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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17 Temporary note:
18 +++ indicates that all necessary updates to the manuals in doc/ are complete.
19 --- means no change in the manuals is needed.
20 When you add a new item, use the appropriate mark if you know it applies,
21 otherwise leave it unmarked.
22
23 \f
24 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.4
25
26 ** Emacs can be compiled with ACL support.
27 This happens by default if a suitable support library is found at
28 build time, like libacl on GNU/Linux. To prevent this, use the
29 configure option `--disable-acl'.
30
31 ** Emacs can be compiled with file notification support.
32 This happens by default if a suitable system library is found at
33 build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
34 `--with-file-notification-no'. See below for file-notify features.
35 FIXME? This feature is not available for the Nextstep port. (?)
36
37 ** The configure option `without-compress-info' has been generalized,
38 and renamed to `without-compress-install'. It now prevents compression
39 of _any_ files during installation.
40
41 ** The configure option --with-crt-dir has been removed.
42 It is no longer needed, as the crt*.o files are no longer linked
43 specially.
44
45 ** Directories passed to configure option `--enable-locallisppath' are
46 no longer created during installation.
47
48 ** Emacs can be compiled with zlib support. If this library is present
49 (which it normally is on most systems), the function
50 `zlib-decompress-region' becomes available, which can decompress gzip-
51 and zlib-format compressed data.
52
53 ---
54 ** Emacs for NS (OSX, GNUStep) can be built with ImageMagick support.
55 pkg-config is required to find ImageMagick libraries.
56
57 ** For OSX >= 10.5, the Core text based font backend from the Mac port is used.
58 For GNUStep and OSX 10.4 the old backend is used.
59 To use the old backend by default, do on the command line:
60 % defaults write org.gnu.Emacs FontBackend ns
61
62 \f
63 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.4
64
65 +++
66 ** When initializing `load-path', an empty element in the EMACSLOADPATH
67 environment variable (either leading, e.g., ":/foo"; trailing, e.g.,
68 "/foo:"; or embedded, e.g., "/foo::/bar") is replaced with the default
69 load-path (the one that would have been used if EMACSLOADPATH was unset).
70 This makes it easier to _extend_ the load-path via EMACSLOADPATH
71 (previously, EMACSLOADPATH had to specify the complete load-path,
72 including the defaults). (In older versions of Emacs, an empty element
73 was replaced by ".", so use an explicit "." now if that is what you want.)
74
75 +++
76 ** The -L option, which normally prepends its argument to load-path,
77 will instead append, if the argument begins with `:' (or `;' on MS Windows;
78 i.e., `path-separator').
79
80 \f
81 * Changes in Emacs 24.4
82
83 +++
84 ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.
85 If the terminal supports a mouse, clicking on the menu bar, or on
86 sensitive portions of the mode line or header line, will drop down the
87 menu defined at that position. Likewise, clicking C-mouse-2 or
88 C-mouse-2 or C-mouse-3 on the text area will pop up the menus defined
89 for those locations.
90
91 If the text terminal does not support a mouse, you can activate the
92 first menu-bar menu by typing F10, which invokes `menu-bar-open'.
93
94 If you want the previous behavior, whereby F10 invoked `tmm-menubar',
95 customize the option `tty-menu-open-use-tmm' to a non-nil value.
96 (Typing M-` will always invoke `tmm-menubar', even if
97 `tty-menu-open-use-tmm' is nil.)
98
99 ** Key ? also describes prefix bindings like C-h.
100
101 +++
102 ** `cache-long-line-scans' has been renamed to `cache-long-scans'
103 because it affects caching of paragraph scanning results as well.
104
105 +++
106 ** `apropos-variable' is now `apropos-user-option'
107 `apropos-user-option' shows all user options while `apropos-variable'
108 shows all variables. When called with a universal prefix argument,
109 the two commands swap their behaviors. When `apropos-do-all' is
110 non-nil, they output the same results.
111
112 +++
113 ** `eval-defun' on an already defined defcustom calls the :set function,
114 if there is one.
115
116 ** If the new variable `enable-dir-local-variables' is nil,
117 directory local variables are ignored. May be useful for some modes
118 that want to ignore directory-locals while still respecting file-locals.
119
120 ** The option `set-mark-default-inactive' has been deleted.
121 This unfinished feature was introduced by accident in Emacs 23.1;
122 simply disabling Transient Mark mode does the same thing.
123
124 ** `initial-buffer-choice' can now specify a function to set up the
125 initial buffer.
126
127 ** The *Messages* buffer is created in a new major mode `messages-buffer-mode',
128 and read-only. Code that might create the *Messages* buffer should
129 call the function `messages-buffer' to do so and set the mode.
130
131 ** `remember-notes' creates a buffer whose content is saved on kill-emacs.
132 You may think of it as a *scratch* buffer whose content is preserved.
133 In fact, it was designed as a replacement for *scratch* buffer and can
134 be used that way by setting `initial-buffer-choice' to `remember-notes'
135 and `remember-notes-buffer-name' to "*scratch*". Without the second
136 change, *scratch* buffer will still be there for notes that do not
137 need to be preserved.
138
139 ** `write-region-inhibit-fsync' now defaults to t in batch mode.
140
141 ** ACL support has been added.
142 +++
143 *** Emacs preserves the ACL entries of files when backing up.
144 +++
145 *** New functions `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' get and set the ACL
146 entries of a file. On GNU/Linux, the POSIX ACL interface is used via
147 libacl. On MS-Windows, the NT Security APIs are used to emulate the
148 POSIX ACL interfaces.
149
150 ** New option `scroll-bar-adjust-thumb-portion'.
151 Available only on X, this option allows to control over-scrolling
152 using the scroll bar (i.e. dragging the thumb down even when the end
153 of the buffer is visible).
154
155 ** New function `add-face-text-property' has been added, which can be
156 used to conveniently prepend/append new face attributes to text.
157
158 ** In compiled Lisp files, the header no longer includes a timestamp.
159
160 ** Multi-monitor support has been added.
161
162 *** New functions `display-monitor-attributes-list' and
163 `frame-monitor-attributes' can be used to obtain information about
164 each physical monitor on multi-monitor setups.
165
166 *** The functions `display-pixel-width' and `display-pixel-height' now
167 behave consistently among the platforms: they return the pixel width
168 or height for all physical monitors associated with the given display
169 as just they were on X11. To get information for each physical
170 monitor, use the new functions above. Similar notes also apply to
171 `x-display-pixel-width', `x-display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
172 `display-mm-height', `x-display-mm-width', and `x-display-mm-height'.
173
174 ** New macro `define-alternatives' can be used to define generic commands.
175 Generic commands are interactive functions whose implementation can be
176 selected among several alternatives, as a matter of user preference.
177
178 ** New hooks `focus-in-hook', `focus-out-hook'.
179 These are normal hooks run when an Emacs frame gains or loses input focus.
180
181 ** The blink cursor stops blinking after 10 blinks (default) on X and NS.
182 You can change the default by customizing the variable blink-cursor-blinks.
183 Also timers for blinking are stopped when no blinking is done, so Emacs does
184 not consume CPU cycles.
185
186 ** New command `frameset-to-register' is now bound to `C-x r f', replacing
187 `frame-configuration-to-register'. It offers similar functionality, plus
188 some enhancements, like the ability to restore deleted frames. Command
189 `frame-configuration-to-register' is still available, but unbound.
190
191 ** The command `quail-help' is deleted. Use `C-h C-\'
192 (`describe-input-method') instead.
193
194 ** The default value of `comment-use-global-state' is changed to t,
195 and this variable has been marked obsolete.
196
197 ** `fill-single-char-nobreak-p' prevents fill from breaking a line after
198 a 1-letter word, which is an error according to Polish and
199 Czech typography rules. To globally enable this feature, evaluate:
200
201 (add-hook 'fill-nobreak-predicate 'fill-single-char-nobreak-p)
202
203 \f
204 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.4
205
206 ** `electric-indent-mode' is enabled by default.
207
208 ** Uniquify is enabled by default.
209
210 ** Command `rectangle-mark-mode' bound to C-x SPC makes a rectangular region.
211 Most commands are still unaware of it, but kill/yank do work on the rectangle.
212
213 ** C-x TAB enters a transient interactive mode.
214 You can then use the left/right cursor keys to move the block of text.
215
216 ** `tab-stop-list' is now implicitly extended to infinity by repeating
217 the last step. Its default value is changed to nil which means a tab
218 stop every `tab-width' columns.
219
220 ** `split-window' is no longer a command, just a non-interactive function.
221 As a command it was a special case of `split-window-below', and as such
222 superfluous. After being reimplemented in Lisp, its interactive form
223 was mistakenly retained.
224
225 ** New commands `toggle-frame-fullscreen' and `toggle-frame-maximized',
226 bound to <f11> and M-<f10>, respectively.
227
228 ** In keymaps where SPC scrolls, S-SPC now scrolls in the reverse direction.
229 Eg View mode, etc.
230
231 +++
232 ** New option `visual-order-cursor-movement'.
233 If this is non-nil, cursor motion with arrow keys will follow the
234 visual order of characters on the screen: <left> always moves to the
235 left, <right> always moves to the right, disregarding the surrounding
236 bidirectional context.
237
238 ** All register commands can now show help with preview.
239
240 ** New command `kmacro-to-register' to store keyboard macros in registers.
241
242 ** Shell Script mode
243
244 *** `sh-mode' now has the mode own `add-log-current-defun-function'.
245 You can pick the name of the function and the variables with `C-x 4 a'.
246
247 \f
248 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
249
250 ** The backtrace debugger can display local vars with `v'.
251
252 ** prolog-use-smie has been removed, along with the non-SMIE indentation code.
253
254 ** SMIE indentation can be customized via `smie-config'.
255 The customization can be guessed by Emacs by providing a sample indented
256 file and letting SMIE learn from it.
257
258 ** sh-script now uses its SMIE indentation algorithm by default.
259
260 ** The debugger's `e' command evaluates the code in the context at point.
261 This includes using the lexical environment at point, which means that
262 `e' now lets you access lexical variables as well.
263
264 ** `eshell' now supports visual subcommands and options
265 Eshell has been able to handle "visual" commands (interactive,
266 non-line oriented commands such as top that require display
267 capabilities not provided by eshell) by running them in an Emacs
268 terminal emulator. See `eshell-visual-commands'.
269
270 This feature has been extended to subcommands and options that make a
271 usually line-oriented command a visual command. Typical examples are
272 "git log" and "git <command> --help" which display their output in a
273 pager by default. See `eshell-visual-subcommands' and
274 `eshell-visual-options'.
275
276 ** If your Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support, you can use the new
277 built-in web browser `eww'.
278
279 ** `remember' can now store notes in separates files
280 You can use the new function `remember-store-in-files' within the
281 `remember-handler-functions' option.
282
283 See `remember-data-directory' and `remember-directory-file-name-format'
284 for new options related to this function.
285
286 ** More packages look for ~/.emacs.d/<foo> additionally to ~/.<foo>.
287 Affected files:
288 ~/.emacs.d/timelog replaces ~/.timelog
289 ~/.emacs.d/vip replaces ~/.vip
290 ~/.emacs.d/viper replaces ~/.viper
291 ~/.emacs.d/ido.last replaces ~/.ido.last
292 ~/.emacs.d/kkcrc replaces ~/.kkcrc
293 ~/.emacs.d/quickurls replaces ~/.quickurls
294 ~/.emacs.d/idlwave replaces ~/.idlwave
295 ~/.emacs.d/bdfcache.el replaces ~/.bdfcache.el
296 ~/.emacs.d/places replaces ~/.emacs-places
297 ~/.emacs.d/shadows replaces ~/.shadows
298 ~/.emacs.d/shadow_todo replaces ~/.shadow_todo
299 ~/.emacs.d/strokes replaces ~/.strokes
300 ~/.emacs.d/notes replaces ~/.notes
301 ~/.emacs.d/type-break replaces ~/.type-break
302 Also the following files used by the now obsolete otodo-mode.el:
303 ~/.emacs.d/todo-do replaces ~/.todo-do
304 ~/.emacs.d/todo-done replaces ~/.todo-done
305 ~/.emacs.d/todo-top replaces ~/.todo-top
306
307
308 ** Delphi mode is now called OPascal mode.
309 *** All delphi-* variables and functions have been renamed to opascal-*.
310 *** `delphi-newline-always-indents' is not supported any more.
311 Use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
312 *** `delphi-tab' is gone, replaced by `indent-for-tab-command'.
313
314 ** Eldoc Mode works properly in the minibuffer.
315
316 ** jit-lock-debug-mode lets you use the debuggers on code run via jit-lock.
317
318 ** completing-read-multiple's separator can now be a regexp.
319 The default separator is changed to allow surrounding spaces around the comma.
320
321 ** Battery
322
323 *** Battery information via the BSD `apm' utility is now supported.
324
325 ** Buffer Menu
326
327 *** `M-s a C-o' shows lines matching a regexp in marked buffers using Occur.
328
329 ** Calendar and Diary
330
331 *** New faces: `calendar-weekday-header', `calendar-weekend-header',
332 `calendar-month-header'.
333
334 *** New option `calendar-day-header-array'.
335
336 *** The variable `calendar-font-lock-keywords' is obsolete.
337
338 +++
339 *** New variable `diary-from-outlook-function', used by the command
340 `diary-from-outlook'.
341
342 ** VC and related modes
343
344 *** In VC directory mode, `D' displays diffs between VC-controlled
345 whole tree revisions.
346
347 *** In VC directory mode, `L' lists the change log for the current VC
348 controlled tree in a window.
349
350 *** In VC directory mode, `I' shows a log of changes that will be
351 received with a pull operation.
352
353 *** `C-x v G' (globally) and `G' (in VC directory mode) ignores a file
354 under current version control system. When called with a prefix
355 argument, you can remove a file from the ignored file list.
356
357 *** `cvs-append-to-ignore' has been renamed to `vc-cvs-append-to-ignore'
358 because it is moved to vc-cvs.el.
359
360 ** cl-lib
361
362 *** New macro cl-tagbody.
363
364 +++
365 *** letf is now just an alias for cl-letf.
366
367 ** Calc
368
369 *** Calc by default now uses the Gregorian calendar for all dates, and
370 uses January 1, 1 AD as its day number 1. Previously Calc used the
371 Julian calendar for dates before September 14, 1752, and it used
372 December 31, 1 BC as its day number 1; the new scheme is more
373 consistent with Calendar's calendrical system and day numbering.
374
375 *** The new variable `calc-gregorian-switch' lets you configure the
376 date when Calc switches from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
377 Nil, the default value, means to always use the Gregorian calendar.
378 The value (YEAR MONTH DAY) means to start using the Gregorian calendar
379 on the given date.
380
381 *** Support for ISO 8601 dates.
382
383 ** Desktop
384
385 *** `desktop-auto-save-timeout' defines the number of seconds between
386 auto-saves of the desktop.
387
388 *** `desktop-restore-frames', enabled by default, allows saving and
389 restoring the frame/window configuration (frameset). Additional options
390 `desktop-restore-in-current-display', `desktop-restore-reuses-frames'
391 and `desktop-restore-forces-onscreen' offer further customization.
392
393 ** Dired
394
395 *** New minor mode `dired-hide-details-mode' hides details.
396
397 ** ERC
398
399 *** New option `erc-accidental-paste-threshold-seconds'.
400 If set to a number, this can be used to avoid accidentally paste large
401 amounts of data into the ERC input.
402
403 ** EPA
404
405 *** New option `epa-mail-aliases'.
406
407 You can set this to a list of alias expansions for keys to use
408 in `epa-mail-encrypt'.
409
410 If one element of the variable's value is ("foo@bar.com" "foo@hello.org"),
411 that means: when one of the recipients of the message being encrypted
412 is `foo@bar.com', encrypt the message for `foo@hello.org' instead.
413
414 If one element of the variable's value is ("foo@bar.com"),
415 that means: when one of the recipients of the message being encrypted
416 is `foo@bar.com', ignore that name as regards encryption.
417 This is useful to avoid a query when you have no key for that name.
418
419 ---
420 ** New F90 mode option `f90-smart-end-names'.
421
422 ** Icomplete is a bit more like Ido.
423 *** key bindings to navigate through and select the completions.
424 *** The icomplete-separator is customizable, and its default has changed.
425 *** Removed icomplete-show-key-bindings.
426 *** Icomplete-mode by defaults applies to all forms of minibuffer completion.
427 (setq icomplete-with-completion-tables '(internal-complete-buffer))
428 will revert to the old behavior.
429
430
431 ** New features for Octave mode:
432 *** Font locking for texinfo comments and new keywords
433 *** Completion in Octave file buffers
434 *** Eldoc support
435 *** Jump to definition
436 *** Documentation lookup/search
437 *** Code cleanup and various bug fixes
438
439 ** Ido
440 *** Ido has a manual now.
441 *** `ido-use-virtual-buffers' takes a new value 'auto.
442 *** `ido-decorations' has been slightly extended to give a bit more control.
443
444 ** Image mode
445
446 *** New commands `n' (`image-next-file') and `p' (`image-previous-file')
447 visit the next image file and the previous image file in the same
448 directory, respectively.
449
450 *** New commands to show specific frames of multi-frame images.
451 `f' (`image-next-frame') and `b' (`image-previous-frame') visit the
452 next or previous frame. `F' (`image-goto-frame') shows a specific frame.
453
454 *** New commands to speed up, slow down, or reverse animation.
455
456 ---
457 *** The command `image-mode-fit-frame' deletes other windows.
458 When toggling, it restores the frame's previous window configuration.
459 It also has an optional frame argument, which can be used by Lisp
460 callers to fit the image to a frame other than the selected frame.
461
462 ** Info
463
464 *** New face `info-index-match' is used to highlight matches in index
465 entries displayed by `Info-index-next', `Info-virtual-index' and
466 `info-apropos'.
467
468 ** Hi-Lock
469
470 *** New option `hi-lock-auto-select-face'. When non-nil, hi-lock commands
471 will cycle through faces in `hi-lock-face-defaults' without prompting.
472
473 +++
474 *** New global command `M-s h .' (`highlight-symbol-at-point')
475 highlights the symbol found near point without prompting,
476 using the next face automatically.
477
478 ** Search and Replace
479
480 *** New global command `M-s .' (`isearch-forward-symbol-at-point')
481 starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search forward with the
482 symbol found near point added to the search string initially.
483
484 *** `C-x 8 RET' in Isearch mode reads a character by its Unicode name
485 and adds it to the search string.
486
487 *** `M-s i' in Isearch mode toggles the variable `isearch-invisible'
488 between nil and the value of the option `search-invisible' (or `open'
489 when it's nil).
490
491 *** `query-replace' skips invisible text when `search-invisible' is nil,
492 and opens overlays with hidden text when `search-invisible' is `open'.
493
494 +++
495 *** By default, prefix arguments do not now terminate Isearch mode.
496 Set `isearch-allow-prefix' to nil to restore old behavior.
497
498 *** More Isearch commands accept prefix arguments, namely
499 `isearch-printing-char', `isearch-quote-char', `isearch-yank-word',
500 `isearch-yank-line'.
501
502 *** Word search now matches whitespace at the beginning/end
503 of the search string if it contains leading/trailing whitespace.
504 In an incremental word search or when using a non-nil LAX argument
505 of `word-search-regexp', the lax matching can also match part of
506 the first word (in addition to the lax matching of the last word).
507 The same rules are now applied to the symbol search with the difference
508 that it matches symbols, and non-symbol characters between symbols.
509
510 ** MH-E has been updated to MH-E version 8.5.
511 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
512
513 ---
514 ** The unrmail command converts from BABYL to mboxrd rather than mboxo.
515 Customize `unrmail-mbox-format' to change this.
516
517 ---
518 ** Similarly, customize `rmail-mbox-format' to influence some minor aspects
519 of how Rmail displays non-MIME messages.
520
521 +++
522 ** New function `ses-rename-cell' to give SES cells arbitrary names.
523
524 ** trace-function was largely rewritten.
525 New features include:
526 - no prompting for the destination buffer, unless a prefix-arg was used.
527 - additionally to prompting for a destination buffer, when a prefix-arg is
528 used, the user can enter a "context", i.e. Lisp expression whose value at the
529 time the function is entered/exited will be printed along with the function
530 name and arguments. Useful to trace the value of (current-buffer) or
531 (point) when the function is invoked.
532
533 ** New command `delete-duplicate-lines' has new types of operation:
534 When its arg ADJACENT is non-nil (when called interactively with C-u C-u)
535 it works like the utility `uniq'. Otherwise by default it deletes
536 duplicate lines everywhere in the region without regard to adjacency.
537 When its arg KEEP-BLANKS is non-nil (when called interactively with
538 C-u C-u C-u), duplicate blank lines are preserved.
539
540 ** New `cycle-spacing' command allows cycling between having just one
541 space, no spaces, or reverting to the original spacing. Like
542 `just-one-space' command it can handle or ignore newlines and
543 leave different number of spaces.
544
545 ** Todo mode has been rewritten and enhanced.
546 New features include:
547 - support for multiple todo files and archive files of done items;
548 - renaming, reordering, moving, merging, and deleting categories;
549 - sortable tabular summaries of categories and the types of items they contain;
550 - cross-category lists of items filtered by specific criteria;
551 - more fine-grained interaction with the Emacs diary, by being able to decide
552 for each todo item whether it appears in the Fancy Diary display;
553 - highly flexible new item insertion and item editing;
554 - moving items between categories, storing done items in their category or in
555 archive files, undoing or unarchiving done items;
556 - reprioritizing items by inputting a numerical priority;
557 - extensive customizability of operation and display, including numerous faces.
558 The Todo mode user manual describes all commands and most user options.
559 To support some of these features, a new file format is used, which is
560 incompatible with the old format; however, you can convert old todo and done
561 item files to the new format on initializing the first new todo file, or at any
562 later time with the provided conversion command. The old version of
563 todo-mode.el has been made obsolete and renamed otodo-mode.el.
564
565 ** Tramp
566
567 *** The experimental url syntax for remote file names is withdrawn.
568
569 +++
570 *** New connection method "adb", which allows to access Android
571 devices by the Android Debug Bridge. The variable `tramp-adb-program'
572 can be used to adapt the path of the "adb" program, if needed.
573
574 *** The connection methods "plink1", "ssh1", "ssh2", "scp1", "scp2",
575 "scpc" and "rsyncc" are discontinued. The ssh option
576 "ControlMaster=auto" is set automatically in all ssh-based methods,
577 when possible.
578
579 +++
580 *** Handlers for `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' for remote machines
581 which support POSIX ACLs.
582
583 +++
584 *** Handlers for `file-notify-add-watch' and `file-notify-rm-watch'
585 for remote machines which support filesystem notifications.
586
587 ** VHDL mode
588
589 *** New options: `vhdl-actual-generic-name', `vhdl-beautify-options'.
590
591 *** New commands: `vhdl-fix-statement-region', `vhdl-fix-statement-buffer'.
592
593 ** Woman
594
595 *** The commands `woman-default-faces' and `woman-monochrome-faces'
596 are obsolete. Customize the `woman-*' faces instead.
597
598 ** Eshell
599
600 *** Added Eshell-Tramp module
601 External su and sudo commands are now the default; the internal,
602 Tramp-using variants can still be used by enabling the eshell-tramp
603 module.
604
605 ** Package
606
607 *** The format of `archive-contents' files, generated by package
608 repositories, has changed to allow a new (fifth) element in the data
609 vectors, containing an associative list with extra properties.
610
611 *** `describe-package' buffer uses the `:url' extra property to
612 display a `Homepage' header, if it's present.
613
614 ** New term.el option `term-suppress-hard-newline'.
615
616 ** Obsolete packages:
617
618 *** Iswitchb is made obsolete by icomplete-mode.
619
620 *** longlines.el is obsolete; use visual-line-mode instead.
621
622 +++
623 *** sup-mouse.el.
624
625 *** terminal.el is obsolete; use term.el instead.
626
627 *** The previous version of todo-mode.el is obsolete and renamed otodo-mode.el.
628
629 *** xesam.el.
630
631 +++
632 *** yow.el is obsolete; use fortune.el or cookie1.el instead.
633
634 ---
635 *** The Info-edit command is obsolete. Editing Info nodes by hand
636 has not been relevant for some time.
637
638 ** Shell
639
640 *** `explicit-bash-args' now always defaults to use --noediting.
641 During initialization, Emacs no longer expends a process to decide
642 whether it is safe to use Bash's --noediting option. These days
643 --noediting is ubiquitous; it was introduced in 1996 in Bash version 2.
644
645 +++
646 ** There is a new macro `skip-unless' for skipping ERT tests. See the manual.
647
648 ** Imenu
649
650 *** New option `imenu-generic-skip-comments-and-strings'.
651
652 ** Ruby mode
653
654 *** New option `ruby-encoding-magic-comment-style'.
655
656 *** New option `ruby-custom-encoding-magic-comment-template'.
657
658 *** New mode menu.
659
660 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
661
662 *** Add more Ruby file types to `auto-mode-alist'.
663
664 \f
665 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
666
667 ** New `superword-mode' in subword.el
668 `superword-mode' overrides the default word motion commands to treat
669 symbol_words as a single word, similar to what `subword-mode' does and
670 using the same internal functions.
671
672 ** New nadvice.el package offering lighter-weight advice facilities.
673 It is layered as:
674 - add-function/remove-function which can be used to add/remove code on any
675 function-carrying place, such as process-filters or `<foo>-function' hooks.
676 - advice-add/advice-remove to add/remove a piece of advice on a named function,
677 much like `defadvice' does.
678
679 ** New frameset.el package.
680 It provides a set of operations to save a frameset (the state of all
681 or a subset of the existing frames and windows, somewhat similar to a
682 frame configuration), both in-session and persistently, and restore it
683 at some point in the future.
684
685 +++
686 ** The package filenotify.el provides an interface for file system
687 notifications. It requires, that Emacs is compiled with one of the
688 low-level libraries gfilenotify.c, inotify.c or w32notify.c.
689
690 \f
691 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
692
693 ** `kill-region' lost its `yank-handler' optional argument.
694
695 ** `(input-pending-p)' no longer runs other timers which are ready to
696 run. The new optional CHECK-TIMERS param allows for the prior behavior.
697
698 ** `defvar' and `defcustom' in a let-binding affect the "external" default.
699
700 ** The syntax of ?» and ?« is now punctuation instead of matched parens.
701 Some languages match those as »...« and others as «...» so better stay neutral.
702
703 ** The default file coding for Emacs Lisp files is now utf-8.
704 (See file-coding-system-alist.) In most cases, this change is transparent, but
705 files that contain unusual characters without specifying an explicit coding
706 system may fail to load with obscure errors.
707 You should either convert them to utf-8 or add an explicit `coding:' cookie.
708
709 ** overriding-terminal-local-map does not replace the local keymaps any more.
710 It used to disable the minor mode, major mode, and text-property keymaps,
711 whereas now it simply has higher precedence.
712
713 ** Default process filters and sentinels are not nil any more.
714 Instead they default to a function which does what the nil value used to do.
715
716 ** `read-event' does not return decoded chars in ttys any more.
717 Just as was the case in Emacs-22 and before, decoding of tty input according to
718 keyboard-coding-system is not performed in read-event any more. But contrary
719 to that past, it is still done before input-decode-map/function-key-map/...
720
721 ** Removed inhibit-local-menu-bar-menus.
722
723 ** frame-local variables that affect redisplay do not work any more.
724 More specifically, the redisplay does not bother to check for a frame-local
725 value when looking up variables.
726
727 ** nil and "unbound" are indistinguishable in symbol-function.
728 `symbol-function' never signals `void-function' any more.
729 `fboundp' returns non-nil if the symbol was `fset' to nil.
730
731 ** `defadvice' does not honor the `freeze' flag and cannot advise
732 special-forms any more.
733
734 ** `dolist' in lexical-binding mode does not bind VAR in RESULT any more.
735 VAR was bound to nil which was not tremendously useful and just lead to
736 spurious warnings about an unused var.
737
738 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
739 The second argument is no longer an SELinux context, instead it is an
740 alist of extended attributes as returned by the new function
741 `file-extended-attributes'. The attributes can be applied to another
742 file using `set-file-extended-attributes'.
743
744 ** `visited-file-modtime' now returns -1 for nonexistent files.
745 Formerly it returned a list (-1 LOW USEC PSEC), but this was ambiguous
746 in the presence of files with negative time stamps.
747
748 ** The cars of the elements in `interpreter-mode-alist' are now treated
749 as regexps rather than literal strings. Technically this is an
750 incompatible change, but unless you are using interpreter-mode-alist
751 for something (not just adding elements to it), it ought not to affect you.
752
753 \f
754 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
755
756 ** New function get-pos-property.
757
758 ** New hook `pre-redisplay-function'.
759
760 +++
761 ** Functions that pop up menus and dialogs now work on all terminal types,
762 including TTYs.
763 This includes `x-popup-menu', `x-popup-dialog', `message-box',
764 `yes-or-no-p', etc.
765
766 The function `display-popup-menus-p' will now return non-nil for a
767 display or frame whenever a mouse is supported on that display or
768 frame.
769
770 ** New bool-vector set operation functions:
771 *** `bool-vector-exclusive-or'
772 *** `bool-vector-union'
773 *** `bool-vector-intersection'
774 *** `bool-vector-set-difference'
775 *** `bool-vector-not'
776 *** `bool-vector-subsetp'
777 *** `bool-vector-count-consecutive'
778 *** `bool-vector-count-population'
779
780 ** Comparison functions =, <, >, <=, >= now take many arguments.
781
782 ** The second argument of `eval' can now be a lexical-environment.
783
784 ** `with-demoted-errors' takes an additional argument `format'.
785 +++
786 ** New function `define-error'.
787
788 ** New hook `tty-setup-hook'.
789
790 +++
791 ** New macro with-eval-after-load. Like eval-after-load, but better behaved.
792
793 ** New library helpers.el for misc helper functions
794 *** `hash-table-keys'
795 *** `hash-table-values'
796 *** `string-blank-p`
797 *** `string-empty-p`
798 *** `string-join`
799 *** `string-reverse`
800 *** `string-trim-left'
801 *** `string-trim-right'
802 *** `string-trim'
803
804 ** Obsoleted functions:
805 *** `log10'
806 *** `dont-compile'
807 *** `lisp-complete-symbol'
808 *** `field-complete'
809 *** `minibuffer-completion-contents'
810 *** `isearch-nonincremental-exit-minibuffer'
811 *** `isearch-filter-visible'
812 *** `generic-make-keywords-list'
813
814 ** `with-wrapper-hook' is obsoleted by `add-function'.
815 The few hooks that used with-wrapper-hook are replaced as follows:
816 *** `abbrev-expand-function' obsoletes `abbrev-expand-functions'.
817 *** `completion-in-region-function' obsoletes `completion-in-region-functions'.
818 *** `filter-buffer-substring-function' obsoletes `filter-buffer-substring-functions'.
819
820 ** `byte-compile-interactive-only-functions' is now obsolete.
821 It has been replaced by the symbol property 'interactive-only.
822
823 ** `split-string' now takes an optional argument TRIM.
824 The value, if non-nil, is a regexp that specifies what to trim from
825 the start and end of each substring.
826
827 ** New function `string-suffix-p'.
828
829 ** `get-upcase-table' is obsoleted by the new `case-table-get-table'.
830
831 ** Support for filesystem notifications.
832 Emacs now supports notifications of filesystem changes, such as
833 creation, modification, and deletion of files. This requires the
834 `glib' API, or the 'inotify' API (on GNU/Linux systems only). On
835 MS-Windows systems, this is supported for Windows XP and newer
836 versions.
837
838 ** Changes in autorevert.el
839
840 ---
841 *** If Emacs is compiled with file notification support, notifications
842 are used instead of checking the time stamp of the files. You can
843 disable this by setting the user option `auto-revert-use-notify' to
844 nil. Alternatively, a regular expression of directories to be
845 excluded from file notifications can be specified by
846 `auto-revert-notify-exclude-dir-regexp'.
847
848 ---
849 *** The new user option `auto-revert-remote-files' enables reversion
850 of remote files when set to non-nil.
851
852 ** Face changes
853
854 *** The function `face-spec-set' is now analogous to `setq' for face specs.
855 Its third arg now accepts values specifying exactly which face spec to
856 set (defface, custom, or user spec), and it directly sets the relevant
857 property using the supplied face spec.
858
859 *** Face specs set via Custom themes now replace the `defface' spec
860 rather than inheriting from it (as do face specs set via Customize).
861
862 *** New face characteristic (supports :underline (:style wave))
863 specifies whether or not the terminal can display a wavy line.
864
865 *** New face spec attribute :distant-foreground
866 specifies foreground to use if background color is near the foreground
867 color that would otherwise have been used.
868
869 ** Image API
870
871 +++
872 *** `image-animated-p' is now `image-multi-frame-p'.
873 It returns non-nil for any image that contains multiple frames,
874 whether or not it specifies a frame delay.
875
876 +++
877 *** When animating images that do not specify a frame delay,
878 Emacs uses `image-default-frame-delay'.
879
880 +++
881 *** New functions `image-current-frame' and `image-show-frame' for getting
882 and setting the current frame of a multi-frame image.
883
884 *** You can change the speed of animated images.
885
886 ** Changes in encoding and decoding of text
887
888 ---
889 *** New coding-system `prefer-utf-8'.
890 This is like `undecided' but prefers UTF-8 on decoding if the text to
891 be decoded does not contain any invalid UTF-8 sequences. On encoding,
892 any non-ASCII characters are automatically encoded as UTF-8.
893
894 ---
895 *** New attributes of coding-systems whose type is `undecided'.
896 Two new attributes, `:inhibit-null-byte-detection' and
897 `:inhibit-iso-escape-detection', determine how to detect encoding of
898 text that includes null bytes and ISO-2022 escape sequences,
899 respectively. Each of these attributes can be either nil, zero, or
900 t. If it is t, decoding text ignores null bytes and, respectively,
901 ISO-2022 sequences. If it is nil, null bytes cause text to be decoded
902 with no-conversion and ISO-2022 sequences cause Emacs to assume the
903 text is encoded in one of the ISO-2022 encodings, such as
904 iso-2022-7bit. If the value is zero, Emacs consults the variables
905 inhibit-null-byte-detection and inhibit-iso-escape-detection, which
906 see.
907 The new attribute `:prefer-utf-8', if non-nil, causes Emacs to prefer
908 UTF-8 encoding and decoding, whenever possible.
909
910 These attributes are only meaningful for coding-systems of type
911 `undecided'. (The type of a coding-system is determined by its
912 `:coding-type' attribute and can be accessed by calling the
913 `coding-system-type' function.)
914
915 ** The function `set-visited-file-modtime' now accepts a 0 or -1 argument
916 with the same interpretation as the returned value of `visited-file-modtime'.
917
918 ** time-to-seconds is not obsolete any more.
919 ** New functions special-form-p and macrop.
920 ** Docstrings can be made dynamic by adding a `dynamic-docstring-function'
921 text-property on the first char.
922
923 ** The `defalias-fset-function' property lets you catch calls to defalias
924 and redirect them to your own function instead of `fset'.
925
926 ** The lock for 'DIR/FILE' is now 'DIR/.#FILE' and may be a regular file.
927 When you edit DIR/FILE, Emacs normally creates a symbolic link
928 DIR/.#FILE as a lock that warns other instances of Emacs that DIR/FILE
929 is being edited. Formerly, if there was already a non-symlink file
930 named DIR/.#FILE, Emacs fell back on the lock names DIR/.#FILE.0
931 through DIR/.#FILE.9. These fallbacks have been removed, so that
932 Emacs now no longer locks DIR/FILE in that case.
933
934 On file systems that do not support symbolic links, the lock is now a
935 regular file with contents being what would have been in the symlink.
936
937 ** The 9th element returned by `file-attributes' is now unspecified.
938 Formerly, it was t if the file's gid would change if file were deleted
939 and recreated. This value has been inaccurate for years on many
940 platforms, and nobody seems to have noticed or cared.
941
942 ** The function `file-ownership-preserved-p' now has an optional
943 argument GROUP which causes it check for file group too. This can be
944 used in place of the 9th element of `file-attributes'.
945
946 ** New functions `group-gid' and `group-real-gid'.
947
948 ** The 6th argument to `copy-file' has been renamed to
949 `preserve-extended-attributes' as it now handles both SELinux context
950 and ACL entries.
951
952 ** The `common-substring' argument of display-completion-list is obsolete.
953 Either use `completion-all-completions' which already returns highlighted
954 strings (including for partial or substring completion) or call
955 `completion-hilit-commonality' to add the highlight.
956
957 ** Changes to the Emacs Lisp Coding Conventions in Emacs 24.4
958
959 *** The package descriptor and name of global variables, constants,
960 and functions should be separated by two hyphens if the symbol is not
961 meant to be used by other packages.
962
963 \f
964 * Changes in Emacs 24.4 on Non-Free Operating Systems
965
966 ** The procedure for building Emacs on MS-Windows has changed.
967 It is now built by running the same configure script as on all other
968 platforms. This requires the MSYS environment and MinGW development
969 tools. See the updated instructions in nt/INSTALL for details.
970
971 Using the Posix configure script and Makefile's also means a change in
972 the directory structure of the Emacs installation on Windows. It is
973 now the same as on GNU and Unix systems. In particular, the auxiliary
974 programs, such as cmdproxy.exe and hexl.exe, are in
975 libexec/emacs/VERSION/i686-pc-mingw32 (where VERSION is the Emacs
976 version), version-independent site-lisp is in share/emacs/site-lisp,
977 version-specific Lisp files are in share/emacs/VERSION/lisp and in
978 share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, Info docs are in share/info, and data
979 files are in share/emacs/VERSION/etc. (Emacs knows about all these
980 directories and will find the files in there automatically; there's no
981 need to set any variables due to this change.)
982
983 +++
984 ** Emacs on Windows 2000 and later can now access files and directories
985 whose names cannot be encoded in the current system codepage.
986
987 The new variable `w32-unicode-filenames' controls this feature: if it
988 is t, Emacs uses Unicode APIs to pass file names to system calls,
989 which lifts the limitation of file names to the current locale.
990
991 +++
992 ** The "generate a backtrace on fatal error" feature now works on MS Windows.
993 The backtrace is written to the 'emacs_backtrace.txt' file in the
994 directory where Emacs was running.
995
996 +++
997 ** The variable `buffer-file-type' is no longer supported.
998 Setting it has no effect, and %t in the mode-line format is ignored.
999 Likewise, `file-name-buffer-file-type-alist' is now obsolete, and
1000 modifying it has no effect.
1001
1002 ---
1003 ** Lock files now work on MS-Windows.
1004 This allows to avoid losing your edits if the same file is being
1005 edited in another Emacs session or by another user. See the node
1006 "Interlocking" in the Emacs User Manual for the details. To disable
1007 file locking, customize `create-lockfiles' to nil.
1008
1009 ** Improved fullscreen support on Mac OS X.
1010 Both native (>= OSX 10.7) and "old style" fullscreen are supported.
1011 Customize `ns-use-native-fullscreen' to change style. For >= 10.7
1012 native is the default.
1013
1014 \f
1015 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.3
1016
1017 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+ version 3.
1018 If you don't pass `--with-x-toolkit' to configure, or if you use
1019 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk' or `--with-x-toolkit=yes', configure will try
1020 to build with Gtk+ version 3, and if that fails, try Gtk+ version 2.
1021 You can explicitly require a specific version by passing
1022 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk2' or `--with-x-toolkit=gtk3' to configure.
1023
1024 ** New configure option `--enable-link-time-optimization', to utilize
1025 an appropriate feature provided by GCC since version 4.5.0.
1026
1027 ** New configure option `--without-all' to disable most of the optional
1028 features (image support, etc.) that are normally enabled by default.
1029
1030 ** New configure option `--enable-gcc-warnings' (for developing/debugging
1031 Emacs). If building with GCC, this enables compile-time checks that
1032 warn/give errors about possibly-questionable C code. On a recent GNU
1033 system there should be no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems
1034 the results may be useful to developers.
1035
1036 ** The configure option `--enable-use-lisp-union-type' has been
1037 renamed to `--enable-check-lisp-object-type', as the resulting
1038 Lisp_Object type no longer uses a union to implement the compile time
1039 check that this option enables.
1040
1041 ** The configure option `--disable-maintainer-mode' has been removed,
1042 as it was confusingly-named and rarely useful.
1043
1044 ** The configure options `--program-prefix', `--program-suffix', and
1045 `--program-transform-name' apply to more than just the installed
1046 binaries. Now they also affect the man pages, icons, and the
1047 etc/emacs.desktop file; but not the info pages, since this would break
1048 links between the various manuals.
1049
1050 ** You can use `NO_BIN_LINK=t make install' to prevent the installation
1051 overwriting "emacs" in the installation bin/ directory with a link
1052 to "emacs-VERSION".
1053
1054 ** Emacs uses libtinfo in preference to libncurses, if available.
1055
1056 ** On FreeBSD and NetBSD, configure no longer adds /usr/local/lib and
1057 /usr/pkg/lib to the linker search path. You must add them yourself if
1058 you want them.
1059
1060 ** The standalone scripts `rcs-checkin' and `vcdiff' have been removed
1061 (from the bin and libexec directories, respectively). The former is
1062 no longer relevant, the latter is replaced by lisp (in vc-sccs.el).
1063
1064 \f
1065 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.3
1066
1067 ** Emacs no longer searches for `leim-list.el' files beneath the standard
1068 lisp/ directory. There should not be any there anyway. If you have
1069 been adding them there, put them somewhere else; e.g., site-lisp.
1070
1071 ** The `--no-site-lisp' command line option now works for Nextstep builds.
1072
1073 \f
1074 * Changes in Emacs 24.3
1075
1076 ** Help
1077
1078 *** `C-h f' (`describe-function') can now perform autoloading.
1079 When this command is called for an autoloaded function whose docstring
1080 contains a key substitution construct, that function's library is
1081 automatically loaded, so that the documentation can be shown
1082 correctly. To disable this, set `help-enable-auto-load' to nil.
1083
1084 *** `C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded",
1085 even after their associated libraries have been loaded (and the
1086 autoloads have been redefined as functions).
1087
1088 ** ImageMagick
1089
1090 *** Images displayed via ImageMagick now support transparency and the
1091 :background image specification property.
1092
1093 *** When available, ImageMagick support is automatically enabled.
1094 It is no longer necessary to call `imagemagick-register-types'
1095 explicitly to install ImageMagick image types; that function is called
1096 automatically at startup, or when customizing an imagemagick- option.
1097
1098 *** Setting `imagemagick-types-inhibit' to t now disables the use of
1099 ImageMagick to view images. (You must call `imagemagick-register-types'
1100 afterwards if you do not use customize to change this.)
1101
1102 *** The new variable `imagemagick-enabled-types' also affects which
1103 ImageMagick types are treated as images. The function
1104 `imagemagick-filter-types' returns the list of types that will be
1105 treated as images.
1106
1107 *** ImageMagick images now support the :max-width and :max-height
1108 keywords.
1109
1110 *** Some data types aren't auto-detected by ImageMagick. Adding
1111 :format to `create-image' may help if the content type is in the
1112 new variable `image-format-suffixes'.
1113
1114 ** Minibuffer
1115
1116 *** In minibuffer filename prompts, `C-M-f' and `C-M-b' now move to the
1117 next and previous path separator, respectively.
1118
1119 *** `minibuffer-electric-default-mode' can shorten "(default ...)" to "[...]"
1120 in minibuffer prompts. Just set `minibuffer-eldef-shorten-default'
1121 non-nil before enabling the mode.
1122
1123 ** Mode line
1124
1125 *** New option `mode-line-default-help-echo' specifies the help text
1126 (shown in a tooltip or in the echo area) for any part of the mode line
1127 that does not have its own specialized help text.
1128
1129 *** You can now click mouse-3 in the coding system indicator to invoke
1130 `set-buffer-file-coding-system'.
1131
1132 ** Server and client
1133
1134 *** emacsclient now obeys string values for `initial-buffer-choice',
1135 if it is told to open a new frame without specifying any file to visit
1136 or expression to evaluate.
1137
1138 *** New option `server-auth-key' specifies a shared server key.
1139
1140 ** Emacs now generates backtraces on fatal errors.
1141 On encountering a fatal error, Emacs now outputs a textual description
1142 of the fatal signal, and a short backtrace on platforms like glibc
1143 that support backtraces.
1144
1145 ** `C-x C-q' is now bound to the new minor mode `read-only-mode'.
1146 This minor mode replaces `toggle-read-only', which is now obsolete.
1147
1148 ** Most `y-or-n' prompts now allow you to scroll the selected window.
1149 Typing `C-v' or `M-v' at a y-or-n prompt scrolls forward or backward
1150 respectively, without exiting from the prompt.
1151
1152 ** In the Package Menu, newly-available packages are listed as "new",
1153 and sorted above the other "available" packages by default.
1154
1155 ** If your Emacs was built from a bzr checkout, the new variable
1156 `emacs-bzr-version' contains information about the bzr revision used.
1157
1158 ** New option `create-lockfiles' specifies usage of lockfiles.
1159 It defaults to t. Changing it to nil inhibits the creation of lock
1160 files (use this with caution).
1161
1162 ** New option `enable-remote-dir-locals', if non-nil, allows directory-local
1163 variables on remote hosts.
1164
1165 ** The entry for PCL-CVS has been removed from the Tools menu.
1166 The PCL-CVS commands are still available via the keyboard.
1167
1168 ** Using "unibyte: t" in Lisp source files is obsolete.
1169 Use "coding: raw-text" instead.
1170
1171 ** In the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug', the `C-c m' binding
1172 has been changed to `C-c M-i' (`report-emacs-bug-insert-to-mailer').
1173 The previous binding, introduced in Emacs 24.1, was a mistake, because
1174 `C-c LETTER' bindings are reserved for user customizations.
1175
1176 ** Internationalization
1177
1178 *** New language environment: Persian.
1179
1180 *** New input method `vietnamese-vni'.
1181
1182 ** Nextstep (GNUstep / Mac OS X) port
1183
1184 *** Support for fullscreen and the frame parameter fullscreen.
1185
1186 *** A file dialog is used for open/save operations initiated from the
1187 menu/toolbar.
1188
1189 \f
1190 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.3
1191
1192 ** Search and Replace
1193
1194 *** Non-regexp Isearch now performs "lax" space matching.
1195 Each sequence of spaces in the supplied search string may match any
1196 sequence of one or more whitespace characters, as specified by the
1197 variable `search-whitespace-regexp'. (This variable is also used by a
1198 similar existing feature for regexp Isearch.)
1199
1200 *** New Isearch command `M-s SPC' toggles lax space matching.
1201 This applies to both ordinary and regexp Isearch.
1202
1203 *** New option `replace-lax-whitespace'.
1204 If non-nil, `query-replace' uses flexible whitespace matching too.
1205 The default is nil.
1206
1207 *** Global `M-s _' starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search,
1208 and `M-s _' in Isearch toggles symbol search mode.
1209 `M-s c' in Isearch toggles search case-sensitivity.
1210
1211 ** Navigation commands
1212
1213 *** New binding `M-g c' for `goto-char'.
1214
1215 *** New binding `M-g TAB' for `move-to-column'.
1216
1217 *** `M-g TAB' (`move-to-column') prompts for a column number if called
1218 interactively with no prefix arg. Previously, it moved to column 1.
1219
1220 ** New option `yank-handled-properties' allows processing of text
1221 properties on yanked text, in ways that are more general than just
1222 removing them (as is done by `yank-excluded-properties').
1223
1224 ** New option `delete-trailing-lines' specifies whether
1225 M-x delete-trailing-whitespace should delete trailing lines at the end
1226 of the buffer. It defaults to t.
1227
1228 ** `C-u M-=' now counts lines/words/characters in the entire buffer.
1229
1230 ** `C-x 8 RET' is now bound to `insert-char', which is now a command.
1231 `ucs-insert' is now an obsolete alias for `insert-char'.
1232
1233 ** The `z' key no longer has a binding in most special modes.
1234 It used to be bound to `kill-this-buffer', but `z' is too easy to
1235 accidentally type.
1236
1237 ** New command `C-x r M-w' (`copy-rectangle-as-kill').
1238 It copies the region-rectangle as the last rectangle kill.
1239
1240 ** Registers
1241
1242 *** `C-x r +' is now overloaded to invoke `append-to-register'.
1243
1244 *** New option `register-separator' specifies the register containing
1245 the text to put between collected texts for use with
1246 M-x append-to-register and M-x prepend-to-register.
1247
1248 \f
1249 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.3
1250
1251 ** Common Lisp emulation (CL)
1252
1253 *** CL's main entry is now (require 'cl-lib).
1254 `cl-lib' is like the old `cl' except that it uses the namespace cleanly;
1255 i.e., all its definitions have the "cl-" prefix (and internal definitions
1256 use the "cl--" prefix).
1257
1258 If `cl' provided a feature under the name `foo', then `cl-lib'
1259 provides it under the name `cl-foo' instead; with the exceptions of the
1260 few `cl' definitions that had to use `foo*' to avoid conflicts with
1261 pre-existing Elisp entities. These have been renamed to `cl-foo'
1262 rather than `cl-foo*'.
1263
1264 The old `cl' is now deprecated and is mainly just a bunch of aliases that
1265 provide the old, non-prefixed names. Some exceptions are listed below:
1266
1267 *** `cl-flet' is not like `flet' (which is deprecated).
1268 Instead it obeys the behavior of Common-Lisp's `flet'.
1269 In particular, in cl-flet function definitions are lexically scoped,
1270 whereas in flet the scoping is dynamic.
1271
1272 *** `cl-labels' is slightly different from `labels'.
1273 The difference is that it relies on the `lexical-binding' machinery
1274 (as opposed to the `lexical-let' machinery used previously) to capture
1275 definitions in closures, so such closures will only work if `lexical-binding'
1276 is in use.
1277
1278 *** `cl-letf' is not exactly like `letf'.
1279 The only difference is in details that relate to some deprecated usage
1280 of `symbol-function' in place forms.
1281
1282 *** `progv' was rewritten to use the `let' machinery.
1283 A side effect is that variables without corresponding values are bound
1284 to nil rather than being made unbound.
1285
1286 *** The following methods of extending `setf' are obsolete
1287 (use features from gv.el instead):
1288 `define-modify-macro' (use `gv-letplace')
1289 `defsetf' (use `gv-define-simple-setter' or `gv-define-setter')
1290 `define-setf-expander' (use `gv-define-setter' or `gv-define-expander')
1291 `get-setf-method' no longer exists (see "Incompatible Lisp Changes")
1292
1293 ** Diff mode
1294
1295 *** Changes are now highlighted using the same color scheme as in
1296 modern VCSes. Deletions are displayed in red (new faces
1297 `diff-refine-removed' and `smerge-refined-removed', and new definition
1298 of `diff-removed'), insertions in green (new faces `diff-refine-added'
1299 and `smerge-refined-added', and new definition of `diff-added').
1300
1301 *** The variable `diff-use-changed-face' defines whether to use the
1302 face `diff-changed', or `diff-removed' and `diff-added' to highlight
1303 changes in context diffs.
1304
1305 *** The new command `diff-delete-trailing-whitespace' removes trailing
1306 whitespace introduced by a diff.
1307
1308 ** Ediff now uses the same color scheme as Diff mode.
1309
1310 ** Python mode
1311
1312 A new version of python.el, which provides several new features, including:
1313 per-buffer shells, better indentation, Python 3 support, and improved
1314 shell-interaction compatible with iPython (and virtually any other
1315 text based shell).
1316
1317 *** Some user options have been replaced/renamed, including (old -> new):
1318 **** python-indent -> python-indent-offset
1319 **** python-guess-indent -> python-indent-guess-indent-offset
1320 **** python-pdbtrack-do-tracking-p -> python-pdbtrack-activate
1321 **** python-use-skeletons -> python-skeleton-autoinsert
1322
1323 *** Some user options have been removed, including:
1324
1325 **** `python-indent-string-contents': Strings are never indented.
1326
1327 **** `python-honour-comment-indentation':
1328 Comments are always considered as indentation markers.
1329
1330 **** `python-continuation-offset': Indentation is automatically
1331 calculated in a pep8 compliant way depending on the context.
1332
1333 **** `python-shell-prompt-alist', `python-shell-continuation-prompt-alist':
1334 Have no direct mapping as the shell interaction is completely different.
1335
1336 **** `python-python-command', `python-jython-command':
1337 Replaced by `python-shell-interpreter'.
1338
1339 **** `inferior-python-filter-regexp', `python-remove-cwd-from-path',
1340 `python-pdbtrack-minor-mode-string', `python-source-modes':
1341 No longer relevant.
1342
1343 *** Some commands have been replaced (old -> new):
1344 **** python-insert-class -> python-skeleton-class
1345 **** python-insert-def -> python-skeleton-def
1346 **** python-insert-for -> python-skeleton-for
1347 **** python-insert-if -> python-skeleton-if
1348 **** python-insert-try/except -> python-skeleton-try
1349 **** python-insert-try/finally -> python-skeleton-try
1350 **** python-insert-while -> python-skeleton-while
1351 **** python-find-function -> python-nav-jump-to-defun
1352 **** python-next-statement -> python-nav-forward-sentence
1353 **** python-previous-statement -> python-nav-backward-sentence
1354 **** python-beginning-of-defun-function -> python-nav-beginning-of-defun
1355 **** python-end-of-defun-function -> python-nav-end-of-defun
1356 **** python-send-buffer -> python-shell-send-buffer
1357 **** python-send-defun -> python-shell-send-defun
1358 **** python-send-region -> python-shell-send-region
1359 **** python-send-region-and-go -> emulate with python-shell-send-region
1360 and python-shell-switch-to-shell
1361 **** python-send-string -> python-shell-send-string
1362 **** python-switch-to-python -> python-shell-switch-to-shell
1363 **** python-describe-symbol -> python-eldoc-at-point
1364
1365 ** D-Bus
1366
1367 *** New variables `dbus-compiled-version' and `dbus-runtime-version'.
1368
1369 *** The D-Bus object manager interface is implemented.
1370
1371 *** Variables of type :(u)int32 and :(u)int64 accept floating points,
1372 if their value does not fit into Emacs's integer range.
1373
1374 *** The function `dbus-call-method' is now non-blocking.
1375 It can be interrupted by `C-g'. `dbus-call-method-non-blocking' is obsolete.
1376
1377 *** Signals can also be sent as unicast messages.
1378
1379 *** The argument list of `dbus-register-signal' has been extended,
1380 according to the new match rule types of D-Bus.
1381
1382 *** `dbus-init-bus' supports private connections.
1383
1384 *** There is a new function `dbus-setenv'.
1385
1386 ** `desktop-path' no longer includes the "." directory.
1387 Desktop files are now located in ~/.emacs.d by default.
1388
1389 ** Dired
1390
1391 *** `dired-do-async-shell-command' executes each file sequentially
1392 if the command ends in `;' (when operating on multiple files).
1393 Otherwise, it executes the command on each file in parallel.
1394
1395 *** Typing `M-n' in the minibuffer of `dired-do-chmod', `dired-do-chgrp',
1396 `dired-do-chown', and `dired-do-touch' yanks the attributes of the
1397 file at point.
1398
1399 *** When the region is active, `m' (`dired-mark'), `u' (`dired-unmark'),
1400 `DEL' (`dired-unmark-backward'), and `d' (`dired-flag-file-deletion')
1401 mark/unmark/flag all files in the active region.
1402
1403 *** The minibuffer default for `=' (`dired-diff') has changed.
1404 It is now the backup file for the file at point, if one exists.
1405 In Transient Mark mode the default is the file at the active mark.
1406
1407 *** `M-=' is no longer bound to `dired-backup-diff' in Dired buffers.
1408 The global binding for `M-=', `count-words-region' is in effect.
1409
1410 ** ERC
1411
1412 *** New module "notifications", which can send a notification when you
1413 receive a private message or your nickname is mentioned.
1414
1415 *** ERC will look up server/channel names via auth-source and use any
1416 channel keys found.
1417
1418 *** New option `erc-lurker-hide-list', similar to `erc-hide-list', but
1419 only applies to messages sent by lurkers.
1420
1421 ** reStructuredText mode
1422
1423 *** Keybindings (see `C-c C-h'), TAB indentation, filling and auto-filling,
1424 fontification, comment handling, and customization have all been revised
1425 and improved.
1426
1427 *** Support for `imenu' and `which-function-mode'.
1428
1429 *** The reStructuredText syntax is more closely covered.
1430 Sphinx support has been improved.
1431
1432 *** `rst-insert-list' inserts new list or continues existing lists.
1433
1434 *** A negative prefix argument always works for `rst-adjust'.
1435
1436 *** The window configuration is reset after displaying a TOC.
1437
1438 *** The constant `rst-version' describes the rst.el package version.
1439
1440 ** Ruby mode
1441
1442 *** Support for percent literals and recognition of regular expressions
1443 in method calls without parentheses with more methods, including Cucumber
1444 steps definitions.
1445
1446 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
1447
1448 *** New command `ruby-toggle-block', bound to `C-c {'.
1449
1450 *** Some non-standard keybindings/commands have been removed:
1451
1452 **** `ruby-electric-brace'; use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
1453
1454 **** `ruby-mark-defun'; use `mark-defun'.
1455
1456 **** `ruby-beginning-of-defun' and `ruby-end-of-defun' are replaced by
1457 appropriate settings for the variables `beginning-of-defun-function'
1458 and `end-of-defun-function'.
1459
1460 **** Non-standard keybindings for `backward-kill-word', `comment-region',
1461 `reindent-then-newline-and-indent' and `newline' have been removed.
1462
1463 ** Shell Script mode
1464
1465 *** Pairing of parens/quotes uses `electric-pair-mode' instead of skeleton-pair.
1466
1467 *** `sh-electric-here-document-mode' now controls auto-insertion of here-docs.
1468
1469 *** `sh-use-smie' lets you choose a new indentation and navigation code.
1470
1471 ** VHDL mode
1472
1473 *** The free software compiler GHDL is supported (and now the default).
1474
1475 *** Support for the VHDL-AMS packages has been added/updated.
1476
1477 *** Updated to the 2002 revision of the VHDL standard.
1478
1479 *** Accepts \r and \f as whitespace.
1480
1481 ** Apropos
1482
1483 *** The faces used by Apropos are now directly customizable.
1484 These faces are named `apropos-symbol', `apropos-keybinding', and so on;
1485 see the `apropos' Custom group for details.
1486
1487 *** The old options whose values specified faces to use have been removed
1488 (i.e. `apropos-symbol-face', `apropos-keybinding-face', etc.).
1489
1490 ** Buffer Menu
1491
1492 *** This package has been rewritten to use Tabulated List mode.
1493
1494 *** Option `Buffer-menu-buffer+size-width' is now obsolete.
1495 Use `Buffer-menu-name-width' and `Buffer-menu-size-width' instead.
1496
1497 ** Calc
1498
1499 *** Algebraic simplification mode is now the default.
1500 To restrict to the limited simplifications given by the former
1501 default simplification mode, use `m I'.
1502
1503 ** Calendar
1504
1505 *** You can customize the header text that appears above each calendar month.
1506 See the variable `calendar-month-header'.
1507
1508 *** New LaTeX calendar style, produced by `cal-tex-cursor-week2-summary'.
1509
1510 *** The calendars produced by cal-html include holidays.
1511 Customize `cal-html-holidays' to change this.
1512
1513 ** CEDET
1514
1515 *** The major modes from the parser generators "Bovine" and "Wisent"
1516 are now properly integrated in Emacs. The file suffixes ".by" and ".wy"
1517 are in `auto-mode-alist', and the corresponding manuals are included.
1518
1519 *** EDE
1520
1521 **** Menu support for the "Configuration" feature. This allows users to
1522 choose the active configuration (such as debug or install) from the menu.
1523
1524 **** New command `ede-set' to interactively set project-local variables.
1525
1526 **** Support for compiling, debugging, and running in "generic" projects.
1527
1528 **** Autoconf editing support for M4 macros with complex arguments.
1529
1530 **** Compilation support for the "linux" project type.
1531
1532 **** "simple" projects have been removed; use "generic" projects instead.
1533
1534 *** Semantic
1535
1536 **** Support for parsing #include statements inside a namespace in C/C++.
1537
1538 **** Improved support for 'extern "C"' declarations in C/C++.
1539
1540 **** The ability to ignore more common special C/C++ preprocessor symbols,
1541 such as '__nonnull' and '__asm'. Add '__cplusplus' macro when parsing C++.
1542 If available, include cdefs.h as an additional source of preprocessor symbols.
1543
1544 **** Improved C/C++ function pointer parsing.
1545
1546 **** In Python, support for converting imports to include file names.
1547
1548 **** Ability to dynamically determine the Python load path.
1549
1550 **** Support for the Python 'WITH' and 'AT' keywords.
1551
1552 **** Improved tooltip completion.
1553
1554 *** SRecode
1555
1556 **** The SRecode manual is now included.
1557
1558 **** Tag generation supports constructor/destructor settings and system
1559 include differentiation.
1560
1561 **** Addition of 'Framework' support: Frameworks are specified when a
1562 particular kind of library (such as Android) is needed in a common language
1563 mode (like Java).
1564
1565 **** Support for nested templates and let variables override based on priority.
1566
1567 **** Support for merging tables from multiple related modes, such as
1568 default -> c++ -> arduino.
1569
1570 ** Compile has a new option `compilation-always-kill'.
1571
1572 ** Customize
1573
1574 *** `custom-reset-button-menu' now defaults to t.
1575
1576 *** Non-option variables are never matched in `customize-apropos' and
1577 `customize-apropos-options' (i.e., the prefix argument does nothing for
1578 these commands now).
1579
1580 ** Term
1581
1582 *** The variables `term-default-fg-color' and `term-default-bg-color'
1583 are now deprecated in favor of the customizable face `term'.
1584
1585 *** You can customize how to display ANSI terminal colors and styles
1586 by customizing the corresponding `term-color-<COLOR>',
1587 `term-color-underline' and `term-color-bold' faces.
1588
1589 ** Tramp
1590
1591 *** The syntax has been extended in order to allow ad-hoc proxy definitions.
1592
1593 *** Remote processes are now also supported on remote MS-Windows hosts.
1594
1595 ** URL
1596
1597 *** Structs made by `url-generic-parse-url' have nil `attributes' slot.
1598 Previously, this slot stored semicolon-separated attribute-value pairs
1599 appended to some imap URLs, but this is not compatible with RFC 3986.
1600 So now the `filename' slot stores the entire path and query components,
1601 and the `attributes' slot is always nil.
1602
1603 *** New function `url-encode-url' for encoding a URI string.
1604 The `url-retrieve' function now uses this to encode its URL argument,
1605 in case that is not properly encoded.
1606
1607 *** New command `url-cookie-list' displays all the current cookies, and
1608 allows deleting selected cookies.
1609
1610 ** notifications.el supports now version 1.2 of the Notifications API.
1611 The function `notifications-get-capabilities' returns the supported
1612 server properties.
1613
1614 ** Flymake uses fringe bitmaps to indicate errors and warnings.
1615 See `flymake-fringe-indicator-position', `flymake-error-bitmap' and
1616 `flymake-warning-bitmap'.
1617
1618 ** The FFAP option `ffap-url-unwrap-remote' can now be a list of strings,
1619 specifying URL types that should be converted to remote file names at
1620 the FFAP prompt. The default is now '("ftp").
1621
1622 ** New Ibuffer `derived-mode' filter, bound to `/ M'.
1623 The old binding for `/ M' (filter by used-mode) is now bound to `/ m'.
1624
1625 ** New option `mouse-avoidance-banish-position' specifies where the
1626 `banish' mouse avoidance setting moves the mouse.
1627
1628 ** In Perl mode, new option `perl-indent-parens-as-block' causes non-block
1629 closing brackets to be aligned with the line of the opening bracket.
1630
1631 ** In Proced mode, new command `proced-renice' renices marked processes.
1632
1633 ** New option `async-shell-command-buffer' specifies the buffer to use
1634 for a new asynchronous `shell-command' when the default output buffer
1635 `*Async Shell Command*' is already in use.
1636
1637 ** SQL mode has a new option `sql-db2-escape-newlines'.
1638 If non-nil, newlines sent to the command interpreter will be escaped
1639 by a backslash. The default does not escape the newlines and assumes
1640 that the sql statement will be terminated by a semicolon.
1641
1642 ** New command `tabulated-list-sort', bound to `S' in Tabulated List mode
1643 (and modes that derive from it), sorts the column at point, or the Nth
1644 column if a numeric prefix argument is given.
1645
1646 ** `which-func-modes' now defaults to t, so Which Function mode, when
1647 enabled, applies to all applicable major modes.
1648
1649 ** `winner-mode-hook' now runs when the mode is disabled, as well as when
1650 it is enabled.
1651
1652 ** Follow mode no longer works by using advice.
1653 The option `follow-intercept-processes' has been removed.
1654
1655 ** `javascript-generic-mode' is now an obsolete alias for `js-mode'.
1656
1657 ** Hooks renamed to avoid obsolete "-hooks" suffix:
1658 *** semantic-lex-reset-hooks -> semantic-lex-reset-functions
1659 *** semantic-change-hooks -> semantic-change-functions
1660 *** semantic-edits-new-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-new-change-functions
1661 *** semantic-edits-delete-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-delete-change-functions
1662 *** semantic-edits-reparse-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-reparse-change-functions
1663 *** semanticdb-save-database-hooks -> semanticdb-save-database-functions
1664 *** c-prepare-bug-report-hooks -> c-prepare-bug-report-hook
1665 *** rcirc-sentinel-hooks -> rcirc-sentinel-functions
1666 *** rcirc-receive-message-hooks -> rcirc-receive-message-functions
1667 *** rcirc-activity-hooks -> rcirc-activity-functions
1668 *** rcirc-print-hooks -> rcirc-print-functions
1669 *** dbus-event-error-hooks -> dbus-event-error-functions
1670 *** eieio-pre-method-execution-hooks -> eieio-pre-method-execution-functions
1671 *** checkdoc-style-hooks -> checkdoc-style-functions
1672 *** checkdoc-comment-style-hooks -> checkdoc-comment-style-functions
1673 *** archive-extract-hooks -> archive-extract-hook
1674 *** filesets-cache-fill-content-hooks -> filesets-cache-fill-content-hook
1675 *** hfy-post-html-hooks -> hfy-post-html-hook
1676 *** nndiary-request-create-group-hooks -> nndiary-request-create-group-functions
1677 *** nndiary-request-update-info-hooks -> nndiary-request-update-info-functions
1678 *** nndiary-request-accept-article-hooks -> nndiary-request-accept-article-functions
1679 *** gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-hooks -> gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-functions
1680
1681 ** Obsolete packages
1682
1683 *** assoc.el
1684 In most cases, assoc+member+push+delq work just as well.
1685 And in any case it's just a terrible package: ugly semantics, terrible
1686 inefficiency, and not namespace-clean.
1687 *** bruce.el
1688 *** cust-print.el
1689 *** ledit.el
1690 *** mailpost.el
1691 *** mouse-sel.el
1692 *** patcomp.el
1693
1694 \f
1695 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
1696
1697 ** Docstrings starting with `*' no longer indicate user options.
1698 Only variables defined using `defcustom' are considered user options.
1699 The function `user-variable-p' is now an obsolete alias for
1700 `custom-variable-p'.
1701
1702 ** The return values of `defalias', `defun' and `defmacro' have changed,
1703 and are now undefined. For backwards compatibility, `defun' and
1704 `defmacro' currently return the name of the newly defined
1705 function/macro, but this should not be relied upon.
1706
1707 ** `random' by default now returns a different random sequence in
1708 every Emacs run. Use `(random S)', where S is a string, to set the
1709 random seed to a value based on S, in order to get a repeatable
1710 sequence in later calls.
1711
1712 ** If the NEWTEXT arg to `replace-match' contains a substring "\?",
1713 that substring is inserted literally even if the LITERAL arg is
1714 non-nil, instead of causing an error to be signaled.
1715
1716 ** `select-window' now always makes the window's buffer current.
1717 It does so even if the window was selected before.
1718
1719 ** The function `x-select-font' can return a font spec, instead of a
1720 font name as a string. Whether it returns a font spec or a font name
1721 depends on the graphical library.
1722
1723 ** `face-spec-set' no longer sets frame-specific attributes when the
1724 third argument is a frame (that usage was obsolete since Emacs 22.2).
1725
1726 ** `set-buffer-multibyte' now signals an error in narrowed buffers.
1727
1728 ** The CL package's `get-setf-method' function no longer exists.
1729 Generalized variables are now part of core Emacs Lisp, and implemented
1730 differently to the way cl.el used to do it. It is not possible to
1731 define a compatible replacement for `get-setf-method'. See the file
1732 gv.el for internal details of the new implementation.
1733
1734 ** The arguments of `dbus-register-signal' are no longer just strings,
1735 but keywords or keyword-string pairs. The old argument list will
1736 still be supported for Emacs 24.x.
1737
1738 ** Miscellaneous name changes
1739 Some Lisp symbols have been renamed to correct their spelling,
1740 or to be more consistent with standard Emacs terminology.
1741
1742 *** Renamed functions
1743 **** hangul-input-method-inactivate -> hangul-input-method-deactivate
1744 **** inactivate-input-method -> deactivate-input-method
1745 **** quail-inactivate -> quail-deactivate
1746 **** robin-inactivate -> robin-deactivate
1747 **** viper-inactivate-input-method -> viper-deactivate-input-method
1748 **** viper-inactivate-input-method-action ->
1749 viper-deactivate-input-method-action
1750 **** ucs-input-inactivate -> ucs-input-deactivate
1751
1752 *** Renamed hooks
1753 The old hooks are still supported for backward compatibility, but they
1754 are deprecated and will be removed eventually.
1755 **** input-method-inactivate-hook -> input-method-deactivate-hook
1756 **** robin-inactivate-hook -> robin-deactivate-hook
1757 **** quail-inactivate-hook -> quail-deactivate-hook
1758
1759 *** Renamed variables
1760 **** follow-deactive-menu -> follow-inactive-menu
1761 **** inactivate-current-input-method-function ->
1762 deactivate-current-input-method-function
1763
1764 ** Some obsolete functions, variables, and faces have been removed:
1765 *** `last-input-char', `last-command-char', `unread-command-char'
1766 *** `facemenu-unlisted-faces'
1767 *** `rmail-decode-mime-charset'
1768 *** `iswitchb-read-buffer'
1769 *** `sc-version', `sc-submit-bug-report'
1770 *** `set-char-table-default'
1771 *** `string-to-sequence' (use `string-to-list' or `string-to-vector')
1772 *** `compile-internal'
1773 *** `modeline'
1774 *** `mode-line-inverse-video'
1775 *** `follow-mode-off-hook'
1776 *** `cvs-commit-buffer-require-final-newline'
1777 (use `log-edit-require-final-newline' instead)
1778 *** `cvs-changelog-full-paragraphs'
1779 (use `log-edit-changelog-full-paragraphs' instead)
1780 *** `cvs-diff-ignore-marks', `cvs-diff-buffer-name'
1781 *** `vc-ignore-vc-files' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
1782 *** `vc-master-templates' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
1783 *** `vc-checkout-carefully'
1784
1785 \f
1786 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
1787
1788 ** CL-style generalized variables are now in core Elisp.
1789 `setf' is autoloaded; `push' and `pop' accept generalized variables.
1790 You can define your own generalized variables using `gv-define-simple-setter',
1791 `gv-define-setter', etc.
1792
1793 ** Emacs tries to macroexpand interpreted (non-compiled) files during load.
1794 This can significantly speed up execution of non-byte-compiled code,
1795 but can also bump into previously unnoticed cyclic dependencies.
1796 These are generally harmless: they will simply cause the macro calls
1797 to be left for later expansion (as before), but will result in a
1798 warning ("Eager macro-expansion skipped due to cycle") describing the cycle.
1799 You may wish to restructure your code so this does not happen.
1800
1801 ** New sampling-based Elisp profiler.
1802 Try M-x profiler-start, do some work, and then call M-x profiler-report.
1803 When finished, use M-x profiler-stop. The sampling rate can be based on
1804 CPU time or memory allocations.
1805
1806 ** `defun' also accepts a (declare DECLS) form, like `defmacro'.
1807 The interpretation of the DECLS is determined by `defun-declarations-alist'.
1808
1809 ** New macros `setq-local' and `defvar-local'.
1810
1811 ** Face underlining can now use a wave.
1812
1813 ** `read-regexp' has a new argument HISTORY; the first argument PROMPT
1814 of `read-regexp' accepts a string ending with a colon and space, and its
1815 second argument DEFAULTS can be a list of strings accessible via `M-n'
1816 in the minibuffer ahead of other hard-coded useful regexp-related values.
1817 More commands use `read-regexp' now to read their regexp arguments.
1818
1819 ** Completion
1820
1821 *** New function `completion-table-with-quoting' to handle completion
1822 in the presence of quoting, such as file completion in shell buffers.
1823
1824 *** New function `completion-table-subvert' to use an existing completion
1825 table, but with a different prefix.
1826
1827 ** Debugger
1828
1829 *** New error type and new function `user-error'.
1830 These do not trigger the debugger.
1831
1832 *** New option `debugger-bury-or-kill', saying what to do with the
1833 debugger buffer when exiting debug.
1834
1835 *** Set `debug-on-message' to enter the debugger when a certain
1836 message is displayed in the echo area. This can be useful when trying
1837 to work out which code is doing something.
1838
1839 *** New var `inhibit-debugger', automatically set to prevent accidental
1840 recursive invocations.
1841
1842 ** Window handling
1843
1844 *** New command `fit-frame-to-buffer' adjusts the frame height to
1845 fit the contents.
1846
1847 *** The command `fit-window-to-buffer' can adjust the frame height
1848 if the new option `fit-frame-to-buffer' is non-nil.
1849
1850 *** New macro `with-temp-buffer-window', similar to
1851 `with-output-to-temp-buffer'.
1852
1853 *** `temp-buffer-resize-mode' no longer resizes windows that have been
1854 reused.
1855
1856 *** New option `switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' to restore a
1857 window's point when switching buffers.
1858
1859 *** New display action function `display-buffer-no-window' to not
1860 display the buffer in a window.
1861
1862 *** New display action alist entry `allow-no-window' to indicate the
1863 caller of `display-buffer' is ready to handle the case of not
1864 displaying the buffer in a window.
1865
1866 *** New display action alist entries `window-height' and `window-width'
1867 specify the size of new windows created by `display-buffer'.
1868
1869 *** New display action alist entry `pop-up-frame-parameters', if
1870 non-nil, specifies frame parameters to give any newly-created frame.
1871
1872 *** New display action alist entry `inhibit-switch-frame', if non-nil,
1873 tells display action functions to avoid changing which frame is
1874 selected.
1875
1876 *** New display action alist entry `previous-window', if non-nil,
1877 specifies window to reuse in `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
1878
1879 *** New display action functions `display-buffer-below-selected',
1880 and `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
1881
1882 *** The functions `get-lru-window', `get-mru-window' and `get-largest-window'
1883 now accept a third argument to avoid choosing the selected window.
1884
1885 *** Additional values recognized for option `window-combination-limit'.
1886
1887 *** The following variables are obsolete, as they can be replaced by
1888 appropriate entries in the `display-buffer-alist' function introduced
1889 in Emacs 24.1:
1890 **** `dired-shrink-to-fit'
1891 **** `display-buffer-reuse-frames'
1892 **** `display-buffer-function'
1893 **** `special-display-buffer-names'
1894 **** `special-display-frame-alist'
1895 **** `special-display-function'
1896 **** `special-display-regexps'
1897
1898 ** Time
1899
1900 *** `current-time-string' no longer requires that its argument's year
1901 must be in the range 1000..9999. It now works with any year supported
1902 by the underlying C implementation.
1903
1904 *** `current-time' now returns extended-format time stamps
1905 (HIGH LOW USEC PSEC), where the new PSEC slot specifies picoseconds.
1906 PSEC is typically a multiple of 1000 on current machines. Other
1907 functions that use this format, such as `file-attributes' and
1908 `format-time-string', have been changed accordingly. Old-format time
1909 stamps are still accepted.
1910
1911 *** The format of timers in `timer-list' and `timer-idle-list' is now
1912 [TRIGGERED-P HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS REPEAT-DELAY FUNCTION ARGS IDLE-DELAY PSECS].
1913 The PSECS slot is new, and uses picosecond resolution. It can be
1914 accessed via the new `timer--psecs' accessor.
1915
1916 *** Last-modified time stamps in undo lists now are of the form
1917 (t HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS PSECS) instead of (t HI-SECS . LO-SECS).
1918
1919 ** EIEIO
1920
1921 *** Improved security when handling persistent objects:
1922
1923 **** `eieio-persistent-read' now features optional arguments for specifying
1924 the class to load, as well as a flag stating whether subclasses are allowed;
1925 if provided, other classes will be rejected by the reader. For
1926 compatibility with existing code, if the class is omitted only a
1927 warning is issued.
1928
1929 **** New specialized reader for pulling in classes and signaling errors
1930 without evaluation of suspicious code.
1931
1932 **** All slots that contain objects must have a :type. Slots with lists
1933 of objects must use a new type predicate for a list of an object type.
1934
1935 *** Support for `find-function' and similar utilities, through the addition
1936 of filename support to generated symbols.
1937
1938 ** Floating point functions now always return special values like NaN,
1939 instead of signaling errors, if given invalid args; e.g., (log -1.0).
1940 Previously, they returned NaNs on some platforms but signaled errors
1941 on others. The affected functions are acos, asin, tan, exp, expt,
1942 log, log10, sqrt, and mod.
1943
1944 ** New fringe bitmap `exclamation-mark'.
1945
1946 ** Miscellaneous changes to special forms and macros
1947
1948 *** `defun' and `defmacro' are now macros rather than special forms.
1949
1950 *** `kbd' is now a function rather than a macro.
1951
1952 ** Miscellaneous new functions
1953
1954 *** `set-temporary-overlay-map' sets up a temporary keymap that
1955 takes precedence over most other maps for a short while (normally one key).
1956
1957 *** `autoloadp' tests if its argument is an autoloaded object.
1958
1959 *** `autoload-do-load' performs the autoloading operation.
1960
1961 *** `buffer-narrowed-p' tests if the buffer is narrowed.
1962
1963 *** `file-name-base' returns a file name sans directory and extension.
1964
1965 *** `function-get' fetches a function property, following aliases.
1966
1967 *** `posnp' tests if an object is a `posn'.
1968
1969 *** `system-users' returns the user names on the system.
1970
1971 *** `system-groups' returns the group names on the system.
1972
1973 *** `tty-top-frame' returns the topmost frame of a text terminal.
1974
1975 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
1976 *** `automount-dir-prefix' (use `directory-abbrev-alist')
1977 *** `buffer-has-markers-at'
1978 *** `macro-declaration-function' (use `macro-declarations-alist')
1979 *** `window-system-version' (provides no useful information)
1980 *** `dired-pop-to-buffer' (use `dired-mark-pop-up')
1981 *** `query-replace-interactive'
1982 *** `font-list-limit' (has had no effect since Emacs < 23)
1983
1984 \f
1985 * Changes in Emacs 24.3 on Non-Free Operating Systems
1986
1987 ** Cygwin builds can use the native MS Windows user interface.
1988 Pass `--with-w32' to configure. The default remains the X11 interface.
1989
1990 ** Two new functions are available in Cygwin builds:
1991 `cygwin-convert-file-name-from-windows' and
1992 `cygwin-convert-file-name-to-windows'. These functions allow Lisp
1993 code to access the Cygwin file-name mapping machinery to convert
1994 between Cygwin and Windows-native file and directory names.
1995
1996 ** When invoked with the -nw switch to run on the Windows text-mode terminal,
1997 Emacs now supports `mouse-highlight', help-echo (in the echo area), and
1998 `mouse-autoselect-window'.
1999
2000 ** On MS Windows Vista and later Emacs now supports symbolic links.
2001
2002 ** On MS Windows, you can pass `--without-libxml2' to configure.bat to omit
2003 support for libxml2, even if its presence is detected.
2004
2005 ** On Mac OS X, the Nextstep port requires OS X 10.4 or later.
2006
2007 ** On Mac OS X, configure no longer automatically adds the Fink "/sw"
2008 directories to the search path. You must add them yourself if you want them.
2009
2010 \f
2011 * Changes in Emacs 24.2
2012
2013 ** This is mainly a bug-fix release.
2014
2015 \f
2016 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
2017
2018 ** Emacs can be compiled with Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
2019 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
2020 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
2021 --without-gconf.
2022
2023 ** Emacs can be compiled with GnuTLS support.
2024 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2025 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2026 `--without-gnutls'. See below for GnuTLS features.
2027
2028 ** Emacs can be compiled with SELinux support.
2029 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2030 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2031 `--without-selinux'. See below for SELinux features.
2032
2033 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
2034 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2035 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2036 `--without-imagemagick'. See below for ImageMagick features.
2037 This feature is not available for the Nextstep or MS ports.
2038
2039 ** Emacs can be compiled with libxml2 support.
2040 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2041 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2042 `--without-xml2'. See below for libxml2 features.
2043
2044 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
2045 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
2046
2047 ** New configure option --with-wide-int.
2048 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
2049 On 32-bit hosts, this raises the limit on buffer sizes from about 512 MiB
2050 to about 2 GiB.
2051
2052 ** New configure options: --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
2053 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
2054 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
2055
2056 ** New configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
2057 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
2058 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
2059
2060 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
2061 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
2062
2063 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
2064 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
2065
2066 \f
2067 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
2068
2069 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
2070 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
2071 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
2072
2073 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
2074 from load-path. -Q now implies this. This option does not affect the
2075 EMACSLOADPATH environment variable (and hence has no effect for
2076 Nextstep builds).
2077
2078 \f
2079 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
2080
2081 ** Completion
2082
2083 *** Many packages now use the `completion-at-point' command,
2084 rather than implementing separate completion commands.
2085
2086 *** `completion-at-point' now handles tags and semantic completion.
2087
2088 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
2089 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
2090
2091 *** New option `completion-cycle-threshold' allows completion cycling.
2092
2093 *** New option `completion-category-overrides' for overriding the
2094 default completion style in certain circumstances.
2095
2096 *** New completion style `substring'.
2097
2098 *** Completion of buffer names uses `substring' completion by default.
2099
2100 *** The option `widget-complete-field' has been removed.
2101
2102 ** Mail changes
2103
2104 *** The first time you try sending mail, Emacs asks for a mail method.
2105 This is implemented by a new default for `send-mail-function', which
2106 is `sendmail-query-once'. This offers to use the smtpmail package, or
2107 to use the old defaults relying on external mail facilities
2108 (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems, and
2109 `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
2110
2111 *** Typing `C-c m' in the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug'
2112 transfers the report to your desktop's preferred mail client, if there
2113 is one. This uses either the "xdg-email" utility, or Mac OS's "open"
2114 command.
2115
2116 *** See Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages for SMTPmail changes
2117 and Mail mode changes
2118
2119 ** Emacs server and client changes
2120
2121 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port for TCP Emacs servers.
2122
2123 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
2124
2125 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters specifies the frame
2126 parameters of any newly-created graphical frame.
2127
2128 *** If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling an error,
2129 its exit status is 1.
2130
2131 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
2132 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
2133 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
2134
2135 ** Internationalization changes
2136
2137 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
2138 Right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, are
2139 displayed in the correct visual order as expected by users of those
2140 scripts. The display reordering is a "full bidirectionality" class
2141 implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA). Buffers
2142 with no RTL text should look exactly the same as before.
2143
2144 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
2145 To disable display reordering in a buffer, change this to nil.
2146
2147 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
2148 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
2149 paragraph from its text, as specified by the UBA. Setting the value
2150 to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a base direction on each
2151 paragraph.
2152
2153 Paragraphs with right-to-left base direction are displayed starting at
2154 the right window edge.
2155
2156 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts,
2157 or, on text terminals, characters that cannot be encoded by the
2158 terminal coding system. The new option `glyphless-char-display-control'
2159 specifies how to display them: as a hexadecimal code in a box, a thin
2160 1-pixel space, an empty box, etc.
2161
2162 *** New input methods for Farsi and Bulgarian
2163 (farsi-isiri-9147, farsi-transliterate-banan, bulgarian-alt-phonetic).
2164
2165 *** `nobreak-char-display' now also highlights Unicode hyphen chars
2166 (U+2010 and U+2011).
2167
2168 *** New Hebrew translation of the Emacs Tutorial.
2169 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
2170 automatically select it.
2171
2172 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
2173 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
2174 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
2175
2176 *** M-x list-packages shows a list of packages, which can be
2177 selected for installation.
2178
2179 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
2180
2181 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded automatically when
2182 Emacs starts up. To disable this, set `package-enable-at-startup' to
2183 nil. To specify the packages to load, customize `package-load-list'.
2184
2185 ** Custom theme changes
2186
2187 *** New command `M-x customize-themes', which provides a convenient
2188 interface for enabling and disabling Custom themes.
2189
2190 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
2191 Emacs no longer looks for Custom themes in `load-path'. The default
2192 value of `custom-theme-load-path' says to look for themes in
2193 `custom-theme-directory', followed by a subdirectory of
2194 `data-directory' named "themes/", which contains a small selection of
2195 built-in Custom themes.
2196
2197 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
2198 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
2199 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
2200 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
2201
2202 ** Improved GTK integration
2203
2204 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
2205 The function `set-scroll-bar-mode' can change this.
2206
2207 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
2208 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose the style. On a Gnome desktop,
2209 the default is taken from desktop settings.
2210
2211 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on any edge of the frame.
2212 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the
2213 values top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has
2214 entries for this.
2215
2216 *** The default colors for selected text (the `region' face) are taken
2217 from the GTK theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
2218
2219 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.
2220 You can disable this by changing `x-gtk-use-system-tooltips' to nil.
2221
2222 ** Graphical interface changes
2223
2224 *** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
2225 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
2226 displayed as a space.
2227
2228 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
2229 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
2230
2231 *** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is
2232 built with Xft. These fonts can be set via X resources, for example:
2233 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
2234
2235 ** Exiting changes
2236
2237 *** Emacs now calls `kill-emacs' if it receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP,
2238 or if it receives a SIGINT signal in batch mode.
2239
2240 *** `kill-emacs-hook' is now also run in batch mode.
2241 Third-party code which adds to `kill-emacs-hook' should check if they
2242 do the right thing in batch mode.
2243
2244 ** Scrolling changes
2245
2246 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
2247 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
2248 of buffer at first key-press (instead they move to top/bottom of buffer)
2249 when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
2250
2251 *** New option `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).
2252
2253 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
2254 scroll a line instead of full screen.
2255
2256 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
2257 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
2258
2259 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
2260 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
2261 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
2262 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
2263 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
2264
2265 *** "Aggressive" scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
2266 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
2267 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
2268 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
2269 margin.
2270
2271 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
2272 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
2273
2274 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up.
2275 Also, the function `copy-file' has an extra optional argument for
2276 preserving SELinux context, and the return value of `backup-buffer'
2277 now includes the SELinux context.
2278
2279 *** New functions `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
2280 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
2281
2282 ** Trash changes
2283
2284 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
2285 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
2286
2287 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
2288 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
2289
2290 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
2291
2292 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
2293 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
2294 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
2295 subdirectories.
2296
2297 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
2298 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
2299 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
2300 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
2301 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
2302
2303 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
2304 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
2305
2306 *** The variable `inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps' has been renamed
2307 to `inhibit-local-variables-regexps'. As the name suggests, it now
2308 applies to ALL file local variables, not just -*- lines. The
2309 associated `inhibit-first-line-modes-suffixes' has been renamed in the
2310 corresponding way.
2311
2312 ** Window changes
2313
2314 *** The `quit-window' command now restores the last buffer displayed
2315 in the quitted window.
2316
2317 *** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
2318 modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.
2319
2320 *** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.
2321
2322 **** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
2323 user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
2324 for choosing the displaying window).
2325
2326 This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
2327 specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.
2328
2329 **** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
2330 display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.
2331
2332 *** New option `window-combination-limit'.
2333 The new option `window-combination-limit' allows to return the space
2334 obtained for resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window
2335 from which such space was obtained.
2336
2337 *** New option `window-combination-resize'.
2338 The new option `window-combination-resize' allows to split a window that
2339 otherwise cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from
2340 other windows in the same combination. Subsequent resizing or deletion
2341 of the window will resize all windows in the same combination as well.
2342
2343 *** New option `frame-auto-hide-function' lets you choose between
2344 iconifying or deleting a frame when burying a buffer in a dedicated
2345 frame, or quitting a window showing a buffer in a frame of its own.
2346
2347 *** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
2348 These maximize and minimize the size of a window within its frame.
2349
2350 *** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
2351 These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
2352 been shown in a specific window.
2353
2354 ** Minibuffer changes
2355
2356 *** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
2357 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the feature
2358 where mouse-1 pops up *Messages*"', which can now easily be changed.
2359
2360 *** Minibuffers set `truncate-lines' to nil.
2361 If you want to change the value to something else, you could use
2362 for example `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
2363
2364 ** `auto-mode-case-fold' is now enabled by default.
2365
2366 ** `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' now defaults to t.
2367
2368 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success'.
2369 These are used to highlight text indicating failure, caution or
2370 successful operation.
2371
2372 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
2373 for `list-colors-display'.
2374
2375 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
2376
2377 \f
2378 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
2379
2380 ** Search changes
2381
2382 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-kill', instead of
2383 `isearch-yank-line'.
2384
2385 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-pop', instead of
2386 `isearch-yank-kill'.
2387
2388 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-line'.
2389
2390 ** New commands `count-words-region' and `count-words'.
2391
2392 *** M-= is bound to `count-words-region', not `count-lines-region'.
2393 The `count-words-region' command, when called interactively, reports
2394 the number of lines, words, and characters in the region. It is a
2395 superset of the old `count-lines-region', which is now an obsolete
2396 alias for it.
2397
2398 ** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
2399 also deletes newlines around point.
2400
2401 ** Deletion changes
2402
2403 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
2404 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
2405 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', those commands kill
2406 instead.
2407
2408 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
2409 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
2410 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
2411
2412 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
2413 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
2414 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; Lisp
2415 callers should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
2416
2417 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
2418
2419 ** Selection changes.
2420
2421 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
2422 changed to conform with modern X applications. In short, most
2423 commands for killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while
2424 mouse commands use the primary selection.
2425
2426 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
2427 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
2428
2429 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
2430 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
2431 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
2432 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
2433
2434 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
2435 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
2436 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
2437 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
2438 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
2439
2440 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
2441
2442 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
2443 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
2444 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
2445
2446 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
2447
2448 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
2449 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
2450 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
2451
2452 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
2453 exactly equivalent to M-w, C-w, and C-y respectively.
2454
2455 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
2456 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
2457 between applications.
2458
2459 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
2460
2461 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
2462 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
2463 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
2464 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
2465 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
2466
2467 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
2468
2469 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
2470 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
2471
2472 ** New command `C-x r N' (`rectangle-number-lines') numbers the lines
2473 in the current rectangle. With a prefix argument, this prompts for a
2474 number to count from and for a format string.
2475
2476 ** `redisplay-dont-pause' now defaults to t.
2477 This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
2478 at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
2479 in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
2480 updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.
2481
2482 ** The behavior of <TAB> for active regions in Text mode has changed.
2483 In Text and related modes, typing <TAB> (`indent-for-tab-command')
2484 when the region is active causes Emacs to indent all the lines in the
2485 region, aligning them with the line previous to the first line in the
2486 region (or with the left margin if there is no previous line).
2487
2488 ** When `occur' is called with a prefix argument, matching strings are
2489 collected into the `*Occur*' buffer without line numbers. If there
2490 are parenthesized subexpressions in the specified regexp, `occur'
2491 reads replacement text that may contain \\& and \\N whose convention
2492 follows `replace-match'.
2493
2494 \f
2495 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
2496
2497 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
2498
2499 ** BibTeX mode
2500
2501 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
2502 Use the variable `bibtex-dialect' to select different BibTeX dialects.
2503 `bibtex-entry-field-alist' is now an obsolete alias for
2504 `bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist'.
2505
2506 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries', bound to C-c C-a.
2507
2508 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
2509
2510 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
2511
2512 ** Browse-url
2513
2514 *** New option `browse-url-mailto-function' specifies how to handle "mailto:"s.
2515
2516 *** The default browser used by the package is now the "xdg-open" program,
2517 on platforms that support it. This calls your desktop's preferred browser.
2518
2519 ** Calc
2520
2521 *** Support for musical notes.
2522
2523 *** Support for logarithmic units.
2524
2525 *** No longer uses the tex prefix for TeX specific unit names when
2526 using TeX or LaTeX mode.
2527
2528 *** New option to highlight selections using faces.
2529
2530 *** `calc-histogram' has the option of using a vector to determine the bins.
2531
2532 *** New "O" option prefix.
2533
2534 *** Use the "O" prefix to "d r" (`calc-radix') to turn on twos-complement mode.
2535
2536 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
2537
2538 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing "comments".
2539 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
2540
2541 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
2542 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
2543
2544 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
2545 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
2546 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
2547
2548 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
2549
2550 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
2551 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
2552
2553 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt
2554 package by adding `appt-make-list' to `diary-hook' has been removed.
2555 Use `appt-activate' instead.
2556
2557 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
2558 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
2559 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
2560
2561 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
2562 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
2563
2564 ** CC Mode
2565
2566 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
2567 The main entry point is M-x c-guess.
2568
2569 *** Java Mode now supports Java 5.0 (Tiger) and 6 (Mustang).
2570
2571 *** `c-beginning-of-defun' and `c-end-of-defun' now respect nested scopes.
2572 Thus C-M-a will, by default, go to the beginning of the immediate function,
2573 not the top level.
2574
2575 *** "Macros with semicolons" can be registered for correct indentation.
2576 Where such a macro ends a line (no semicolon) the next statement is no longer
2577 parsed as a statement continuation.
2578
2579 ** Comint and modes derived from it use the standard completion code.
2580
2581 ** Compilation mode
2582
2583 *** Compilation mode can be used without Font Lock mode.
2584 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
2585
2586 *** New variable `compilation-filter-start', which is bound while
2587 `compilation-filter-hook' runs. It records the start position of the
2588 text inserted by `compilation-filter'.
2589
2590 *** `compilation-error-screen-columns' and `compilation-first-column'
2591 are obeyed in the editing buffer. So programming language modes can
2592 set them, whereas previously only the value in the *Compilation*
2593 buffer was used.
2594
2595 ** Customize
2596
2597 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
2598 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
2599 To turn off the search field, set `custom-search-field' to nil.
2600
2601 *** Options in customize group buffers start out hidden if not customized.
2602 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
2603
2604 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
2605
2606 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
2607 choose a color via `list-colors-display'.
2608
2609 ** D-Bus
2610
2611 *** It is now possible to access buses other than the default system
2612 or session bus.
2613
2614 *** The `dbus-register-method' and `dbus-register-property' functions
2615 optionally do not register names.
2616
2617 *** The new function `dbus-register-service' registers a known service
2618 name on a D-Bus without also registering a property or a method.
2619
2620 ** Dired-x
2621
2622 *** C-x C-j (`dired-jump') and C-x 4 C-j (`dired-jump-other-window'),
2623 if called with a prefix argument, read a file name from the minibuffer
2624 instead of using the current buffer.
2625
2626 *** The "dired local variables" feature of Dired-x is obsolete.
2627 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
2628
2629 ** ERC changes
2630
2631 *** New options `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay',
2632 controlling attempts to autojoin a channel.
2633
2634 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
2635 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
2636 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
2637 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
2638
2639 ** Eshell changes
2640
2641 *** The default value of `eshell-directory-name' has changed
2642 to be an "eshell" directory in `user-emacs-directory'.
2643 The old "~/.eshell/" directory is still used if it exists, though.
2644
2645 ** gdb-mi
2646
2647 *** The M-x gdb command now uses the GDB Machine Interface protocol.
2648 It now supports multithread non-stop debugging and simultaneous
2649 debugging of several threads.
2650
2651 ** Image mode
2652
2653 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if applicable.
2654 Animation plays once, unless the option `image-animate-loop' is non-nil.
2655
2656 ** Info
2657
2658 *** New command M-x info-display-manual displays a named Info manual.
2659 If that manual is already visited in some Info buffer, it displays
2660 that buffer. (This is handy if you have many manuals in many *info*
2661 buffers, and don't remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual
2662 you want to consult.) Otherwise, it loads and displays the manual.
2663
2664 *** `e' is now bound to `end-of-buffer' rather than to `Info-edit'.
2665 This is for compatibility with the stand-alone Info reader program,
2666 and also because `Info-edit' is a rarely used command that is disabled
2667 by default.
2668
2669 ** Mail mode changes (not Message mode)
2670
2671 *** New command M-x mail-add-attachment for adding MIME attachments
2672
2673 *** The command M-x mail-attach-file was renamed to M-x mail-insert-file.
2674 (Its name is misleading, since it has nothing to do with MIME
2675 attachments.) The old name is now an obsolete alias to the new name.
2676
2677 ** MH-E has been updated to MH-E version 8.3.1.
2678 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
2679
2680 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
2681
2682 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
2683
2684 ** nXML mode no longer binds C-RET to `nxml-complete'.
2685 Completion is now performed via `completion-at-point', bound to C-M-i
2686 or M-TAB. If `nxml-bind-meta-tab-to-complete-flag' is non-nil (the
2687 default), this performs tag completion.
2688
2689 ** Org mode has been updated to version 7.8.09.
2690 See ORG-NEWS for details.
2691
2692 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
2693 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity,
2694 support for more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
2695
2696 ** Rmail
2697
2698 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
2699 in the Rmail incoming message.
2700
2701 *** The variable `rmail-message-filter' no longer has any effect.
2702 This change was made in Emacs 23.1 but was not advertised at the time.
2703 Try using `rmail-show-message-hook' instead.
2704
2705 ** Shell mode
2706
2707 *** M-x shell prompts for the shell path name if the default directory
2708 is a remote file name and neither the environment variable $ESHELL nor
2709 the variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
2710
2711 *** TAB is now bound to the standard `completion-at-point' command,
2712 which now implements the pcomplete rules for shell command completion.
2713
2714 ** SMTPmail
2715
2716 *** SMTPmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) by default
2717 if the mail server supports them. This uses either built-in GnuTLS
2718 support, or the starttls.el library. Customize `smtpmail-stream-type'
2719 to change this.
2720
2721 *** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
2722 By default, the information is now stored in the file ~/.authinfo.
2723 This was the default value of smtpmail-auth-credentials. If you had
2724 customized smtpmail-auth-credentials to a list of user names and
2725 passwords, those settings are not used. During your first connection
2726 to the smtp server, Emacs will prompt for the user name and password,
2727 and offer to save them to ~/.authinfo. Or you can manually copy the
2728 credentials to ~/.authinfo. For example, if you had
2729
2730 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
2731 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
2732
2733 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
2734
2735 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
2736
2737 See the auth-source manual for more information, e.g. on encrypting
2738 the credentials file.
2739
2740 *** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
2741 If you had that set, you need to put
2742
2743 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
2744
2745 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
2746
2747 *** SMTPmail defaults to using the address in the From: header as the
2748 SMTP MAIL FROM envelope. To override this, set `mail-envelope-from'
2749 to the address you wish to use instead.
2750
2751 ** SQL mode
2752
2753 *** New options `sql-port', `sql-connection-alist', `sql-send-terminator',
2754 and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
2755
2756 *** New options controlling prompting for login parameters.
2757 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
2758 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
2759 connection is established.
2760
2761 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
2762 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product.
2763
2764 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix arguments.
2765 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
2766 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
2767 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
2768
2769 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
2770 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
2771 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
2772 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
2773 second prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from listing
2774 object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*' functions.
2775
2776 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
2777 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
2778
2779 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
2780 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
2781 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
2782
2783 *** New commands for listing database objects and details:
2784 sql-list-all and sql-list-table.
2785
2786 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
2787
2788 ** TeX modes
2789
2790 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
2791
2792 ** Tramp
2793
2794 *** New inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
2795
2796 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
2797 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
2798
2799 *** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
2800 remote file attributes are cached for better performance.
2801
2802 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
2803 default value to "".
2804
2805 *** Handlers for `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
2806 for remote machines which support SELinux.
2807
2808 ** New function `url-queue-retrieve', which behaves like url-retrieve,
2809 but with limits (`url-queue-parallel-processes', `url-queue-timeout') on
2810 the degree of parallelism.
2811
2812 ** VC and related modes
2813
2814 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
2815 The command C-x v + (`vc-pull') runs a "pull" operation, if it is
2816 supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to update the
2817 current branch and working tree. A prefix argument means to prompt
2818 the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
2819
2820 *** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
2821
2822 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
2823 The command C-x v m (`vc-merge') now runs a "merge" operation, if it
2824 is supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to merge
2825 changes from another branch into the current one. It prompts for
2826 specifics, e.g. a merge source.
2827
2828 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
2829 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
2830
2831 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
2832 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
2833 This is currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial (to support
2834 another backend, define a `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function').
2835 In the Log View buffers made by C-x v L (`vc-print-root-log'), you can
2836 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
2837
2838 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
2839 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
2840
2841 *** The option `vc-initial-comment' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but
2842 this was not advertised at the time.
2843
2844 *** `vc-toggle-read-only' is an obsolete alias for `toggle-read-only'.
2845 Since Emacs 23, it has done the same thing as `toggle-read-only', but
2846 this was not advertised at the time.
2847
2848 ** Obsolete modes
2849
2850 *** abbrevlist.el
2851
2852 *** erc-hecomplete.el (use erc-pcomplete.el instead)
2853
2854 *** partial-completion-mode (complete.el) is obsolete.
2855 You can get a comparable behavior with:
2856 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
2857 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
2858
2859 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete (CUA mode is much more comprehensive).
2860
2861 *** pgg is obsolete (use EasyPG instead).
2862
2863 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
2864
2865 *** s-region.el and pc-select.el are obsolete.
2866 They are superseded by shift-select-mode, enabled by default since 23.1.
2867
2868 *** vc-mcvs.el is obsolete (for lack of a maintainer).
2869
2870 ** Miscellaneous
2871
2872 *** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
2873 Its functions and variables have been similarly renamed.
2874
2875 *** In `ido-file-completion-map', C-v is no longer bound to `ido-toggle-vc'.
2876 (This interfered with cua-mode.)
2877
2878 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
2879
2880 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
2881
2882 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
2883
2884 \f
2885 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
2886
2887 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
2888 original buffers. It is bound to "e" in Occur mode.
2889
2890 ** New global minor mode electric-pair-mode.
2891 When enabled, typing an open parenthesis automatically inserts the
2892 matching closing one.
2893
2894 ** New global minor mode electric-indent-mode.
2895 When enabled, typing certain characters triggers reindentation.
2896 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-indent-chars or
2897 electric-indent-functions.
2898
2899 ** New global minor mode electric-layout-mode.
2900 When enabled, typing certain characters automatically inserts newlines.
2901 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-layout-rules.
2902
2903 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
2904 from which other modes can be derived.
2905
2906 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
2907
2908 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
2909 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
2910 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
2911 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
2912 secrets.
2913
2914 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
2915 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
2916
2917 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
2918 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
2919
2920 ** New generic mode, xmodmap-generic-mode, for xmodmap files.
2921
2922 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
2923 The previous version has been moved to obsolete/old-emacs-lock.el.
2924 Now, there is a proper minor mode `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection
2925 against exiting Emacs and killing the buffer can be set separately.
2926 The mechanism for automatically turning off protection for buffers
2927 with dead inferior processes has been generalized.
2928
2929 \f
2930 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
2931
2932 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function call now ENABLES
2933 the minor mode unconditionally. This is so that you can write e.g.
2934
2935 (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'foo-mode)
2936
2937 to enable foo-mode in Text mode buffers, removing the need for
2938 `turn-on-foo-mode' style functions. This affects all mode commands
2939 defined by `define-minor-mode'. If called interactively, the mode
2940 command still toggles the minor mode.
2941
2942 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
2943 It is now a list of three elements, where the second element is a list
2944 describing the original file's SELinux context. If Emacs or the
2945 system lacks SELinux support, the context list is (nil nil nil nil).
2946 See "Basic SELinux support" above, under "Changes in Emacs 24.1".
2947
2948 ** `char-direction-table' and the `char-direction' function were deleted.
2949 They were buggy and inferior to the new support of bidirectional
2950 editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the bidirectional
2951 properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property' with the last
2952 argument `bidi-class'.
2953
2954 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
2955 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
2956 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
2957 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
2958
2959 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
2960 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
2961 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
2962 of the header line.
2963
2964 ** Support for "old-style" backquotes, obsolete for 10+ years, has
2965 been further reduced. Now a backquote not followed by a space is
2966 always treated as a "new-style" backquote. Please remove all
2967 "old-style" backquotes from your code. If your code uses backquotes
2968 as documented in the Elisp manual, and compiles without warning, then
2969 you have nothing to do in this regard. Code not following the
2970 appropriate conventions may fail to compile.
2971
2972 The most common cause of trouble seems to be an old-style backquote
2973 followed by a newline. Another cause of trouble is vector notation
2974 for key sequence notation: instead of [(control ,)] and [(control ')],
2975 you should write [(control ?,)] and [(control ?')], which will work in
2976 older Emacsen too.
2977
2978 ** The macro `eval-at-startup' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but this
2979 was not advertised at the time. The function `custom-initialize-delay'
2980 replaced all known uses.
2981
2982 ** `view-buffer' now treats special mode-class in the same way that
2983 `view-file' has since Emacs 22 (i.e. it won't enable View mode if the
2984 major mode is special).
2985
2986 ** Menu and tool bar changes
2987
2988 *** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
2989 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
2990 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
2991 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
2992 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
2993 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
2994
2995 *** The menu bar bindings's caches are not used any more.
2996 Use (where-is-internal <def> nil t) instead.
2997
2998 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
2999 similar to those created by shift-selection (see Selection changes
3000 above). In previous Emacs versions, these regions were delineated by
3001 `mouse-drag-overlay'; that variable has been removed.
3002
3003 ** The fourth argument of `filter-buffer-substring' has been removed.
3004 If you want to remove text properties from the final result, simply
3005 pass the result through substring-no-properties.
3006
3007 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
3008
3009 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases have been removed
3010 (the appropriate new function is given in parentheses; "not needed"
3011 means you can just remove all calls to the function in question):
3012
3013 *** `comint-kill-output' (`comint-delete-output')
3014 *** `decompose-composite-char' (`char-to-string')
3015 *** `outline-visible' (`outline-invisible-p')
3016 *** `internal-find-face' (`facep')
3017 *** `internal-get-face' (`facep and check-face')
3018 *** `frame-update-faces' (not needed)
3019 *** `frame-update-face-colors' (`frame-set-background-mode')
3020 *** `x-frob-font-weight' and `x-frob-font-slant' (`make-face-*' functions)
3021 *** `x-make-font-bold and x-make-font-demibold (`make-face-bold')
3022 *** `x-make-font-italic' and `x-make-font-oblique' (`make-face-italic')
3023 *** `x-make-font-bold-italic' (`make-face-bold-italic')
3024 *** `x-make-font-unbold' (`make-face-unbold')
3025 *** `x-make-font-unitalic' (`make-face-unitalic')
3026 *** `mldrag-drag-mode-line' (`mouse-drag-mode-line')
3027 *** `mldrag-drag-vertical-line' (`mouse-drag-vertical-line')
3028 *** `iswitchb-default-keybindings' (`iswitchb-mode')
3029 *** `char-bytes' (== 1)
3030 *** `isearch-return-char' (`isearch-printing-char')
3031 *** `make-local-hook' (not needed)
3032 *** `set-screen-height' (`set-frame-height')
3033 *** `set-screen-width' (`set-frame-width')
3034
3035 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases have been removed
3036 (the appropriate new variable is given in parentheses):
3037
3038 *** `checkdoc-minor-keymap' (`checkdoc-minor-mode-map')
3039 *** `vc-header-alist' (`vc-BACKEND-header')
3040 *** `directory-sep-char' (== ?/)
3041 *** `font-lock-defaults-alist' (`font-lock-defaults')
3042 *** `e' (`float-e').
3043
3044 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
3045 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
3046
3047 ** The format of the finder-inf.el file has changed, since the Finder
3048 mechanism is now based on the package system. The variable
3049 `finder-package-info' is replaced by `package--builtins' and
3050 `finder-keywords-hash'.
3051
3052 ** When generating autoloads, `update-directory-autoloads' no longer
3053 assumes every inspected file is in your `load-path'. It instead
3054 generates relative names according to the current `load-path'.
3055
3056 \f
3057 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
3058
3059 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
3060 The `lexical-binding' variable enables lexical scoping for local
3061 variables. It is typically set via a file-local variable in the first
3062 line of the file, in which case it applies to all the code in that
3063 file.
3064
3065 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
3066 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
3067
3068 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
3069 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
3070
3071 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
3072
3073 *** `defvar' and `defconst' now mark the variable as special (dynamic).
3074 So do `defcustom' and other forms that call `defvar' as a subroutine.
3075
3076 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
3077 declared as dynamically bound.
3078
3079 *** The form ((lambda ...) ...) is deprecated.
3080
3081 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
3082 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
3083 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
3084
3085 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
3086
3087 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
3088 This returns the base direction of the paragraph at point.
3089
3090 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
3091 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left scripts, this
3092 function returns another string which can be safely inserted into a
3093 buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
3094 right of that string. (This works by appending an invisible Unicode
3095 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character if the argument string might need it.)
3096
3097 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right paragraph
3098 direction and you need to insert a string whose contents are not known
3099 in advance, without disrupting the layout of the line.
3100
3101 ** Window changes
3102
3103 *** Window tree functions are accessible in Elisp.
3104 Functions are provided to return the parent, siblings or child windows
3105 of any window including internal windows (windows not associated with a
3106 buffer) in the window tree.
3107
3108 **** New function `window-valid-p' gives non-nil for live and internal
3109 windows.
3110
3111 **** Window manipulation can deal with internal windows.
3112 Many window handling functions like `split-window', `delete-window', or
3113 `delete-other-windows' as well as the window resizing functions can now
3114 act on any window including internal ones.
3115
3116 *** window-total-height/-width vs window-body-height/-width.
3117 The function `window-height' has been renamed to `window-total-height'
3118 and `window-width' has been renamed to `window-body-width'. The old
3119 names are provided as aliases. Two new functions `window-total-width'
3120 and `window-body-height' are provided.
3121
3122 *** Window parameters specific to window handling functions.
3123 For each window you can specify a parameter to override the default
3124 behavior of a number of functions like `split-window', `delete-window'
3125 and `delete-other-windows'. The variable `ignore-window-parameters'
3126 allows to ignore processing such parameters.
3127
3128 *** New semantics of third argument of `split-window'.
3129 The third argument of `split-window' has been renamed to SIDE and can be
3130 set to any of the values 'below, 'right, 'above, or 'left to make the
3131 new window appear on the corresponding side of the window that shall be
3132 split. Any other value of SIDE will cause `split-window' to split the
3133 window into two side-by-side windows as before.
3134
3135 *** Window resizing functions.
3136 A new standard function for resizing windows called `window-resize' has
3137 been introduced. This and all other functions for resizing windows no
3138 longer delete any windows when they become too small.
3139
3140 *** Deleting the selected window now selects the most recently selected
3141 live window on that frame instead.
3142
3143 *** `adjust-window-trailing-edge' adjustments.
3144 `adjust-window-trailing-edge' can now deal with fixed-size windows and
3145 is able to resize other windows if a window adjacent to the trailing
3146 edge cannot be shrunk any more. This makes its behavior more similar to
3147 that of Emacs 21 without compromising, however, its inability to delete
3148 windows which was introduced in Emacs 22.
3149
3150 *** Window-local buffer lists.
3151 Windows now have local buffer lists. This means that removing a buffer
3152 from display in a window will preferably show the buffer previously
3153 shown in that window with its previous window-start and window-point
3154 positions. This also means that the same buffer may be automatically
3155 shown twice even if it already appears in another window.
3156
3157 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
3158 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
3159 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
3160 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
3161
3162 *** `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally' renamed
3163 to `split-window-below' and `split-window-right' respectively.
3164 The old names are kept as aliases.
3165
3166 *** Display actions
3167
3168 **** The second arg to `display-buffer' and `pop-to-buffer' is now
3169 named ACTION, and takes a display action of the same form as
3170 `display-buffer-base-action' (see Changes, above). A non-nil,
3171 non-list value is treated specially, as the old meaning.
3172
3173 **** New variable `display-buffer-overriding-action'.
3174
3175 **** The procedure of `display-buffer' etc. to choose a window is
3176 determined by combining `display-buffer-overriding-action',
3177 `display-buffer-alist', the ACTION arg, `display-buffer-base-action',
3178 and `display-buffer-fallback-action'. The second and fourth of these
3179 are user-customizable variables.
3180
3181 See the docstring of `display-buffer' for details.
3182
3183 *** New functions `window-state-get' and `window-state-put'.
3184 These functions allow to save and restore the state of an arbitrary
3185 frame or window as an Elisp object.
3186
3187 ** Completion
3188
3189 *** New variable `completion-extra-properties' used to specify extra
3190 properties of the current completion:
3191 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
3192 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
3193
3194 *** Functions on `completion-at-point-functions' can return any of the
3195 properties valid for `completion-extra-properties'.
3196
3197 *** `completion-annotate-function' is obsolete.
3198
3199 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
3200 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
3201 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
3202 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
3203 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
3204 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
3205 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
3206
3207 *** `minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map' is not used any more.
3208 Instead, the bindings in `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map'
3209 are combined with `minibuffer-local-must-match-map'.
3210
3211 *** New variable `completing-read-function' allows overriding the
3212 behavior of `completing-read'.
3213
3214 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
3215 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
3216
3217 ** `pre-command-hook'/`post-command-hook' are not reset to nil on error.
3218 Instead, the offending function is removed.
3219
3220 ** New hook types
3221
3222 *** New function `run-hook-wrapped' for running an abnormal hook by
3223 passing the hook functions as arguments to a "wrapping" function.
3224 Like `run-hook-with-args-until-success', it stops at the first
3225 non-nil return value.
3226
3227 *** New macro `with-wrapper-hook' for running an abnormal hook as a
3228 set of "wrapping" filters, similar to around advice.
3229 (A version of this macro was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not
3230 advertised at the time.)
3231
3232 ** Debugger changes
3233
3234 *** New macro `condition-case-unless-debug' (this was actually added in
3235 Emacs 23.1 as condition-case-no-debug, but not advertised)
3236
3237 *** The macro `with-demoted-errors' was added in Emacs 23.1, but not advertised.
3238
3239 *** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
3240
3241 *** The debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will
3242 jump to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked
3243 instead of jumping all the way to the top-level.
3244
3245 *** Set `debug-on-event' to enter the debugger on events like SIGUSR1.
3246 This can be useful when `inhibit-quit' is set.
3247
3248 ** The new function `server-eval-at' allows evaluation of Lisp forms on
3249 named Emacs server instances.
3250
3251 ** `call-process' and `call-process-region' allow a `(:file "file")' spec
3252 to redirect STDOUT to a file.
3253
3254 ** The function `format-time-string' now supports the %N directive,
3255 for higher-resolution time stamps.
3256
3257 ** New input reading functions
3258
3259 *** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of
3260 characters, discarding any inputs not inside the set.
3261
3262 *** The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name
3263 or RGB triplet, instead of signaling an error if the user provides
3264 invalid input.
3265
3266 **** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
3267
3268 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
3269 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
3270 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
3271 obsolete alias.
3272
3273 ** Syntax parsing changes
3274
3275 *** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
3276 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
3277 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
3278 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
3279 Together with this new variable come a new hook
3280 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
3281 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
3282 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
3283 syntactic rules.
3284
3285 *** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
3286
3287 ** New hook `post-self-insert-hook', run after `self-insert-command'.
3288
3289 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
3290
3291 ** Major and minor mode changes
3292
3293 *** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
3294 as well as those in the -*- line.
3295
3296 *** `prog-mode' is a new major mode from which programming modes
3297 should be derived.
3298
3299 **** `prog-mode-hook' can be used to enable features for programming
3300 modes, e.g. (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode) to enable
3301 on-the-fly spell checking for comments and strings.
3302
3303 **** New minor modes `prettify-symbols-mode' and
3304 `global-prettify-symbols-mode' let the user enable symbol
3305 prettification (replacing a string like "lambda" with the Greek lambda
3306 character).
3307
3308 *** New hook `change-major-mode-after-body-hook', run by
3309 `run-mode-hooks' just before any other mode hooks.
3310
3311 *** Enabled globalized minor modes can be disabled in specific major modes.
3312 If the global mode is global-FOO-mode, then run (FOO-mode -1) in the
3313 major mode's hook, where FOO-mode toggles the mode on a per-buffer basis.
3314
3315 *** `define-minor-mode' accepts new keywords :variable, :after-hook.
3316
3317 ** File-handling changes
3318
3319 *** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
3320 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
3321 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
3322 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
3323
3324 *** New file predicates: `file-equal-p', `file-in-directory-p'.
3325
3326 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
3327 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
3328 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
3329
3330 ** Image API
3331
3332 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
3333
3334 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
3335
3336 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
3337
3338 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
3339 is being animated.
3340
3341 *** `image-extension-data' has been renamed to `image-metadata'.
3342 The old name is an obsolete alias to the new one.
3343
3344 *** Image mode can view any image type that ImageMagick supports.
3345 This requires Emacs to be built with ImageMagick support.
3346
3347 **** New function `imagemagick-types', defined if ImageMagick support
3348 is enabled, returns a list of image file extensions that your
3349 ImageMagick installation supports.
3350
3351 **** New function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick
3352 image types in Image mode and in `create-image' and other helper
3353 functions.
3354
3355 **** New option `imagemagick-types-inhibit' excludes certain
3356 ImageMagick image types from `imagemagick-register-types'.
3357
3358 **** With ImageMagick support, there are extra Image mode commands to
3359 resize and rotate images: `image-transform-fit-to-height',
3360 `image-transform-fit-to-width', `image-transform-set-rotation', and
3361 `image-transform-set-scale'.
3362
3363 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
3364 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
3365 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail. For
3366 example, this is used by Rmail to optionally delete a mail window.
3367
3368 ** XML and HTML parsing
3369 If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support, there are two new
3370 functions: `libxml-parse-html-region' (which parses "real world" HTML)
3371 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
3372 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
3373
3374 ** Networking and encryption changes
3375
3376 *** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
3377 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
3378 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
3379 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
3380 must also be supplied.
3381
3382 *** New library gnutls.el.
3383 The new function `gnutls-available-p' returns non-nil if Emacs is
3384 built with GnuTLS support. The main entry points are
3385 `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'. It's easiest to use
3386 these functions through `open-network-stream', because that can
3387 upgrade connections through STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain
3388 SSL, depending on your needs. For debugging, set `gnutls-log-level'
3389 greater than 0.
3390
3391 *** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms:
3392 md5, sha1, sha2, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512. The lisp library
3393 sha1.el has been removed. The `sha1' feature is provided by default.
3394
3395 ** Isearch
3396
3397 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
3398
3399 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
3400 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
3401 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
3402 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
3403 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
3404 displayed with a "spinning bar".
3405
3406 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
3407 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
3408
3409 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook'.
3410 If delayed-warnings-list is non-nil, the command loop calls
3411 `delayed-warnings-hook' after `post-command-hook'. At present, this
3412 is only used by Emacs on some platforms to display warnings during
3413 startup, which might otherwise not be noticed. This uses the
3414 functions `display-delayed-warnings' and `collapse-delayed-warnings'.
3415
3416 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
3417
3418 ** New function `make-composed-keymap' that constructs a new keymap
3419 from multiple input maps. You can use this to make a keymap that
3420 inherits from multiple maps, eg:
3421 (set-keymap-parent newmap (make-composed-keymap othermap parent))
3422
3423 ** New function `string-prefix-p'.
3424 (This was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not advertised at the time.)
3425
3426 ** New reader macro ## that stands for the empty symbol.
3427 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
3428 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
3429 an empty uninterned symbol.
3430
3431 ** New math functions `isnan', `copysign', `frexp', `ldexp'.
3432
3433 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
3434
3435 *** `tooltip-use-echo-area' is obsolete.
3436 Rather than setting this to t, disable Tooltip mode instead.
3437
3438 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
3439 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
3440
3441 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
3442
3443 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
3444 Use `post-command-hook' instead.
3445
3446 *** `font-lock-maximum-size' is obsolete.
3447
3448 \f
3449 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on Non-Free Operating Systems
3450
3451 ** On MS Windows, Emacs warns when using the obsolete init file _emacs,
3452 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
3453
3454 ** New configure.bat options
3455
3456 *** --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra runtime checks.
3457
3458 *** --distfiles specifies files to be included in binary distribution.
3459
3460 *** --without-gnutls disables automatic GnuTLS detection.
3461
3462 *** --lib for general library linkage, works with the USER_LIBS build variable.
3463
3464 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
3465
3466 ** The Lisp function `w32-default-color-map' is now obsolete.
3467 (It is only used internally in the Emacs C code.)
3468
3469 ** Customize ns-auto-hide-menu-bar to have the menu-bar hidden, but
3470 reappear on mouse-over. (Requires OS X 10.6 or later.)
3471
3472 ** On Mac OS X, dragging a file into Emacs visits the file, like on
3473 other platforms, rather than inserting its contents into the buffer.
3474
3475 \f
3476 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
3477 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
3478
3479 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
3480 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
3481 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3482 (at your option) any later version.
3483
3484 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3485 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3486 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3487 GNU General Public License for more details.
3488
3489 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3490 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
3491
3492 \f
3493 Local variables:
3494 mode: outline
3495 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
3496 end: