display compressed images.
2339 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2341 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2342 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2345 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2347 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2348 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2351 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2353 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2354 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2357 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2359 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2360 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2362 Additional image properties supported are:
2366 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2367 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2369 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2370 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2371 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2374 (defun show-anim (file max)
2375 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2376 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2378 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2381 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2384 (goto-char (point-min))
2385 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2386 (insert-image img "x"))
2387 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2389 **** PNG, image type `png'
2391 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2392 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2395 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2397 Additional image properties supported are:
2401 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2402 integer. This is a required property.
2406 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2407 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2411 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2412 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2413 files. This is an required property.
2415 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2420 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2421 which are supported in the current configuration.
2423 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2424 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2425 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2428 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2430 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2431 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2432 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2433 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2434 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2440 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2443 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2444 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2445 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2446 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2447 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2448 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2449 of the display margins.
2451 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2452 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2453 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2454 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2460 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2461 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2462 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2463 that have a `help-echo' property.
2465 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
2466 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
2467 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
2468 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
2469 tool-bar item is used.
2471 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2472 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
2473 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2476 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2478 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2479 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2481 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2482 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2483 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2484 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2487 (global-set-key [A-down]
2490 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2491 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2492 (global-set-key [A-up]
2495 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2496 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2499 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2501 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2502 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2503 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2504 is called with one argument, POS.
2506 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2507 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2508 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2509 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2510 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2513 ** Tool bar support.
2515 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2516 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2517 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2518 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2519 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2520 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2522 *** Tool bar item definitions
2524 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2525 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2526 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2528 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2529 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2530 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2531 property (see below).
2533 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2534 binding are currently ignored.
2536 The following properties are recognized:
2540 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2545 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2549 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2550 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2551 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2553 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2555 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2556 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2560 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2561 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2562 meaning of each of the four elements:
2564 Index Use when item is
2565 ----------------------------------------
2566 0 enabled and selected
2567 1 enabled and deselected
2568 2 disabled and selected
2569 3 disabled and deselected
2571 `:help HELP-STRING'.
2573 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
2574 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
2576 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
2578 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
2579 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
2580 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
2582 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
2583 raised when the mouse moves over them.
2585 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
2586 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
2587 pixels. Default is 1.
2589 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
2590 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
2592 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
2594 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
2597 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
2598 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
2599 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
2601 is the original tool bar item definition, then
2603 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
2605 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
2608 ** Mode line changes.
2611 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
2613 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
2614 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
2615 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
2617 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
2618 a `local-map' text property.
2620 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
2621 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
2623 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
2624 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
2625 `local-map' property.
2627 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
2628 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
2631 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
2632 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
2635 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
2636 variable mode-line-format to nil.
2639 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
2641 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
2642 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
2643 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
2644 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
2647 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
2650 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
2651 position in the header-line.
2654 ** Text property `display'
2656 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
2657 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
2658 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
2659 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
2661 *** Variable width and height spaces
2663 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
2664 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
2665 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
2666 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
2667 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
2668 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
2669 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
2671 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
2672 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
2673 properties described below.
2675 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
2676 characters having the `display' property.
2680 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
2681 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
2683 - :relative-width FACTOR
2685 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
2686 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
2687 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
2688 width of that character by FACTOR.
2692 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
2693 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
2695 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
2699 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
2702 - :relative-height FACTOR
2704 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
2705 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
2709 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
2710 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
2711 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
2714 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
2718 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
2719 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
2720 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
2721 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
2722 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
2723 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
2724 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
2725 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
2726 as display specification.
2728 *** Other display properties
2730 - :space-width FACTOR
2732 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
2733 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
2738 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
2740 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
2741 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
2742 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
2743 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
2744 a font is available counts as a step.
2746 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
2747 as tall as the frame's default font.
2749 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
2750 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
2752 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
2753 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
2757 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
2758 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
2759 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
2760 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
2761 `:height' subproperty.
2763 *** Conditional display properties
2765 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
2766 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
2767 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
2768 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
2769 the text having the `display' property.
2771 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
2775 ** New menu separator types.
2777 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
2778 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
2779 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
2780 to specify other menu separator types.
2782 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
2784 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
2787 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
2789 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
2791 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2793 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2795 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2797 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2799 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2801 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2803 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2805 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2806 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2808 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2810 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2812 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2814 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2816 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2818 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2820 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2822 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2824 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2826 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2828 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2830 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2832 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2834 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2836 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2837 the corresponding single-line separators.
2840 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2842 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2843 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2844 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2845 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2846 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2847 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2848 default foreground is black.
2850 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2851 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2852 `ScrollBarBackground').
2854 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2855 settings for scroll bar colors.
2858 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2859 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2862 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2863 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2864 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2865 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2866 the original window start.
2869 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2870 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2871 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2874 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2876 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2877 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2878 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2879 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2881 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2882 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2884 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2886 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2887 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2888 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2889 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2890 temporarily to nil, for example
2892 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2893 (enlarge-window 10))
2895 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2896 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2898 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
2899 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
2900 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
2901 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
2902 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
2903 support a vertical-bar cursor).
2905 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2907 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2908 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2910 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2912 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2914 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2915 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2916 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2918 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2919 is the one that is used.
2921 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2922 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2923 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2924 separate from the command's regular output.
2925 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2926 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2927 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2930 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2931 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2932 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2933 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2935 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2936 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2937 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2938 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2940 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2941 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2942 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2943 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2945 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2946 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2947 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2948 they never ignore case.
2950 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2951 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2952 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2953 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2954 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2955 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2956 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2958 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2959 the same format that was used in the file before.
2961 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2962 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2964 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2965 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2966 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2968 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2969 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2970 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2971 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2972 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2973 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2974 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2976 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2977 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2978 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2979 format. You can now customize these variables.
2981 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2982 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2983 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2984 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2986 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2987 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2988 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2990 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2991 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2992 doesn't have any effect.
2994 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2997 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2998 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2999 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3001 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3002 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3003 `auto-show-mode' command.
3005 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3006 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3007 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3008 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3009 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3011 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3012 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3014 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3015 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3016 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3018 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3019 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3020 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3021 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3023 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3025 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3026 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3027 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3028 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3029 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3031 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3032 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3034 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3035 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3036 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3037 `?' on other systems.
3039 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3040 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3043 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3044 current codepage when it starts.
3048 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3049 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3050 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3051 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3052 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3053 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3057 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3058 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3060 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3061 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3062 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3063 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3064 buffer-file-coding-system.
3066 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3067 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3070 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3071 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3072 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3073 list of possible coding systems.
3077 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3078 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3079 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3080 docstring for details.
3082 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3083 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3084 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3085 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3086 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3088 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3089 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3091 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3092 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3094 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3095 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3096 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3097 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3100 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3101 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3103 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3104 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3105 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3106 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3108 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3109 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3110 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3111 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3112 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3114 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3116 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3118 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3119 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3121 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3123 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3124 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3125 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3126 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3127 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3131 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3132 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3133 Gnus manual for the full story.
3135 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3136 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3137 group, which is created automatically.
3139 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3142 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3144 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3145 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3147 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3150 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3152 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3153 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3155 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3157 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3158 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3160 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3161 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3163 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3164 control over simplification.
3166 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3168 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3171 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3173 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3175 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3176 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3177 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3179 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3180 `a' forces normal posting method.
3182 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3185 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3188 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3189 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3191 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3194 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3196 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3198 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3199 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3201 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3202 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3204 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3206 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3209 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3210 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3212 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3213 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3215 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3217 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3219 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3221 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3223 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3224 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3225 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3227 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3228 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3229 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3230 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3231 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3233 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3234 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3235 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3236 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3238 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3239 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3240 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3243 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3245 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3246 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3248 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3249 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3250 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3251 removed from the label.
3253 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3254 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3256 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3257 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3259 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3260 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3263 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3265 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3267 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3268 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3270 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3271 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3272 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3274 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3275 changes with a special face.
3277 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3278 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3279 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3281 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3283 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3284 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3285 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3286 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3287 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3289 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3290 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3291 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3293 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3294 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3295 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3296 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3297 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3298 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3299 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3300 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3301 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3303 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3304 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3305 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3306 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3307 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3310 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3311 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3312 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3313 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3314 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3315 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3317 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3318 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3319 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3320 was not documented clearly before.
3322 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3323 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3325 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3327 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3328 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3329 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3330 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3332 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3333 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3334 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3336 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3338 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3339 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3341 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3342 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3345 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3346 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3347 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3348 file names and attributes are returned.
3350 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3351 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3352 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3353 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3356 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3357 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3359 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3361 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3362 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3363 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3366 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3367 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3370 The new function process-running-child-p
3371 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3372 terminal to its own child process.
3374 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3375 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3376 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3377 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3379 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3380 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3382 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3383 :included is an alias for :visible.
3385 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3386 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3387 to move or copy menu entries.
3389 ** Multibyte editing changes
3391 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3392 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3393 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3394 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3395 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3396 (setq char (sref str idx)
3397 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3398 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3400 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3401 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3402 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3404 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3405 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3406 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3408 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3410 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3411 across the boundary.
3413 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3414 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3415 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3416 contains 8-bit characters.
3417 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3418 contains invalid characters.
3420 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3421 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3422 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3423 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3426 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3427 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3428 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3429 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3431 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3432 compose Thai characters in a string.
3434 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3435 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3436 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3437 menus should always use the third argument.
3439 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3440 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3441 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3442 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3444 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3445 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3446 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3447 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3449 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3450 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3451 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3454 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3456 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3457 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3458 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3460 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3461 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3462 means to clear out that attribute.
3464 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3465 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3467 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3468 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3469 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3470 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3472 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3473 the gap of the current buffer.
3475 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3476 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3479 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3480 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3481 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3482 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3484 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3486 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3487 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3488 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3489 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3490 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3492 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3493 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3494 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3495 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3496 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3498 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3499 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3500 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3502 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3503 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3504 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3505 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3506 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3509 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3510 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3511 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3512 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3514 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3516 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3517 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3518 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3519 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3521 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3522 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3523 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3524 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3525 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3526 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3527 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3530 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3533 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3534 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3535 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3536 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3537 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3539 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
3540 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
3541 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
3542 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
3544 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
3545 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
3546 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
3547 something that most users not do.
3549 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
3550 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
3551 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
3554 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
3557 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
3558 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
3559 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
3560 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
3563 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
3564 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
3565 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
3566 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
3567 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
3570 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
3571 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
3572 to be confused by TeX commands.
3574 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
3575 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
3576 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
3577 of various alternative replacements and actions.
3579 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
3580 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
3581 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
3582 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
3583 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
3585 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
3586 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
3588 ** Changes in input method usage.
3590 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
3591 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
3594 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
3596 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
3597 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
3599 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
3600 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
3602 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
3604 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
3606 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
3607 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
3609 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
3610 given in the following case:
3611 o When you are using a complex input method.
3612 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
3614 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
3615 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
3616 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
3617 setting it to t is helpful.
3619 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
3621 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
3623 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
3624 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
3625 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
3626 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
3629 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
3630 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
3631 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
3634 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
3636 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
3638 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
3639 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
3641 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
3642 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
3643 its owner and group.
3645 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
3646 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
3648 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
3649 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
3651 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
3652 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
3653 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
3654 by the left edge of the rectangle.
3656 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
3657 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
3658 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
3659 for writing keyboard macros.
3661 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
3662 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
3663 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
3664 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
3665 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
3668 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
3670 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
3671 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
3674 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
3675 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
3676 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
3677 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
3679 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
3680 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
3681 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
3683 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
3684 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
3685 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
3686 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
3688 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
3689 failure if the command produces no output.
3691 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
3692 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
3695 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
3696 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
3697 function and variable names.
3699 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
3700 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
3701 file-coding-system-alist.
3703 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
3704 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
3705 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
3706 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
3707 according to the current fontset.
3709 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
3711 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
3712 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
3713 nonascii-insert-offset.
3715 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
3716 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
3717 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
3718 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
3720 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
3721 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
3723 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
3724 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
3726 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
3727 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
3730 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
3731 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
3733 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
3734 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
3735 all variables that have documentation.
3737 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
3738 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
3739 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
3740 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
3741 it should show; the default is 20.
3743 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
3744 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
3747 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
3748 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
3749 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
3750 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
3751 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
3752 Newly added options are included as well.
3754 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
3755 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
3756 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
3758 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
3761 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
3762 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
3764 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
3765 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
3768 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
3769 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
3772 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
3773 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
3774 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
3775 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
3778 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
3780 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
3781 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
3782 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
3784 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
3785 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
3786 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
3789 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
3790 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
3792 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
3793 read and post multi-lingual articles.
3795 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
3796 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
3797 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
3798 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
3799 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
3800 made invisible again.
3802 ** Mail reading and sending changes
3804 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
3805 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
3806 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
3809 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
3810 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3811 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3812 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3813 rmail-default-body-file.
3815 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3816 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3817 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3819 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3820 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3821 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3823 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3824 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3825 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3826 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3827 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3828 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3830 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3831 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3832 provided by feedmail are:
3834 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3835 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3836 there is also a queue for draft messages
3838 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3839 be prompted for confirmation
3841 **** does smart filling of address headers
3843 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3844 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3845 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3847 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3848 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3849 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3850 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3854 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3855 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3857 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3858 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3860 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3861 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3862 for a specified regexp.
3866 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3869 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3870 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3873 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3874 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3875 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3876 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3878 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3879 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3880 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3881 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3882 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3884 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3885 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3886 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3887 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3888 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3890 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3891 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3892 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3893 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3895 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3896 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3897 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3899 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3900 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3901 session to resolve them.
3903 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3904 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3905 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3908 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3909 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3910 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3911 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3912 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3913 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3916 ** Changes in Font Lock
3918 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3919 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3920 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3921 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3922 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3924 ** Frame name display changes
3926 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3927 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3928 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3929 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3931 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3932 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3935 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3937 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3938 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3939 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3941 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3943 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3944 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3945 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3947 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3948 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3951 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3952 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3953 previously sent input.
3955 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3956 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3957 as the search string.
3959 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3960 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3964 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3965 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3966 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3969 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3970 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3971 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3972 style is still the default however.
3974 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3976 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3977 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3978 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3980 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3981 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3983 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3984 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3986 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3987 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3989 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3990 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3992 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3993 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3994 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3995 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3997 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3999 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4000 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4001 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4003 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4004 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4005 expanding dynamically.
4007 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4008 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4010 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4011 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4012 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4013 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4015 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4017 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4019 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4020 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4021 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4022 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4023 against the first word in the title.
4025 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4026 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4027 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4028 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4029 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4030 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4032 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4033 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4034 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4035 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4037 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4039 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4040 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4041 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4042 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4043 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4044 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4046 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4047 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4049 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4050 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4051 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4053 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4054 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4058 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4059 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4060 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4062 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4063 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4064 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4065 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4068 o URLs are automatically skipped
4069 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4071 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4073 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4075 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4076 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4077 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4078 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4080 *** New recursive parser.
4082 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4083 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4084 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4086 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4088 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4089 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4090 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4092 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4094 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4096 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4098 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4100 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4102 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4103 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4105 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4107 *** References to external documents.
4109 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4110 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4111 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4112 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4113 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4114 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4115 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4117 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4119 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4120 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4122 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4123 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4125 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4127 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4128 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4130 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4132 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4133 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4134 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4135 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4136 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4137 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4140 *** Support for the varioref package
4142 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4146 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4147 and citations are created. These hooks are
4148 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4149 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4151 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4153 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4154 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4156 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4158 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4159 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4162 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4164 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4165 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4166 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4167 directories that contain the same file name.
4169 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4170 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4171 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4172 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4173 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4174 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4175 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4178 ** New modes and packages
4180 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4181 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4182 it, but some do not.
4184 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4187 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4188 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4191 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4193 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4194 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4195 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4196 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4198 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4199 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4200 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4202 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4203 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4204 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4205 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4206 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4209 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4210 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4212 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4213 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4214 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4215 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4217 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4219 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4220 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4221 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4222 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4223 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4224 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4225 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4226 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4227 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4228 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4229 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4231 Platform-specific modes:
4233 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4234 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4235 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4236 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4237 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4238 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4239 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4240 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4241 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4243 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4245 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4246 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4247 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4248 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4250 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4251 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4252 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4254 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4255 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4256 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4257 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4259 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4260 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4261 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4264 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4265 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4266 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4267 current input method for reading this one event.
4269 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4270 now control whether to output certain characters as
4271 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4272 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4273 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4274 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4276 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4278 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4279 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4281 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4282 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4283 always increases point by 1.
4285 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4286 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4288 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4290 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4291 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4292 default value changed. For example,
4294 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4299 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4302 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4303 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4304 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4305 `:version' in the top level group.
4307 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4309 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4310 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4312 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4313 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4314 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4317 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4318 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4321 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4322 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4323 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4325 ** Frame-local variables.
4327 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4328 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4329 local bindings for that variable.
4331 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4332 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4333 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4336 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4337 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4338 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4339 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4341 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4342 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4343 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4344 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4346 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4347 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4348 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4349 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4350 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4352 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4353 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4354 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4355 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4357 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4358 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4360 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4361 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4362 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4364 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4365 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4366 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4367 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4369 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4370 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4373 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4374 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4375 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4376 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4377 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4379 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4380 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4381 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4382 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4384 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4385 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4386 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4387 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4388 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4390 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4391 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4392 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4393 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4395 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4396 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4397 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4399 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4400 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4401 was directed to display this buffer.
4403 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4404 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4405 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4406 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4407 set-window-configuration.
4409 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4410 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4411 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4412 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4414 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4415 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4416 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4418 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4419 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4420 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4422 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4423 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4425 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4426 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4428 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4429 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4430 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4432 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4433 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4434 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4435 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4439 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4440 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4443 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4444 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4445 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4446 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4447 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4449 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4451 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4452 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4453 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4454 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4457 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4458 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4459 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4460 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4461 The supported properties include
4463 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4465 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4466 item should appear in the menu.
4468 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4469 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4470 It should return a binding to use instead.
4472 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4473 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4474 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4475 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4476 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4479 This means that the command normally has no
4480 keyboard equivalent.
4481 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4482 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4483 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4484 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4485 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4487 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4488 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4490 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4494 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4495 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4496 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4497 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4499 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4501 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4502 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4503 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4504 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4505 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4506 forward, away from the user.
4508 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4510 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4511 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4512 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4513 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4514 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4516 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4518 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4519 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4520 that were dragged and dropped.
4522 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4524 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4526 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4527 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4528 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4530 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4531 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4532 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4534 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
4535 in Emacs 19 and before.
4537 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
4538 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
4540 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
4541 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
4542 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
4543 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
4545 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
4546 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
4547 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
4548 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
4549 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
4551 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
4552 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
4553 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
4554 consistent with the new representation.
4556 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
4557 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
4558 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
4559 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4561 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
4562 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
4563 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
4565 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
4566 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
4567 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
4569 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
4570 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
4571 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
4573 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4574 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
4576 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
4577 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
4579 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
4580 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
4581 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
4582 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
4584 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
4585 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
4587 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
4588 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
4589 buffer or string being searched.
4591 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
4592 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
4593 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
4594 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
4595 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
4596 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
4597 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
4599 *** Structure of coding system changed.
4601 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
4602 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
4603 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
4604 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
4605 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
4606 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
4607 define-coding-system-alias.
4609 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
4610 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
4611 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
4612 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
4613 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
4614 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
4615 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
4618 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
4619 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
4620 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
4621 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
4623 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
4624 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
4625 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
4626 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
4628 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
4629 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
4630 This function requires a user interaction.
4632 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
4633 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
4634 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
4635 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
4636 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
4637 select-safe-coding-system.
4639 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
4640 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
4641 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
4644 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
4645 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
4646 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
4648 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
4649 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
4650 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
4651 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
4653 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
4654 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
4655 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
4658 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
4659 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
4661 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
4662 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
4663 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
4664 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
4665 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
4666 range of characters.
4668 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
4669 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
4671 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
4672 in the current buffer at position POS.
4674 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
4675 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
4676 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
4677 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
4678 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
4679 binding input-method-function to nil.
4681 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
4682 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
4683 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
4684 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
4685 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
4687 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
4688 subsequent events of a key sequence.
4690 *** You can customize any language environment by using
4691 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
4693 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
4694 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
4695 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
4696 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
4697 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
4699 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
4701 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
4702 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
4703 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
4706 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
4707 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
4709 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
4710 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
4711 in your .emacs file.)
4713 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
4714 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
4716 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
4717 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
4719 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
4720 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
4723 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
4724 delete the character before point, as usual.
4726 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
4727 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
4728 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
4730 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
4731 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
4732 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
4733 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
4734 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
4737 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
4738 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
4739 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
4740 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
4741 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
4743 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
4744 and is an alias for it.
4746 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
4747 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
4749 ** Scrolling changes
4751 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
4752 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
4754 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
4755 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
4758 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
4759 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
4760 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
4761 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
4763 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
4764 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
4765 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
4766 recenters the window.
4768 ** International character set support (MULE)
4770 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
4771 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
4772 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
4773 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
4774 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
4775 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
4777 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
4778 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
4779 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
4780 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
4781 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
4783 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
4784 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
4785 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
4786 language, to make it possible to type them.
4788 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
4789 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
4791 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
4792 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
4794 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
4796 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
4798 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
4799 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
4800 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
4801 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
4802 characters for their work until they want to change.
4806 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
4807 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
4808 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
4809 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
4810 support several input methods.
4812 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4813 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4816 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4817 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4818 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4819 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4820 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4823 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4824 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4825 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4826 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4827 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4829 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4830 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4831 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4832 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4834 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4835 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4836 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4837 the first guess is wrong.
4839 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4840 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4842 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4843 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4844 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4845 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4847 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4848 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4849 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4850 translate automatically to and from either one.
4852 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4854 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4855 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4856 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4859 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4860 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4861 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4862 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4864 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4865 character conversion as well.
4867 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4869 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4870 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4871 requires using many fonts.
4873 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4874 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4876 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4877 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4878 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4879 you would use a font.
4881 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4882 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4883 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4885 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4886 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4887 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4888 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4889 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4891 *** Defining fontsets.
4893 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4894 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4895 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4897 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4898 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4899 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4900 standard fontset are created automatically.
4902 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4903 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4904 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4905 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4906 name is `fontset-startup'.
4908 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4909 The resource value should have this form:
4910 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4911 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4912 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4913 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4914 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4915 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4916 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4917 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4918 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4920 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4921 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4922 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4924 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4925 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4927 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4928 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4929 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4930 Here is the substitution rule:
4931 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4932 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4933 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4934 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4935 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4937 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4938 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4939 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4941 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4942 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4943 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4944 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4947 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4948 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4950 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4951 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4952 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4953 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4954 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4955 system for new files that you create.
4957 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4958 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4959 whole Emacs session.
4961 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4962 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4963 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4965 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4966 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4967 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4968 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4969 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4971 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4972 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4973 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4974 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4975 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4977 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4978 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4980 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4981 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4983 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4984 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4986 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4987 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4988 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4989 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4992 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4993 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4994 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4995 translated into that character code.
4997 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4998 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5000 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5002 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5003 the coding system for keyboard input.
5005 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5006 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5007 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5009 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5011 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5012 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5013 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5014 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5015 designed to work with terminals.
5017 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5018 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5019 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5020 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5021 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5022 in the corresponding buffer.
5024 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5026 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5027 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5028 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5030 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5031 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5032 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5035 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5036 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5038 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5039 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5040 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5041 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5043 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5044 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5045 related information.
5047 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5048 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5051 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5052 information about the support for a particular language.
5053 You specify the language as an argument.
5055 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5056 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5059 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5060 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5061 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5062 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5064 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5066 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5067 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5068 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5069 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5070 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5071 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5072 K euc-korea (Korean)
5075 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5078 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5079 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5080 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5084 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5085 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5086 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5087 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5089 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5090 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5092 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5093 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5094 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5095 Rmail files themselves.
5097 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5098 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5100 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5103 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5104 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5105 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5106 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5107 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5109 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5110 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5111 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5114 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5115 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5116 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5117 without any conversion.
5119 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5120 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5121 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5122 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5124 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5125 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5127 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5128 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5130 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5131 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5133 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5134 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5135 in the buffer before point.
5137 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5138 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5141 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5142 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5144 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5146 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5147 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5149 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5150 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5151 can become a bottleneck.
5153 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5154 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5155 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5156 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5157 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5158 so useful that the change is worth while.
5160 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5161 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5162 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5163 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5165 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5166 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5169 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5170 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5171 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5173 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5174 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5175 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5177 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5178 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5179 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5181 ** Changes in View mode.
5183 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5184 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5186 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5187 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5189 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5192 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5193 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5195 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5196 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5197 not just the selected window.
5199 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5200 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5201 turns View mode on or off.
5203 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5204 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5205 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5207 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5208 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5210 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5211 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5212 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5213 which version to compare with.
5215 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5216 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5218 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5219 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5220 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5221 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5223 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5224 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5225 blocks, all of them or none.
5227 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5228 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5231 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5232 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5233 However, the mode will not be changed if
5234 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5235 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5236 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5237 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5239 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5241 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5242 these commands do not change the major mode.
5244 ** M-x occur changes.
5246 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5247 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5249 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5250 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5251 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5253 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5254 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5255 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5256 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5257 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5259 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5260 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5261 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5262 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5264 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5265 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5266 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5268 ** Outline mode changes.
5270 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5272 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5274 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5275 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5276 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5279 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5280 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5283 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5284 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5286 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5288 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5289 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5290 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5291 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5293 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5294 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5295 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5297 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5298 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5301 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5302 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5303 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5304 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5306 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5307 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5308 can be. The default value is 30.
5310 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5312 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5313 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5314 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5315 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5316 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5319 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5320 compose-mail-other-frame.
5322 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5323 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5324 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5325 buffer that shows the original message.
5327 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5328 with separator lines around the contents.
5330 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5331 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5332 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5333 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5335 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5337 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5338 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5339 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5340 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5342 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5343 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5346 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5347 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5350 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5351 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5352 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5353 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5355 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5356 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5357 be taken to be magic.
5359 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5360 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5361 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5363 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5364 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5366 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5367 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5369 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5371 new key dired.el binding old key
5372 ------- ---------------- -------
5373 * c dired-change-marks c
5375 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5376 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5377 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5379 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5380 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5381 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5382 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5383 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5384 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5388 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5389 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5390 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5391 each time you run it.
5393 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5394 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5396 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5397 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5398 means to move in the opposite direction.
5400 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5401 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5403 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5404 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5405 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5406 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5411 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5413 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5416 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5417 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5419 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5422 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5424 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5426 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5428 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5429 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5430 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5432 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5434 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5436 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5437 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5439 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5440 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5441 used to pick articles.
5443 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5444 another have been added.
5446 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5448 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5449 generating lines in buffers.
5451 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5454 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5456 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5458 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5460 *** Scores can be decayed.
5462 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5464 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5465 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5467 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5470 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5472 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5473 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5475 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5477 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5478 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5480 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5481 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5483 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5486 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5487 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5489 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5491 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5493 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5495 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5497 Use the `Y c' command.
5499 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5501 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5503 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5505 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5506 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5508 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5510 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5512 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5513 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5515 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5517 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5518 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5519 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5520 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5523 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5524 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5525 particular news group. This can be done by:
5527 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5529 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5530 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5531 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5532 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5533 for reading and posting).
5535 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
5536 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
5537 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
5538 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
5541 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
5542 default. Here are some of these default settings:
5544 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
5545 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
5546 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
5547 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
5548 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
5550 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
5551 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
5555 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
5556 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
5557 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
5558 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
5559 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
5562 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
5563 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
5564 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
5565 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
5566 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
5567 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
5569 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
5570 of the current buffer.
5572 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
5573 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
5574 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
5576 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
5577 style that the Python developers like.
5579 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
5580 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
5581 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
5585 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
5586 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
5587 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
5589 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
5590 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
5593 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
5594 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
5596 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
5597 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
5598 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
5599 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
5601 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
5602 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
5604 ** Calendar changes.
5606 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
5607 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
5608 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
5612 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
5614 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
5616 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
5617 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
5618 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
5619 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
5620 It defaults to `letter'.
5621 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
5623 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
5624 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
5625 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
5627 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
5628 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
5631 *** Horizontal layout
5633 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
5634 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
5635 All are measured in points.
5639 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
5640 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
5641 All are measured in points.
5645 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
5646 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
5647 margin above the text.
5649 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
5650 framing box is printed around the header.
5652 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
5653 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
5655 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
5656 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
5657 `ps-header-font-size'.
5661 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
5662 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
5663 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
5664 elements to this alist.
5666 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
5667 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
5669 ** hideshow changes.
5671 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
5674 *** Support for java-mode added.
5676 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
5677 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
5679 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
5680 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
5681 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
5683 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
5684 robust and a lot faster.
5686 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
5688 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
5689 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
5690 documentation for more details.
5692 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
5694 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
5695 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
5696 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
5697 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
5698 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
5700 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
5701 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
5702 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
5703 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
5709 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
5710 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
5711 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
5712 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
5713 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
5714 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
5716 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
5718 *** Maximum decoration
5720 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
5721 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
5722 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
5723 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
5724 to get the old behavior.
5728 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
5730 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
5731 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
5733 *** Configurable support
5735 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
5736 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
5737 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
5738 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
5739 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
5740 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
5741 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
5743 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
5744 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
5745 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
5747 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
5749 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
5750 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
5753 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
5755 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
5761 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
5762 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
5763 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
5764 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
5766 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
5768 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
5769 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
5770 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
5772 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
5774 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
5775 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
5776 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
5777 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
5778 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
5779 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
5780 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
5782 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
5783 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
5784 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
5785 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
5786 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
5787 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
5789 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
5791 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
5792 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
5793 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
5794 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
5796 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
5799 ** Ada mode changes.
5801 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
5802 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
5803 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
5804 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
5807 *** There are two new commands:
5808 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
5809 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
5811 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5812 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5813 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5815 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5816 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5817 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5819 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5820 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5821 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5822 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5824 ** Scheme mode changes.
5826 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5827 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5828 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5829 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5832 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5833 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5834 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5835 variables as buffer-local variables.
5837 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5840 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
5842 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
5843 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
5844 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
5845 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
5847 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5848 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5851 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
5852 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
5853 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
5854 option takes precedence.
5856 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5857 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5858 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5860 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5861 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5864 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5865 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5867 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5868 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5871 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5872 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5873 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5874 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5875 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5876 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5878 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5879 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5880 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5881 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5883 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5884 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5885 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5886 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5887 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5889 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5890 since it applies only to the current frame.
5892 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5893 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5894 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5896 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5897 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5898 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5899 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5900 instead of just the file you are editing.
5904 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5905 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5906 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5907 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5908 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5911 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5912 knows which kind of label is needed.
5914 C-c ) reftex-reference
5915 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5916 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5918 C-c [ reftex-citation
5919 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5920 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5922 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5923 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5926 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5927 can quickly jump to every section.
5929 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5930 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5931 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5932 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5933 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5935 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5937 *** Info documentation is now available.
5939 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5940 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5942 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5943 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5945 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5946 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5948 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5949 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5950 appropriate functions.
5952 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5953 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5955 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5958 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5959 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5961 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5964 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5965 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5966 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5968 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5969 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5970 prefixed with `ALT'.
5972 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5973 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5974 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5977 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5978 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5979 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5981 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5982 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5984 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5985 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5986 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5988 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5990 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5992 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5995 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5996 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5999 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6002 *** Added support for imenu.
6004 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6005 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6006 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6007 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6009 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6010 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6012 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6014 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6016 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6017 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6018 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6021 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6022 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6024 ** browse-url changes
6026 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6027 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6028 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6029 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6030 customization variables.
6032 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6034 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6035 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6036 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6040 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6041 pops up the Info file for this command.
6043 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6044 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6045 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6048 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6049 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6050 files in the same directory.
6052 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6053 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6054 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6058 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6059 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6061 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6062 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6063 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6064 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6065 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6066 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6067 color when Viper is in insert state.
6068 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6069 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6070 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6074 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6075 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6076 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6077 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6078 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6080 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6082 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6083 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6085 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6086 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6087 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6089 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6090 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6091 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6092 methods and protocols.
6094 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6095 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6096 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6099 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6100 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6101 at least M times and as many as N times.
6103 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6104 in files has changed slightly.
6106 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6107 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6108 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6109 with old time-stamp-format values.
6111 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6112 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6113 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6116 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6117 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6118 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6119 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6120 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6121 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6123 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6124 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6125 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6127 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6128 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6129 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6130 recommended now will continue to work then.
6132 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6135 ** There are some additional major modes:
6137 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6138 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6139 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6141 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6142 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6145 ** New Lisp packages include:
6147 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6149 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6150 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6152 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6154 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6157 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6158 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6161 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6162 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6163 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6164 strings or comments.
6166 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6167 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6168 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6169 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6172 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6173 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6175 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6176 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6178 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6180 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6181 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6183 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6185 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6187 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6189 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6190 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6192 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6193 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6194 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6195 original place after inserting the copy.
6197 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6200 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6201 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6202 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6204 Enable mouse-drag with:
6205 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6207 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6209 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6210 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6212 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6213 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6217 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6218 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6219 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6220 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6221 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6222 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6223 instance) and vice versa.
6225 To use this package load it using
6226 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6227 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6228 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6229 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6230 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6231 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6233 *** Interface to ph.
6235 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6237 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6238 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6241 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6243 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6244 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6245 while the real cursor does not move.
6247 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6248 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6250 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6251 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6255 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6256 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6257 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6258 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6260 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6262 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6264 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6266 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6267 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6268 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6269 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6270 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6272 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6273 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6274 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6275 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6276 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6277 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6279 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6281 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6282 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6283 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6284 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6286 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6287 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6289 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6290 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6293 ** Basic Lisp changes
6295 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6296 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6298 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6299 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6302 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6304 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6306 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6307 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6309 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6310 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6313 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6315 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6317 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6319 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6320 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6321 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6324 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6325 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6326 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6328 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6329 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6330 adding one of these suffixes.
6332 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6333 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6334 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6336 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6337 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6339 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6341 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6342 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6344 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6345 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6347 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6349 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6350 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6352 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6353 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6354 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6355 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6357 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6358 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6361 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6362 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6363 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6366 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6367 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6370 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6372 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6373 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6374 Then it returns that string.
6376 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6378 (with-output-to-string
6379 (princ "The buffer is ")
6380 (princ (buffer-name)))
6382 returns "The buffer is foo".
6384 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6387 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6388 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6389 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6391 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6392 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6394 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6395 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6396 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6397 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6398 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6399 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6401 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6402 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6403 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6406 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6407 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6408 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6409 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6410 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6412 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6413 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6414 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6415 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6417 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6418 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6420 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6422 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6423 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6424 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6425 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6428 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6429 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6432 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6434 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6435 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6436 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6437 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6438 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6440 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6442 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6443 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6444 more than the number of characters.
6446 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6447 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6448 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6449 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6450 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6451 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6453 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6454 and returns a string containing those characters.
6456 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6457 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6458 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6459 character, sref signals an error.
6461 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6462 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6463 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6465 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6466 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6467 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6469 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6470 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6471 to a vector of the characters in it.
6473 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6474 of a string. You call it as follows:
6476 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6478 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6479 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6480 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6481 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6482 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6484 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6485 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6487 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6488 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6490 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6491 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6492 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6493 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6495 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6497 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6499 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6500 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6501 are not included in the resulting value.
6503 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6504 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6505 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6506 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6508 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6509 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6510 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6511 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6512 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6513 column START-COLUMN.
6515 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6516 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6517 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6518 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6519 changed text, before the change.
6521 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6522 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6523 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6525 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6527 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6529 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6530 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6532 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6533 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6534 which identify the character within that character set.
6536 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
6537 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
6538 opposite of split-char.
6540 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
6541 of all the characters between BEG and END.
6543 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
6544 of all the characters in a string.
6546 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
6547 and specifying coding systems.
6549 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
6550 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
6551 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
6552 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
6553 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
6554 as what to do about code conversion.)
6556 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
6557 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
6559 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6560 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6561 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
6563 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6564 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
6565 to match against a file name.
6567 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6568 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6569 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6570 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6571 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6572 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6574 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6575 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6577 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
6578 the coding system to use for network sockets.
6580 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
6581 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
6582 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
6585 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
6586 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
6587 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
6588 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
6589 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
6590 specifies the coding system for encoding.
6592 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
6593 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
6595 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
6596 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
6597 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
6598 start the subprocess.
6600 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
6601 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
6602 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
6603 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
6604 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
6606 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
6607 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
6610 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
6611 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
6612 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
6613 connection permanently or until overridden.
6615 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
6616 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
6617 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
6618 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
6619 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
6620 system for one operation at a time.
6622 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
6623 files, subprocesses or network connections.
6625 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
6626 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
6627 The value is a cons cell,
6628 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
6629 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
6630 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
6631 input to the subprocess.
6633 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
6634 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
6636 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
6637 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
6638 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
6640 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
6641 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
6642 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
6643 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
6646 Thus, instead of writing
6648 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
6649 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
6651 you would now write this:
6653 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
6654 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
6658 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
6659 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
6660 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
6661 for a description of them.
6663 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
6664 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
6666 (defgroup ispell nil
6667 "Spell checking using Ispell."
6670 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
6671 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
6672 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
6673 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
6674 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
6676 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
6677 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
6678 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
6679 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
6680 first-level subgroups.
6682 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
6684 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
6685 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
6689 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
6690 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
6691 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
6692 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
6693 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
6694 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
6696 ** Text property changes
6698 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
6701 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
6702 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
6703 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
6704 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
6705 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
6707 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
6708 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
6709 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
6710 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
6712 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
6713 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
6714 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
6716 ** Changes in invisibility features
6718 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
6719 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
6720 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
6721 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
6722 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
6723 make the overlay visible.
6725 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
6726 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
6727 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
6728 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
6729 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
6730 t when it should hide it.
6732 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
6734 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
6735 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
6736 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
6737 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
6738 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
6739 Here is an example of how to do this:
6741 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
6742 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6743 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
6744 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6747 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
6750 ;; When done with the overlays:
6751 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
6753 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
6755 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
6757 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
6758 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
6759 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
6760 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
6762 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
6763 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
6764 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
6766 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
6767 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
6769 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
6770 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
6772 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
6773 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
6774 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
6776 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
6777 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
6778 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
6779 determine the syntax type of the character.
6781 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
6782 of the current buffer.
6784 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
6785 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
6786 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
6788 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
6789 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
6790 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
6791 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
6792 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
6794 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
6797 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
6798 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
6799 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
6801 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
6802 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
6803 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
6804 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
6805 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
6807 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
6808 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
6809 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
6811 ** Changes in face features
6813 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
6814 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
6816 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
6817 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
6819 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
6820 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
6822 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
6823 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
6825 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6826 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6827 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6828 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6831 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6832 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6834 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6836 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6837 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6838 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6839 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6841 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6844 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6845 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6847 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6848 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6850 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6851 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6853 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6854 character code conversion as well as other things.
6856 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6857 (formerly it did not).
6859 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6860 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6862 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6863 instead of constant strings.
6865 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6866 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6867 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6869 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6870 in the same way as before.
6872 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6873 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6874 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6876 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6877 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6878 else, and returns nil.
6880 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6881 directory cannot be listed.
6883 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6885 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6886 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6887 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6888 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6891 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6892 It is available through the history command M-n.
6894 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6895 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6896 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6897 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6898 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6900 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6901 argument in this way.
6903 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6904 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6905 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6907 ** Echo area features
6909 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6910 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6911 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6912 after the echo area is cleared.
6914 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6915 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6917 ** Keyboard input features
6919 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6920 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6922 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6923 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6926 ** Frame-related changes
6928 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6929 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6930 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6932 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6933 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6934 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6936 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6937 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6938 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6939 in the selected frame.
6941 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6942 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6943 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6945 ** X Windows features
6947 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6948 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6949 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6951 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6952 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6954 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6955 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6956 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6958 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6959 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6961 ** Subprocess features
6963 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6964 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6967 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6968 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6970 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6971 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6973 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6974 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6976 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6977 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6978 goes after the other menu items.
6980 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6981 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6982 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6985 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6986 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6988 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6989 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6992 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6993 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6994 but its hook is still run.
6996 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6997 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6999 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7000 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7001 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7003 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7004 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7005 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7008 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7009 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7011 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7012 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7013 functions like display-time.
7015 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7016 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7018 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7019 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7020 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7022 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7023 if there is an error in compilation.
7025 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7026 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7027 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7028 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7030 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7031 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7032 the *scratch* buffer.
7034 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7035 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7036 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7037 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7039 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7040 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7041 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7043 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7044 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7045 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7046 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7048 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7049 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7050 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7052 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7053 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7054 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7055 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7056 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7059 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7060 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7061 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7062 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7064 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7065 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7066 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7067 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7069 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7071 ** imenu.el changes.
7073 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7074 item from menu created by imenu.
7076 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7077 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7078 select one of those items.
7080 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7082 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7084 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7085 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7087 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7088 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7089 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7091 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7093 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7094 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7096 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7097 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7098 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7099 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7100 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7103 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7104 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7106 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7107 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7108 as in previous Emacs versions.
7110 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7111 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7112 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7115 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7116 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7117 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7118 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7121 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7122 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7123 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7124 line and then executing the macro.
7126 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7128 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7129 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7130 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7135 *** Font Lock support modes
7137 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7138 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7139 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7140 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7141 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7143 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7145 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7151 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7152 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7153 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7154 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7155 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7156 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7157 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7159 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7161 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7163 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7165 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7167 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7170 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7175 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7176 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7177 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7178 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7180 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7181 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7183 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7184 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7187 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7188 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7190 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7192 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7194 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7196 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7199 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7201 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7203 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7205 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7207 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7210 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7212 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7214 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7216 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7218 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7220 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7222 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7224 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7227 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7229 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7232 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7234 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7235 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7237 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7239 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7241 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7243 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7245 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7248 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7250 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7251 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7253 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7254 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7255 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7257 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7258 articles with the `*' command.
7260 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7262 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7264 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7266 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7268 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7269 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7271 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7274 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7276 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7278 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7280 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7282 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7284 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7286 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7288 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7290 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7292 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7293 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7295 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7298 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7300 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7301 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7303 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7305 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7307 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7309 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7312 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7314 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7316 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7317 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7319 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7321 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7323 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7325 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7327 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7329 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7332 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7334 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7335 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7336 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7339 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7342 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7345 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7346 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7349 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7350 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7351 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7352 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7353 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7356 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7358 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7360 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7361 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7362 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7363 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7364 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7366 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7367 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7368 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7370 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7372 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7373 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7374 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7375 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7376 chapter of the manual for details.
7378 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7379 customization variables take effect.
7381 ** Marking with the mouse.
7383 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7384 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7385 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7387 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7389 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7391 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7392 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7394 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7395 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7396 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7397 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7398 applications, these problems are significant.
7400 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7401 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7402 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7403 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7404 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7406 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7407 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7409 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7410 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7411 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7412 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7413 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7414 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7416 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7418 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7419 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7420 minibuffer contains.
7422 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7424 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7425 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7426 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7427 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7429 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7430 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7431 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7432 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7434 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7435 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7437 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7438 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7439 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7441 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7442 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7443 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7444 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7446 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7448 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7449 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7451 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7453 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7454 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7455 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7456 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7457 immediately after the selected one.
7459 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7460 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7462 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7464 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7465 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7466 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7467 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7470 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7471 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7474 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7475 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7476 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7477 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7478 now that the bug is fixed.
7480 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7482 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7483 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7484 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7485 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7487 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7488 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7489 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7490 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7492 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7493 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7494 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7496 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7497 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7498 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7499 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7502 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7503 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7505 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7506 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7507 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7508 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7510 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7511 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7512 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7513 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7514 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7515 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7517 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7518 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7519 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7520 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7522 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7523 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7524 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7526 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7527 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7528 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7529 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7530 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7531 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7532 to a limitation in font-lock).
7534 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
7536 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
7537 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
7538 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
7541 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
7542 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
7544 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7546 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
7548 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
7550 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
7552 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
7553 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
7554 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
7555 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
7556 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
7557 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
7559 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
7562 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
7563 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
7565 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
7570 *** Global Font Lock mode
7572 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
7573 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
7574 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
7575 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
7576 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
7578 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
7580 (global-font-lock-mode t)
7584 *** Local Refontification
7586 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
7587 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
7588 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
7589 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
7591 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
7592 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
7593 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
7594 above and below point.
7596 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
7600 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
7601 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
7602 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
7603 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
7604 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
7607 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
7609 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
7610 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
7612 ** hide-show changes.
7614 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
7615 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
7618 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
7619 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
7621 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
7622 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
7623 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
7627 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
7628 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
7630 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
7631 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
7633 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
7635 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
7636 pressing both mouse buttons.
7638 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
7639 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
7642 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
7645 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
7647 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
7648 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
7650 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
7652 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
7654 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
7656 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
7658 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
7660 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
7662 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
7663 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
7664 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
7665 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
7666 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
7668 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
7670 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
7671 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
7672 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
7675 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
7678 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
7680 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
7681 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
7683 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
7684 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
7686 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
7687 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
7688 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
7690 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
7691 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
7694 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7696 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
7697 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
7698 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
7700 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
7701 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
7702 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
7704 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
7705 up if too much time passes.
7707 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
7709 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
7710 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
7711 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
7714 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
7715 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
7716 call looks like this:
7718 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
7720 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
7721 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
7722 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
7725 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
7726 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
7729 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
7730 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
7731 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
7732 each time Emacs becomes idle.
7734 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
7735 idle for SECS seconds.
7737 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
7738 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
7739 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
7742 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
7743 there is no answer within a certain time.
7745 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
7747 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
7748 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
7749 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
7751 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
7752 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
7753 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
7754 arguments in between are ignored.
7756 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
7757 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
7759 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
7760 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
7761 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
7762 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
7765 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
7766 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
7767 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
7768 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
7769 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
7770 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
7772 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
7773 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
7774 systems with limited file name syntax.
7776 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
7777 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
7778 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
7781 (defvar save-completions-file-name
7782 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
7783 "*The filename to save completions to.")
7785 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
7786 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
7787 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
7788 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
7789 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
7791 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
7792 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
7793 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
7795 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
7796 marker from its buffer position.
7798 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
7799 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
7800 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
7802 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
7803 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
7804 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
7805 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
7806 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
7807 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
7809 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
7810 errors that happen often during editing.
7812 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
7813 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
7814 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
7816 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
7817 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
7819 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
7820 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
7821 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
7822 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
7823 and not get-buffer-window.
7825 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7826 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7827 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7829 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7830 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7831 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7832 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7833 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7834 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7835 over and over for the same text.
7837 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7839 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7840 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7842 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7845 in addition to the normal
7849 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7850 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7851 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7853 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7855 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7856 Copyright information:
7858 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7860 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7861 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7862 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7863 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7865 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7866 of this document, or of portions of it,
7867 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7868 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7872 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"