1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
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9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
21 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
22 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
26 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
29 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
30 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
31 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
34 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
37 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
38 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
39 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
40 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
41 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
42 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
43 in each user's home directory.
46 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
47 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
51 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
53 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
54 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
55 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
56 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
59 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
62 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
63 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
64 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
65 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
68 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
69 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
70 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
71 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
72 doesn't automatically select the right one.
75 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
78 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
79 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
80 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
81 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
84 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
87 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
90 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
93 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
94 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
97 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
100 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
101 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
102 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
105 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
106 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
109 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
110 much pure storage it will approximately need.
112 ** The script etc/emacs-buffer.gdb can be used with gdb to retrieve the
113 contents of buffers from a core dump and save them to files easily, should
117 ** The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el uses a different terminfo name.
118 The Emacs terminal emulation in term.el now uses "eterm-color" as its
119 terminfo name, since term.el now supports color.
122 ** Emacs Lisp source files are compressed by default if `gzip' is available.
125 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
128 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
129 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
130 the fancy startup screen.
133 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
134 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
138 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
139 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
142 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
143 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
144 can start with this line:
146 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
149 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
150 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
151 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
153 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
155 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
156 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
159 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
160 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
163 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
164 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
165 an interactively callable function.
168 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
169 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
170 affects the initial frame.
173 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
174 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
175 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
176 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
177 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
180 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
181 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
182 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
183 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
184 `inhibit-splash-screen').
187 ** The default is now to use an bitmap as the icon, so the command-line options
188 --icon-type, -i has been replaced with options --no-bitmap-icon, -nbi to turn
192 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
193 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
194 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
198 If the init file ~/.emacs does not exist, Emacs will try
199 ~/.emacs.d/init.el or ~/.emacs.d/init.elc. You can also put the shell
200 init file .emacs_SHELL under ~/.emacs.d.
203 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
204 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
205 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
206 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
207 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
209 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
212 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
213 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
214 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
215 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
218 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
219 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
221 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
222 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
225 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
226 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
227 the operating system or your X server.
230 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
233 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
234 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
238 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
239 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
242 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
243 previous mark if you set `set-mark-command-repeat-pop' to t. I.e. C-u
244 C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC
245 to set the mark immediately after a jump.
248 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
249 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
252 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
254 See below under "incremental search changes".
257 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
259 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
260 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
261 directory with Dired.
263 You can get the old behavior by typing C-x C-f M-n RET, which fetches
264 the actual file name into the minibuffer.
267 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
268 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
269 it remains unchanged.
272 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
273 M-o M-o requests refontification.
276 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
278 See below for more details.
281 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
282 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
283 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
284 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
285 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
286 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
288 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
291 ** !MEM FULL! at the start of the mode line indicates that Emacs
292 cannot get any more memory for Lisp data. This often means it could
293 crash soon if you do things that use more memory. On most systems,
294 killing buffers will get out of this state. If killing buffers does
295 not make !MEM FULL! disappear, you should save your work and start
299 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
300 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
303 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
304 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
305 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
306 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
309 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
310 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
312 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
313 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
316 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
317 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
318 the operating system or your X server.
321 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
324 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
325 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
329 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
330 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
333 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left and
334 (prev-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and C-x right
338 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
341 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
342 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
345 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
346 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
349 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
350 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
353 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
354 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
355 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
356 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
359 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
360 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
361 in Indented-Text mode.
364 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
366 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
367 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
368 in the value, use `$$'.
371 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
372 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
376 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
379 ** The command `list-faces-display' now accepts a prefix arg.
380 When passed, the function prompts for a regular expression and lists
381 only faces matching this regexp.
383 ** Mark command changes:
386 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
387 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
388 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
391 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
393 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
394 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
395 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
396 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
397 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
398 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
399 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
400 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
401 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
404 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
406 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
407 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
411 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
412 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
413 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
414 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
415 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
418 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
419 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
420 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
423 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
424 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
425 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
429 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
430 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
431 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
433 ** Help command changes:
436 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
438 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
440 C-h d runs apropos-documentation.
442 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
445 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
446 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
448 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
449 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
451 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
452 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
453 run by the key sequence.
454 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
455 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
458 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
459 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
460 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
461 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
462 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
463 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
464 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
465 new-kill-line is on C-k
468 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
469 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
470 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
471 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
474 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
475 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
478 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
479 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
480 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
481 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
482 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
483 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
484 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node'). In
485 addition, it now makes hyperlinks to URLs as well if the URL is
486 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `URL'.
489 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
490 description various information about a character, including its
491 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
492 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
493 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
496 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
497 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
500 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
501 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
502 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
503 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
504 keyboard oriented alternative.
507 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
508 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
509 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
510 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
511 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
514 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
515 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
516 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
520 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
521 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
522 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
523 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
524 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
527 ** Incremental Search changes:
530 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
531 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
532 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
533 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
537 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
538 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
539 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
540 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
543 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
544 at the end of a line.
547 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
548 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
549 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
552 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
553 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
554 search string used as the string to replace.
557 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
558 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
559 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
561 ** Replace command changes:
564 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
565 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
566 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
569 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
570 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
571 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
572 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
573 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
574 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
575 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
576 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
577 can be edited for each replacement.
580 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
581 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
584 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
585 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
587 ** File operation changes:
590 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
591 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
592 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
593 is only rarely needed.
596 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
597 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
600 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
601 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
604 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
605 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
608 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
611 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
613 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
614 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
615 directory with Dired.
618 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
619 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
620 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
624 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
625 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
628 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
629 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
630 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
631 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
632 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
633 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
636 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
637 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
638 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
641 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
642 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
643 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
646 *** The new option `write-region-inhibit-fsync' disables calls to fsync
647 in `write-region'. This can be useful on laptops to avoid spinning up
648 the hard drive upon each file save. Enabling this variable may result
649 in data loss, use with care.
652 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
653 Emacs asks for confirmation.
656 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
658 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
659 when visiting the file.
661 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
662 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
663 when saving the file.
666 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
667 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
668 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
669 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
670 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
673 ** Minibuffer changes:
676 *** The new file-name-shadow-mode is turned ON by default, so that when
677 entering a file name, any prefix which Emacs will ignore is dimmed.
680 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
681 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
682 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
686 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
688 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
689 have in common and where they begin to differ.
691 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
692 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
693 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
694 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
695 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
696 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
697 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
698 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
700 Above fontification is always done when listing completions is
701 triggered at minibuffer. If you want to fontify completions whose
702 listing is triggered at the other normal buffer, you have to pass
703 the common prefix of completions to `display-completion-list' as
707 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
708 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
709 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
710 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
711 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
712 candidate is a directory.
715 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
716 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
717 it remains unchanged.
720 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
721 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
722 elements are deleted.
724 ** Redisplay changes:
727 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
728 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
729 appears between the position information and the major mode.
732 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
735 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now displayed with a special
736 face, either nobreak-space or escape-glyph. You can turn this off or
737 specify a different mode by setting the variable `nobreak-char-display'.
740 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
741 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
742 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
743 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
745 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
746 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
747 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
748 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
749 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
750 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
752 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
753 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
756 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller that
757 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
761 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
762 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
763 the mode line of the currently selected window.
765 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
766 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
769 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
770 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
771 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
772 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
776 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
777 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
778 the window can be scrolled.
780 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
781 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
782 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
784 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
785 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
787 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presence and
788 position of each bitmap individually.
790 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
791 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
792 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
793 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
796 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
797 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
798 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
799 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
800 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
802 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
803 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
806 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
807 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
808 outside those margins.
811 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
812 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
814 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
815 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
816 or when the frame is resized.
818 ** Cursor display changes:
821 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
822 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
825 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
828 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
829 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
830 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
834 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
835 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
839 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
840 of the recognized cursor types.
845 *** `mode-line-highlight' is the standard face indicating mouse sensitive
846 elements on mode-line (and header-line) like `highlight' face on text
850 *** `shadow' face defines the appearance of the "shadowed" text, i.e.
851 the text which should be less noticeable than the surrounding text.
852 This can be achieved by using shades of grey in contrast with either
853 black or white default foreground color. This generic shadow face
854 allows customization of the appearance of shadowed text in one place,
855 so package-specific faces can inherit from it.
858 *** `vertical-border' face is used for the vertical divider between windows.
860 ** Font-Lock changes:
863 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
864 M-o M-o requests refontification.
867 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
868 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
869 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
871 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
872 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
876 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
877 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
878 The default value is 1.
881 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
882 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
883 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
884 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
885 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
888 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
891 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
894 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
895 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
896 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
897 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
900 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
901 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
902 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
903 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
904 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
907 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
909 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
910 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
911 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
912 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
915 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
917 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
918 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
919 refontification takes place.
924 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
925 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
926 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
927 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
928 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
929 current date and time, current line and column number in the mode-line.
932 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
935 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
938 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
939 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
940 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
943 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
944 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
947 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
948 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
951 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
952 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
953 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
956 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
957 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
960 *** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
961 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
967 *** If you set the new variable `mouse-autoselect-window' to a non-nil
968 value, windows are automatically selected as you move the mouse from
969 one Emacs window to another, even within a frame. A minibuffer window
970 can be selected only when it is active.
973 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
974 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
975 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
976 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
977 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
981 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
983 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
984 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
985 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
986 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
987 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
988 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
990 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
991 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
992 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
993 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
994 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
995 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
996 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
997 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
998 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1000 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1001 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1002 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1005 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1006 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1008 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1009 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1012 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1013 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1014 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1015 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1016 also disable mouse highlighting.
1019 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1020 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1021 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1024 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1025 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1028 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1030 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1031 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1032 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1033 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1036 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1038 ** Multilingual Environment (Mule) changes:
1041 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1042 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1043 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1044 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1045 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1048 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1049 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1050 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1051 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1052 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1053 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1054 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1055 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1058 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1059 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1062 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1066 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1070 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1074 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1075 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1076 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1080 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1081 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1084 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1085 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1086 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1087 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1088 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1089 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1090 mule-unicode-... ones.
1092 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1093 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1094 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1097 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1098 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1099 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1100 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1101 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1104 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1105 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1106 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1107 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1110 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1111 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1112 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1113 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1114 automatically according to the locale.)
1117 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1118 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1119 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1120 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1121 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1125 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1129 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1130 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1131 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1132 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1136 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1137 M-t (transpose-words)
1138 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1141 *** Indian support has been updated.
1142 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1143 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1144 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1148 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1151 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1152 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1153 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1154 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1155 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1156 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1157 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1158 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1159 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1160 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1161 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1162 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1165 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1166 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1167 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1170 *** Many new coding systems are available in the `code-pages' library.
1171 These include complete versions of most of those in codepage.el, based
1172 on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now obsolete and is used
1173 only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. All coding systems defined in
1174 `code-pages' are auto-loaded.
1177 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1178 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1181 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1182 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1183 fontset appropriately.
1185 ** Customize changes:
1188 *** Custom themes are collections of customize options. Create a
1189 custom theme with M-x customize-create-theme. Use M-x load-theme to
1190 load and enable a theme, and M-x disable-theme to disable it. Use M-x
1191 enable-theme to renable a disabled theme.
1194 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1195 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1196 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1200 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1201 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1202 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1203 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1204 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1205 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1206 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1209 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1210 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1211 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1212 under the "[State]" button.
1214 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1217 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1218 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
1222 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1223 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1224 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1227 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1228 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1229 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1231 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1232 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1233 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1234 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1235 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1237 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1238 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1239 t, and the status is shown.
1241 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1242 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1247 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1248 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1249 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1252 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1253 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1256 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1257 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1260 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1261 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1262 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1263 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1264 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1265 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1268 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1269 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1272 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1274 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1275 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1276 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1280 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1281 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1282 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1283 directory listing into a buffer.
1288 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1289 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1290 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1291 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1292 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1294 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1295 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1297 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1298 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1299 lines, including any prompts.
1301 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1302 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1303 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1304 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1305 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1306 `kill-region' if read-only properties are involved: it copies the text
1307 to the kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1310 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1311 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1312 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1313 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1316 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1317 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1318 but declared obsolete.
1320 ** M-x Compile changes:
1323 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1325 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1326 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1327 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1328 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1330 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1331 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1332 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1334 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1335 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1336 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1337 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1338 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1340 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1343 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1344 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1345 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1346 subprocesses inherit.
1349 *** New user option `compilation-disable-input'.
1350 If this is non-nil, send end-of-file as compilation process input.
1353 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1354 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1355 in new face `next-error'.
1358 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1359 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1360 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1361 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1362 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1366 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1367 the compilation buffer.
1370 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1371 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1372 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1373 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1376 ** Occur mode changes:
1379 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1380 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1384 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1385 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1388 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1389 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1390 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1391 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1392 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1397 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1399 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1400 customization group.
1403 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1405 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1406 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1409 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1410 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1413 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1414 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1415 settings, for grep commands only.
1418 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1419 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1420 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1421 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1422 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1423 source line is highlighted.
1426 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1427 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1428 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1429 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1430 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1431 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1435 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1436 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1437 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1438 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1439 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1440 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1442 ** X Windows Support:
1445 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1446 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1447 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1450 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1451 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1452 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1453 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1455 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1456 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1459 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1460 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1462 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1463 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1466 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1467 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1468 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1469 and use the more appropriately result.
1472 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1473 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1474 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1479 *** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
1480 display margin, when run in an xterm.
1483 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1484 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1485 following should work:
1486 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1487 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1488 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1490 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1493 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1494 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1495 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1496 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1497 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1498 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1499 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1500 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1501 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1504 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1505 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1506 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1507 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1508 all of these colors.
1511 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1512 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1513 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1514 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1518 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1520 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1522 ** Rcirc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1524 Rcirc is an Internet relay chat (IRC) client. It supports
1525 simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Each discussion
1526 takes place in its own buffer. For each connection you can join
1527 several channels (many-to-many) and participate in private
1528 (one-to-one) chats. Both channel and private chats are contained in
1531 To start an IRC session, type M-x irc, and follow the prompts for
1532 server, port, nick and initial channels.
1535 ** Newsticker is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1537 Newsticker asynchronously retrieves headlines (RSS) from a list of news
1538 sites, prepares these headlines for reading, and allows for loading the
1539 corresponding articles in a web browser. Its documentation is in a
1543 ** savehist saves minibuffer histories between sessions.
1544 To use this feature, turn on savehist-mode in your `.emacs' file.
1547 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1548 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1549 program files that include other program files.
1551 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1552 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1556 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1558 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1559 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1560 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1561 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1564 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1565 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1568 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1570 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1571 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1572 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1573 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1576 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1577 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1580 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1582 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1583 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1584 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1585 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1586 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1587 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1589 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1590 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1591 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1592 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1594 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1595 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1596 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1597 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1598 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1599 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1600 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1602 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1603 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1604 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1606 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1607 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1609 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1610 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1611 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1612 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1614 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1615 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1616 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1617 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1619 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1620 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1621 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1622 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1625 ** Org mode is now part of the Emacs distribution
1627 Org mode is a mode for keeping notes, maintaining ToDo lists, and
1628 doing project planning with a fast and effective plain-text system.
1629 It also contains a plain-text table editor with spreadsheet-like
1632 The Org mode table editor can be integrated into any major mode by
1633 activating the minor Orgtbl-mode.
1635 The documentation for org-mode is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1636 type "C-h i m org RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1637 available in `etc/orgcard.tex' and `etc/orgcard.ps'.
1640 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1641 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1642 to increment the SOA serial.
1645 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1646 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1647 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1648 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1649 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1650 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1653 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1654 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1657 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1658 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1659 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1660 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1661 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1663 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1664 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1665 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1666 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1667 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1668 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1670 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1671 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1672 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1673 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1674 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1675 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1676 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1677 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1678 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1682 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1683 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1685 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1686 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1687 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1688 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1690 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1693 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1694 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1695 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1696 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1697 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1700 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1701 the keyboard macro ring.
1703 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1704 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1706 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1707 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1708 this behavior via the variables kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1709 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1711 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1712 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1713 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1716 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1717 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1718 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1721 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1722 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1725 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1726 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1727 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1728 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1729 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1730 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1731 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1732 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1733 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1736 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1738 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1739 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1740 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1741 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1742 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1743 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1746 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1747 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1748 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1749 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1751 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1754 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1755 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1756 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1760 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1761 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1762 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1763 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1766 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1767 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1770 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1771 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1772 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1773 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1774 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1775 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1778 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
1779 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
1782 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1784 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1785 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1786 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1787 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1788 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1789 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1790 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1791 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1792 `rsync' to do the copying).
1794 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1795 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1797 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1799 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1802 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1805 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1806 configuration files.
1809 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1810 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1811 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1812 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1813 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1817 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1820 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1823 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1824 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1826 ** The new package scroll-lock.el provides the Scroll Lock minor mode
1827 for pager-like scrolling. Keys which normally move point by line or
1828 paragraph will scroll the buffer by the respective amount of lines
1829 instead and point will be kept vertically fixed relative to window
1830 boundaries during scrolling.
1832 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1834 ** Changes in Allout
1836 *** Topic cryptography added, enabling easy gpg topic encryption and
1837 decryption. Per-topic basis enables interspersing encrypted-text and
1838 clear-text within a single file to your hearts content, using symmetric
1839 and/or public key modes. Time-limited key caching, user-provided
1840 symmetric key hinting and consistency verification, auto-encryption of
1841 pending topics on save, and more, make it easy to use encryption in
1844 *** many substantial fixes and refinements, including:
1846 - repaired inhibition of inadvertent edits to concealed text
1847 - repaired retention of topic body hanging indent upon topic depth shifts
1848 - prevent "containment discontinuities" where a topic is shifted deeper
1849 than the offspring-depth of its container
1850 - easy to adopt the distinctive bullet of a topic in a topic created
1851 relative to it, or select a new one, or use the common topic bullet
1852 - plain bullets, by default, now alternate between only two characters
1853 ('.' and ','), yielding less cluttered outlines
1854 - many internal fixes
1855 - version number incremented to 2.1
1857 ** The variable `woman-topic-at-point' was renamed
1858 to `woman-use-topic-at-point' and behaves differently: if this
1859 variable is non-nil, the `woman' command uses the word at point
1860 automatically, without asking for a confirmation. Otherwise, the word
1861 at point is suggested as default, but not inserted at the prompt.
1864 ** Changes to cmuscheme
1866 *** Emacs now offers to start Scheme if the user tries to
1867 evaluate a Scheme expression but no Scheme subprocess is running.
1869 *** If a file `.emacs_NAME' (where NAME is the name of the Scheme interpreter)
1870 exists in the user's home directory or in ~/.emacs.d, its
1871 contents are sent to the Scheme subprocess upon startup.
1873 *** There are new commands to instruct the Scheme interpreter to trace
1874 procedure calls (`scheme-trace-procedure') and to expand syntactic forms
1875 (`scheme-expand-current-form'). The commands actually sent to the Scheme
1876 subprocess are controlled by the user options `scheme-trace-command',
1877 `scheme-untrace-command' and `scheme-expand-current-form'.
1880 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp and BSD make.
1882 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter two
1883 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1887 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1888 of the file that precede the first header line.
1891 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1894 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1895 run most curses applications now.
1898 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1901 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1902 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1903 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1905 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1906 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1907 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1910 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1911 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1914 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1915 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1916 incompatible change.
1919 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1922 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1923 resync points in both windows.
1926 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1928 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1929 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1932 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1933 when Emacs visits them.
1935 ** Info mode changes:
1938 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1939 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1942 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1944 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1945 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1946 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1947 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1948 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1949 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1953 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1954 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1955 search without prompting for a new search string.
1958 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1959 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1960 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1963 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
1966 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
1967 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
1970 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
1971 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
1975 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
1976 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
1977 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
1980 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
1981 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
1984 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
1985 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
1988 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
1990 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
1991 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
1994 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
1996 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
1997 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
1998 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
2001 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
2004 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
2006 ** Lisp mode changes:
2009 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
2012 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
2014 *** New features in evaluation commands
2017 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
2018 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
2021 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
2022 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
2023 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
2024 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
2025 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
2030 *** Font lock support.
2031 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
2032 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
2033 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
2034 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
2035 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
2036 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
2038 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
2039 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
2040 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
2041 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
2042 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
2043 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
2044 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
2045 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
2046 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
2048 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
2049 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
2050 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
2051 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
2052 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
2053 take the better part of a minute.
2055 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
2056 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
2057 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
2058 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
2059 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
2060 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
2062 **** Support for documentation comments.
2063 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
2064 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
2065 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
2066 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
2068 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
2069 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
2070 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
2071 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2073 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
2074 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
2075 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
2076 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
2079 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
2080 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
2081 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
2082 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
2083 not as configurable as it ought to be.
2085 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
2086 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
2087 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
2088 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
2089 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
2091 *** Support for the AWK language.
2092 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
2093 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
2094 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
2097 **** Indentation Engine
2098 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
2100 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
2101 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
2102 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
2103 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
2104 definition, or structured statement.
2106 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2107 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
2108 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2110 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
2111 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
2112 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
2113 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
2116 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2117 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2118 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2119 the AWK language itself.
2121 **** Comment Commands
2122 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
2123 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
2125 **** Movement Commands
2126 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
2127 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
2128 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
2130 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
2131 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
2132 recognize these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
2135 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2136 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
2137 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
2138 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
2140 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2141 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2142 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2143 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2144 composition-close, and incomposition.
2146 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2147 The functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward' can be
2148 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
2150 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2152 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2153 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2154 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2155 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2157 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2158 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2160 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2162 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2163 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2164 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2165 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2167 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2171 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2173 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2176 This change might affect code that call `c-guess-basic-syntax' directly,
2177 and custom lineup functions if they use `c-syntactic-context'. However,
2178 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
2179 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
2181 *** API changes for derived modes.
2183 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2184 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2185 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2186 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2187 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2189 **** New language variable system.
2190 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2192 **** New initialization functions.
2193 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2194 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2195 `c-init-language-vars'.
2197 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2198 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2199 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2200 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2202 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2203 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2204 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2205 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2206 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2208 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2209 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2210 its substatement. E.g:
2216 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2218 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2219 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2220 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2221 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2222 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2225 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2227 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2228 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2229 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2230 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2231 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2232 empty lines within the macro better.
2234 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2235 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2236 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2238 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2239 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2240 variable `c-backslash-max-column' which put a limit on how far out
2241 backslashes can be moved.
2243 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2244 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2245 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2246 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2247 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2249 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2250 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2251 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2252 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2253 backslash) in the macro.
2255 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2256 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2257 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior based
2258 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
2259 and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other cases
2260 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2262 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2263 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2265 *** New lineup functions
2267 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2268 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2271 result = prefix + "A message "
2272 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2274 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2275 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2277 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2278 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2279 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2281 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2282 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2284 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2285 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2287 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2288 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2289 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2290 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2291 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2292 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2294 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2295 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2296 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2297 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2300 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2301 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2302 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2303 happen when macros are involved.
2305 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2306 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2307 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2308 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2309 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2310 line is left untouched.
2312 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2313 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2314 syntactic indentation.
2316 ** In sh-script, a continuation line is only indented if the backslash was
2317 preceded by a SPC or a TAB.
2320 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2323 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2324 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2325 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2326 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2328 ** Fortran mode changes:
2331 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2332 highlighting for the old default.
2335 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2336 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2337 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2340 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2341 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2342 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2343 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2346 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2347 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2351 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2352 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2355 ** Reftex mode changes
2357 *** Changes to RefTeX's table of contents
2359 The new command keys "<" and ">" in the TOC buffer promote/demote the
2360 section at point or all sections in the current region, with full
2361 support for multifile documents.
2363 The new command `reftex-toc-recenter' (`C-c -') shows the current
2364 section in the TOC buffer without selecting the TOC window.
2365 Recentering can happen automatically in idle time when the option
2366 `reftex-auto-recenter-toc' is turned on. The highlight in the TOC
2367 buffer stays when the focus moves to a different window. A dedicated
2368 frame can show the TOC with the current section always automatically
2369 highlighted. The frame is created and deleted from the toc buffer
2372 The toc window can be split off horizontally instead of vertically.
2373 See new option `reftex-toc-split-windows-horizontally'.
2375 Labels can be renamed globally from the table of contents using the
2378 The new command `reftex-goto-label' jumps directly to a label
2382 *** Changes related to citations and BibTeX database files
2384 Commands that insert a citation now prompt for optional arguments when
2385 called with a prefix argument. Related new options are
2386 `reftex-cite-prompt-optional-args' and `reftex-cite-cleanup-optional-args'.
2388 The new command `reftex-create-bibtex-file' creates a BibTeX database
2389 with all entries referenced in the current document. The keys "e" and
2390 "E" allow to produce a BibTeX database file from entries marked in a
2391 citation selection buffer.
2393 The command `reftex-citation' uses the word in the buffer before the
2394 cursor as a default search string.
2396 The support for chapterbib has been improved. Different chapters can
2397 now use BibTeX or an explicit `thebibliography' environment.
2399 The macros which specify the bibliography file (like \bibliography)
2400 can be configured with the new option `reftex-bibliography-commands'.
2402 Support for jurabib has been added.
2405 *** Global index matched may be verified with a user function
2407 During global indexing, a user function can verify an index match.
2408 See new option `reftex-index-verify-function'.
2411 *** Parsing documents with many labels can be sped up.
2413 Operating in a document with thousands of labels can be sped up
2414 considerably by allowing RefTeX to derive the type of a label directly
2415 from the label prefix like `eq:' or `fig:'. The option
2416 `reftex-trust-label-prefix' needs to be configured in order to enable
2417 this feature. While the speed-up is significant, this may reduce the
2418 quality of the context offered by RefTeX to describe a label.
2421 *** Miscellaneous changes
2423 The macros which input a file in LaTeX (like \input, \include) can be
2424 configured in the new option `reftex-include-file-commands'.
2426 RefTeX supports global incremental search.
2429 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2430 to support use of font-lock.
2432 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2435 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2439 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2440 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2441 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2442 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2443 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2444 from the file name or buffer contents.
2447 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2452 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2455 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2456 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2457 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2458 TeX commands to use at startup.
2461 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2462 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2465 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2469 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2470 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2472 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2473 an existing BibTeX entry.
2475 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2477 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2478 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2479 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2480 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2481 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2482 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2484 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2485 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2487 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2488 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2490 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2491 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2493 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2494 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2496 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2497 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2498 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2500 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2501 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2503 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2504 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2506 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2507 in multiple BibTeX files.
2509 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2510 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2513 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2514 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2520 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2521 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2524 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2525 and other common debugger commands.
2528 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2529 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2530 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2531 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2532 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2533 Emacs 21/22 such as the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2536 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2538 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2539 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2543 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2544 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2548 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2550 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
2551 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
2552 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
2553 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2554 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2556 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2557 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
2558 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2561 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2564 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2565 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2566 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2568 Added Customization Variables
2570 *** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2572 *** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2573 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2574 java sources (previous method).
2576 *** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for java
2577 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2582 *** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2583 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2584 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2585 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2588 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2590 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2593 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2595 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2596 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2597 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2598 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2599 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2600 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2603 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2604 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2605 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2609 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2610 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2611 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2612 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2613 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2614 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2615 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2616 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2617 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2620 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2621 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2622 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2623 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2624 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2629 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
2630 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2633 The ten most recent files can be quickly opened by using the shortcut
2634 keys 1 to 9, and 0, when the recent list is displayed in a buffer via
2635 the `recentf-open-files', or `recentf-open-more-files' commands.
2637 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2638 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2639 keep in the recent list.
2641 With the more advanced option `recentf-filename-handlers', you can
2642 specify functions that successively transform recent file names. For
2643 example, if set to `file-truename' plus `abbreviate-file-name', the
2644 same file will not be in the recent list with different symbolic
2645 links, and the file name will be abbreviated.
2647 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2648 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2649 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2655 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2658 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2660 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2663 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2667 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2668 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2673 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2674 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2675 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2677 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2678 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2681 *** New customizable variables:
2682 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2684 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2685 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2686 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2687 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2688 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2690 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2691 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2692 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2693 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2696 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2700 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2701 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2704 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2706 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2707 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2708 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2709 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2710 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2716 *** When comparing directories.
2717 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2718 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2719 from one directory to another.
2722 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2723 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2724 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2725 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2729 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2730 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2731 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2736 *** New regular expressions features
2738 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2740 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2741 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2742 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2743 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2744 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2745 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2746 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2747 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2748 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2749 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2751 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2753 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2754 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2757 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2759 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2760 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2761 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2763 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2765 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2766 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2768 *** New language parsing features
2770 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2772 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2774 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognized and ignored.
2776 **** New language HTML.
2778 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2779 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2781 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2783 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2784 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2786 **** New language Lua.
2788 All functions are tagged.
2790 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2792 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2793 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2796 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2798 **** New language PHP.
2800 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2801 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2803 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2805 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2808 *** Honour #line directives.
2810 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2811 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2812 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2813 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2814 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2816 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2818 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2819 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2820 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2826 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2827 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2829 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2830 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2831 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2834 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2836 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2839 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2840 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2842 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2843 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2844 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2847 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2850 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2852 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2853 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2854 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2856 P: annotates the previous revision
2857 N: annotates the next revision
2858 J: annotates the revision at line
2859 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2860 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2861 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2862 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2867 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2868 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2872 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2873 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2874 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2878 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2879 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2880 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2883 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2885 See the documentation of the user option
2886 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2891 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2893 *** The new commands rmail-end-of-message and rmail-summary end-of-message,
2894 by default bound to `/', go to the end of the current mail message in
2895 Rmail and Rmail summary buffers.
2898 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2900 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2901 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2902 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2903 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2904 used instead of the native one.
2909 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2911 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2915 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2917 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
2922 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.85. There have been major changes since
2923 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
2925 ** Calendar changes:
2928 *** You can now use < and >, instead of C-x < and C-x >, to scroll
2929 the calendar left or right. (The old key bindings still work too.)
2932 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
2933 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
2936 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
2937 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
2938 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
2939 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
2940 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
2941 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
2942 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
2943 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
2944 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
2947 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
2948 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
2949 count backward from the end of the year.
2952 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
2953 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
2954 day of that ISO week.
2957 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
2958 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
2961 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
2962 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
2963 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
2964 `christian-holidays' simpler.
2967 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
2968 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
2969 and `diary-header-line-format'.
2972 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
2973 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
2974 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
2975 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
2978 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
2979 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
2980 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
2981 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
2985 ** Speedbar changes:
2987 *** Speedbar items can now be selected by clicking mouse-1, based on
2988 the `mouse-1-click-follows-link' mechanism.
2990 *** SPC and DEL are no longer bound to scroll up/down in the speedbar
2993 *** The new command `speedbar-toggle-line-expansion', bound to SPC,
2994 contracts or expands the line under the cursor.
2996 *** New command `speedbar-create-directory', bound to `M'.
2998 *** The new commands `speedbar-expand-line-descendants' and
2999 `speedbar-contract-line-descendants', bound to `[' and `]'
3000 respectively, expand and contract the line under cursor with all of
3003 *** The new user option `speedbar-query-confirmation-method' controls
3004 how querying is performed for file operations. A value of 'always
3005 means to always query before file operations; 'none-but-delete means
3006 to not query before any file operations, except before a file
3009 *** The new user option `speedbar-select-frame-method' specifies how
3010 to select a frame for displaying a file opened with the speedbar. A
3011 value of 'attached means to use the attached frame (the frame that
3012 speedbar was started from.) A number such as 1 or -1 means to pass
3013 that number to `other-frame'.
3015 *** The new user option `speedbar-use-tool-tips-flag', if non-nil,
3016 means to display tool-tips for speedbar items.
3018 *** The frame management code in speedbar.el has been split into a new
3019 `dframe' library. Emacs Lisp code that makes use of the speedbar
3020 should use `dframe-attached-frame' instead of
3021 `speedbar-attached-frame', `dframe-timer' instead of `speedbar-timer',
3022 `dframe-close-frame' instead of `speedbar-close-frame', and
3023 `dframe-activity-change-focus-flag' instead of
3024 `speedbar-activity-change-focus-flag'. The variables
3025 `speedbar-update-speed' and `speedbar-navigating-speed' are also
3026 obsolete; use `dframe-update-speed' instead.
3031 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
3032 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
3033 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
3034 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
3035 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
3037 The following values are supported:
3039 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
3053 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
3056 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
3057 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
3058 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
3060 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
3062 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
3063 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
3064 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
3065 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
3067 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
3068 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
3070 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
3072 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
3073 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
3075 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
3077 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
3078 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
3079 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
3080 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
3083 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
3084 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
3085 credentials to authenticate the user.
3087 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
3088 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
3089 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
3091 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
3092 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
3094 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
3095 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
3098 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
3099 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
3103 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
3108 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
3110 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
3111 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
3112 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
3113 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
3116 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
3118 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
3119 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
3122 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
3124 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
3125 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
3126 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
3127 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
3128 with other details of skeleton construction.
3131 ** Hideshow mode changes
3133 *** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
3134 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
3135 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
3136 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
3138 *** New variable `hs-allow-nesting' non-nil means that hiding a block does
3139 not discard the hidden state of any "internal" blocks; when the parent
3140 block is later shown, the internal blocks remain hidden. Default is nil.
3143 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
3144 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
3145 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
3148 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
3151 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
3152 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
3153 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
3154 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
3157 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
3159 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
3160 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
3161 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
3164 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
3165 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
3166 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
3167 using strokes as an input method.
3169 ** Emacs server changes:
3172 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
3174 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
3175 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
3176 % emacsclient -s foo file1
3177 % emacsclient -s bar file2
3180 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
3181 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
3182 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
3185 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
3188 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
3191 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
3193 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
3194 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
3195 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
3198 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
3199 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
3202 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
3204 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
3205 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
3209 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
3211 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
3212 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
3213 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
3215 ** battery.el changes:
3218 *** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
3221 *** battery.el now works on recent versions of OS X.
3224 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
3226 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
3227 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
3228 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
3229 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
3232 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
3235 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
3238 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
3240 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
3243 ** The HOME directory defaults to Application Data under the user profile.
3245 If you used a previous version of Emacs without setting the HOME
3246 environment variable and a `.emacs' was saved, then Emacs will continue
3247 using C:/ as the default HOME. But if you are installing Emacs afresh,
3248 the default location will be the "Application Data" (or similar
3249 localized name) subdirectory of your user profile. A typical location
3250 of this directory is "C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data",
3251 where USERNAME is your user name.
3253 This change means that users can now have their own `.emacs' files on
3254 shared computers, and the default HOME directory is less likely to be
3255 read-only on computers that are administered by someone else.
3258 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
3260 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
3261 existing values. For example:
3263 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
3265 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
3266 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3269 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3271 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3272 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3275 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3277 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3280 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3282 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3283 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3284 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3285 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3286 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3287 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3290 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3292 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3293 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3294 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3295 sound support for those formats.
3298 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3300 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3303 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3305 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3306 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3307 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3310 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3312 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3313 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3314 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3315 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3316 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3317 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3318 you wish to use them in other faces.
3321 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3323 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3324 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3325 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3326 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3330 ** Running in a console window in Windows now uses the console size.
3332 Previous versions of Emacs erred on the side of having a usable Emacs
3333 through telnet, even though that was inconvenient if you use Emacs in
3334 a local console window with a scrollback buffer. The default value of
3335 w32-use-full-screen-buffer is now nil, which favours local console
3336 windows. Recent versions of Windows telnet also work well with this
3337 setting. If you are using an older telnet server then Emacs detects
3338 that the console window dimensions that are reported are not sane, and
3339 defaults to 80x25. If you use such a telnet server regularly at a size
3340 other than 80x25, you can still manually set
3341 w32-use-full-screen-buffer to t.
3344 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3347 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3348 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3349 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3351 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3354 ** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3355 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3358 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3359 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3360 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3364 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3365 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3366 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3369 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3372 ** The variable `memory-full' now remains t until
3373 there is no longer a shortage of memory.
3375 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3377 ** General Lisp changes:
3379 *** The function `expt' handles negative exponents differently.
3380 The value for `(expt A B)', if both A and B are integers and B is
3381 negative, is now a float. For example: (expt 2 -2) => 0.25.
3384 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3387 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3390 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3392 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3393 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3394 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3397 *** New function `add-to-ordered-list' is like `add-to-list' but
3398 associates a numeric ordering of each element added to the list.
3401 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3403 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3406 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3408 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3409 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3413 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3415 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3416 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3419 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3421 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3422 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3423 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3427 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3429 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3432 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3434 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3438 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3440 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3444 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3446 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3447 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3450 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3452 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3453 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3454 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3456 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3457 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3460 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3462 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3463 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3464 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3467 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3469 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3470 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3471 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3474 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3476 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3477 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3478 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3479 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3482 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3484 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3485 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3486 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3488 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3489 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3492 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3494 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3497 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3499 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3500 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3501 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc).
3504 *** New macro `eval-at-startup' specifies expressions to
3505 evaluate when Emacs starts up. If this is done after startup,
3506 it evaluates those expressions immediately.
3508 This is useful in packages that can be preloaded.
3510 *** `list-faces-display' takes an optional argument, REGEXP.
3512 If it is non-nil, the function lists only faces matching this regexp.
3514 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3517 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3519 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3520 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3522 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3524 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3525 possible declaration specifiers are:
3528 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3531 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3532 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3533 but this is cleaner.)
3536 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3538 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3541 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3543 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3544 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3545 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3549 ** Variable aliases:
3551 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3553 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3554 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3555 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3556 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3558 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3559 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3561 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3563 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3564 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3565 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3567 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3568 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3571 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3572 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3574 ** defcustom changes:
3577 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3582 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3584 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3585 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3586 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3589 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3592 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3595 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3596 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3597 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3598 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3599 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3602 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3603 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3606 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3610 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3611 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3612 been declared obsolete.
3615 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3617 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3618 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3619 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3620 warnings in a separate window.
3623 ** Progress reporters.
3625 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3626 progress messages for the user.
3628 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3629 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3630 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3632 ** Buffer positions:
3635 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3636 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3637 the usable window height and width is used.
3640 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3641 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3642 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3643 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3644 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3647 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3652 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3657 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' test if a position is in a clickable link.
3659 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3663 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3665 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3668 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3670 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3671 give up and return LIMIT.
3674 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3675 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3679 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3680 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3681 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3683 ** Text modification:
3686 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3687 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3688 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3691 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3692 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3693 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3696 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3697 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3701 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3702 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3703 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3704 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3705 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3707 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3708 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3709 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3713 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3717 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3718 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3719 be inserted is translated through it.
3724 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3725 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3729 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3734 *** In determining an adaptive fill prefix, Emacs now tries the function in
3735 `adaptive-fill-function' _before_ matching the buffer line against
3736 `adaptive-fill-regexp' rather than _after_ it.
3739 ** Atomic change groups.
3741 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3742 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3743 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3745 (atomic-change-group
3747 (delete-region x y))
3749 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3750 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3751 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3752 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3754 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3755 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3757 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3758 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3759 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3760 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3762 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3763 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3766 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3767 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3768 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3769 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3771 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3772 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3773 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3774 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3775 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3776 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3779 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3780 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3781 returned values, like this:
3783 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3784 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3786 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3787 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3788 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3790 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3791 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3792 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3793 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3796 ** Buffer-related changes:
3799 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3801 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3804 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3807 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3808 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3809 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3810 value of VARIABLE instead.
3812 *** The function `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' now lets you maintain
3813 various status records in parallel.
3815 It take a variable (a symbol) as argument. If the variable is non-nil,
3816 then its value should be a vector installed previously by
3817 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p'. If the frame names, buffer names, buffer
3818 order, or their read-only or modified flags have changed, since the
3819 time the vector's contents were recorded by a previous call to
3820 `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', then the function returns t. Otherwise
3823 On the first call to `frame-or-buffer-changed-p', the variable's
3824 value should be nil. `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' stores a suitable
3825 vector into the variable and returns t.
3827 If the variable is itself nil, then `frame-or-buffer-changed-p' uses,
3828 for compatibility, an internal variable which exists only for this
3832 *** The function `read-buffer' follows the convention for reading from
3833 the minibuffer with a default value: if DEF is non-nil, the minibuffer
3834 prompt provided in PROMPT is edited to show the default value provided
3835 in DEF before the terminal colon and space.
3837 ** Local variables lists:
3840 *** Text properties in local variables.
3842 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3843 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3846 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3847 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3848 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3849 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3853 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3854 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3855 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3856 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3857 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3858 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3860 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3861 confirmation as before.
3863 ** Searching and matching changes:
3866 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3867 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3868 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3871 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3872 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3873 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3874 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3876 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3877 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3880 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3882 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3883 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3884 specified by the syntax table.
3887 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3890 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3891 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3892 characters and ranges.
3895 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3896 properties from surrounding text.
3899 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3900 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3901 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3904 *** Functions `match-data' and `set-match-data' now have an optional
3905 argument `reseat'. When non-nil, all markers in the match data list
3906 passed to these function will be reseated to point to nowhere.
3909 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3910 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3911 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3913 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3914 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3915 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3916 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3917 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3922 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
3924 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
3925 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
3926 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
3928 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
3929 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
3930 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
3933 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
3934 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
3935 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
3938 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
3939 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
3941 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
3942 elements with the following format:
3943 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3945 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3946 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3947 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
3948 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3950 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3951 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3952 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3953 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3954 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3956 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3957 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3958 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3959 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3960 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3961 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3962 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3963 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3965 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
3966 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
3969 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3970 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
3971 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
3972 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3973 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
3975 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
3976 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
3977 string. The old behavior is available if you call
3978 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
3980 ** Syntax table changes:
3983 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
3986 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
3987 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
3988 of text properties as well as the character code.
3991 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
3995 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
3996 current syntactic context at point.
3998 ** File operation changes:
4001 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
4002 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
4005 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
4006 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
4010 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
4011 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
4012 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
4013 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
4016 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
4017 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
4020 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
4021 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
4022 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
4025 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
4027 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
4030 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
4031 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
4034 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
4035 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
4036 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
4037 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
4040 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
4041 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
4042 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
4043 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
4046 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
4047 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
4051 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
4052 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
4053 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
4054 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
4055 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
4056 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
4057 further filter candidate files.
4059 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
4060 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
4061 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependancies.
4064 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
4066 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
4067 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
4068 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
4069 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
4070 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
4073 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
4075 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
4076 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
4077 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
4080 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
4081 autoloaded when not really necessary.
4084 *** The function `make-auto-save-file-name' is now handled by file
4085 name handlers. This will be exploited for remote files mainly.
4090 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
4091 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
4092 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
4095 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
4096 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
4097 it returns just the directory name.
4100 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
4101 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
4102 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
4105 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
4106 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
4107 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
4108 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted by a quit, and t if
4109 BODY was aborted by arrival of input.
4111 ** Minibuffer changes:
4114 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
4115 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
4116 defaults to the current buffer.
4119 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
4120 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
4123 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
4124 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
4127 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
4128 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
4129 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
4130 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
4131 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
4134 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
4135 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
4138 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
4139 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
4140 `read-file-name' function.
4143 *** The new function `read-directory-name' for reading a directory name.
4145 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
4146 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
4148 ** Completion changes:
4151 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
4152 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
4153 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
4154 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
4155 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
4158 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
4159 as a dynamic completion table.
4161 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
4163 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
4164 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
4165 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
4166 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
4167 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
4168 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
4171 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
4172 as a lazy completion table.
4174 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
4176 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
4177 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
4178 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
4179 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
4180 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
4181 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
4184 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
4186 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
4188 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
4189 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
4192 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
4194 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
4196 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
4197 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
4198 binding and lookup functionality.
4200 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
4201 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
4205 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
4206 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
4207 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
4208 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
4211 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
4212 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
4213 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
4215 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
4216 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
4218 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
4219 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
4221 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
4222 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
4223 runs `my-kill-line'.
4225 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
4227 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4228 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
4229 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
4230 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
4232 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
4233 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
4235 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
4236 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
4238 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
4239 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
4240 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
4241 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
4242 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
4243 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
4245 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
4246 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
4247 command was not remapped.
4249 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
4250 over minor mode keymaps.
4252 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
4253 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
4254 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
4256 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
4258 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
4259 bindings of the parent keymap.
4261 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
4263 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
4266 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
4267 defined keys and their definitions.
4269 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
4271 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
4274 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
4276 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
4277 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
4278 keymap alist to this list.
4283 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
4285 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
4288 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
4290 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
4291 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
4292 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
4296 ** Enhancements to process support
4298 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
4299 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
4301 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
4303 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
4304 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
4307 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
4308 name in addition to a process id to identify the signaled process.
4310 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
4311 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
4313 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
4314 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
4315 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
4316 entire property list of a process.
4318 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
4319 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
4320 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
4321 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
4322 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
4325 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
4327 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
4328 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
4329 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
4330 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
4331 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
4332 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
4333 emacs tries to read it.
4335 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
4337 This executes a shell command synchronously in a separate process.
4339 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
4340 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
4341 `default-directory'.
4343 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
4344 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
4346 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4347 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4348 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4350 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4351 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4353 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4354 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4356 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4357 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4358 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4359 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4360 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4363 ** Enhanced networking support.
4365 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4366 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4367 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4369 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4370 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4371 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4372 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4373 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4374 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4375 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4376 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4378 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4379 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4381 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4383 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4385 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4386 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4388 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4390 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4391 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4392 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4393 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4394 string for other formatting options.
4396 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4398 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4399 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4400 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4402 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4403 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4405 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4407 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4408 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4409 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4412 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4414 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4415 current network addresses.
4417 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4419 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4420 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4422 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4424 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4425 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4426 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4427 "connection broken by remote peer".
4429 ** Using window objects:
4432 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4434 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4438 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4440 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4444 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4446 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4447 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4448 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4449 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4450 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4453 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4454 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4455 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4459 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4460 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4463 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4464 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4465 It saves and restores the current buffer, too.
4468 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4470 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4473 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4474 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4475 by calling `select-window'. It also saves and restores the current
4479 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4481 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4482 and scroll-bar settings.
4485 *** The new function `window-tree' returns a frame's window tree.
4488 *** The functions `get-lru-window' and `get-largest-window' take an optional
4489 argument `dedicated'. If non-nil, those functions do not ignore
4493 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4495 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4496 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4498 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4499 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
4501 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4502 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4504 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4505 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4506 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4507 foreground color of the bitmap.
4509 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4510 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4511 bitmap of the display line.
4513 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4514 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4515 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4516 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4517 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4519 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4520 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4522 ** Other window fringe features:
4525 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4527 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4528 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4529 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4530 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4532 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4533 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4534 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4535 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
4536 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4537 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4539 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4540 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4541 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4542 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4545 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4547 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4550 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4551 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4552 `set-window-fringes'.
4554 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4555 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4556 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4557 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4559 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4560 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4561 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4562 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4563 an update of the display margins.
4565 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4566 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4568 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4569 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4570 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4571 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4572 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4573 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4574 of the display margins.
4576 ** Redisplay features:
4579 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4582 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4583 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4584 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4585 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4586 forcing an explicit window update.
4589 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4590 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4591 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4593 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4594 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4597 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4598 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4600 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4601 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4603 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4604 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4605 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4606 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4607 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4608 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4611 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4613 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4614 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4616 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4617 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4618 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4619 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4620 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4622 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4623 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4624 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4626 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4627 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4630 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4631 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4632 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4634 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4635 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4637 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4638 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4639 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4640 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4641 exactly that many pixels high.
4643 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4644 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4645 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4646 the `line-spacing' variable.
4648 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4649 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4652 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4653 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4656 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4658 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4659 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
4660 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4662 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4663 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4666 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4667 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4668 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4669 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4671 POS ::= left | center | right
4672 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4675 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4676 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4677 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4678 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4679 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4680 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4681 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4684 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4685 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4686 corresponding area of the window.
4688 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4689 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4690 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4691 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4692 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4693 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4694 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4695 the width of the area.
4697 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4698 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4700 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4701 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4702 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4704 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4705 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4706 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4707 height) of the specified image.
4709 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4710 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4713 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4714 text property string that may be present at the current window
4715 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4716 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4719 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4720 supported on text terminals.
4723 *** Support for displaying image slices
4725 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4726 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4728 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4729 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4731 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4732 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4735 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4737 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4738 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4739 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4740 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4741 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4742 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4743 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4744 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4746 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4747 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4748 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4749 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4750 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4751 for possible pointer shapes.
4753 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4754 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4755 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4758 *** The function `find-image' now searches in etc/images/ and etc/.
4759 The new variable `image-load-path' is a list of locations in which to
4760 search for image files. The default is to search in etc/images, then
4761 in etc/, and finally in the directories specified by `load-path'.
4762 Subdirectories of etc/ and etc/images are not recursively searched; if
4763 you put an image file in a subdirectory, you have to specify it
4764 explicitly; for example, if an image is put in etc/images/foo/bar.xpm:
4766 (defimage foo-image '((:type xpm :file "foo/bar.xpm")))
4769 *** The new variable `max-image-size' defines the maximum size of
4770 images that Emacs will load and display.
4772 ** Mouse pointer features:
4776 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4777 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4778 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4779 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4780 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4783 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4784 :pointer image property.
4787 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4788 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4790 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4793 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4794 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4797 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4798 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4799 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4802 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4805 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4808 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4812 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4816 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4817 of the mouse event position.
4820 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4823 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4824 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4827 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4828 (image or character) clicked on.
4831 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4833 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4834 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4835 the total width and height of that object.
4837 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4840 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4841 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4844 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4846 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4847 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4848 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4849 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4852 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4853 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4854 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4855 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4856 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4859 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4861 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4862 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4867 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4868 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4869 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4870 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4871 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4872 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4875 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4876 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4878 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4879 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4880 defined with `defface'.
4883 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4884 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4885 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4886 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4887 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4890 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4891 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4892 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
4896 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
4897 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
4898 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
4899 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
4900 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
4903 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
4904 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
4905 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
4908 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
4910 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
4911 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
4915 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
4916 help with handling relative face attributes.
4919 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
4921 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4922 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
4923 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
4924 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
4928 *** On terminals, faces with the :inverse-video attribute are displayed
4929 with swapped foreground and background colors even when one of them is
4930 not specified. In previous releases of Emacs, if either foreground
4931 or background color was unspecified, colors were not swapped. This
4932 was inconsistent with the face behavior under X.
4935 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
4936 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
4939 *** In `set-face-attribute', you can assign any attribute the value
4940 `:ignore-defface'. This forces the attribute value to be acquired
4941 from some other face during face merging.
4943 ** Font-Lock changes:
4946 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
4948 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
4949 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
4950 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
4951 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4954 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
4956 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
4957 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
4958 properties than `face'.
4960 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
4961 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
4964 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
4966 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
4967 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
4968 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
4969 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
4970 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
4978 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
4979 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
4980 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
4981 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
4983 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
4986 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
4987 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
4988 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
4989 var `magic-mode-alist'.
4992 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
4995 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
4996 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
4997 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
5000 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
5001 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
5005 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
5006 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
5010 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
5011 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
5014 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
5015 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
5016 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
5018 ** Minor mode changes:
5021 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
5022 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
5025 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
5028 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
5030 This is a new name for what was formerly called
5031 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
5033 ** Command loop changes:
5036 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
5037 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
5038 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
5040 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
5041 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
5044 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
5046 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
5047 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
5051 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
5052 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
5053 covered by an image or composition property.
5055 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
5056 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
5057 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
5058 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
5059 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
5062 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
5063 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
5064 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
5065 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
5066 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
5069 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
5070 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
5071 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
5074 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
5075 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
5077 ** Lisp file loading changes:
5080 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
5081 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
5082 current file redefined it).
5085 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
5086 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
5089 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
5090 variable or face definitions.
5093 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
5094 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
5095 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
5098 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
5099 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
5100 than 3 levels of nesting.
5103 ** Byte compiler changes:
5105 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
5106 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
5107 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
5108 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
5109 compilation output buffer.
5111 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
5112 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
5114 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
5115 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
5116 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
5117 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
5120 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
5121 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
5123 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
5124 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
5125 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
5126 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
5127 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
5128 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
5130 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
5131 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
5132 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
5133 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
5134 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
5137 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
5140 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
5141 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
5142 (require 'cl) when loaded.
5144 ** Frame operations:
5147 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
5149 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
5150 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
5153 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
5154 for all (existing and future) frames.
5157 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
5158 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
5159 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
5160 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
5163 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
5164 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
5169 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
5171 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
5172 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
5173 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
5176 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
5178 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
5179 the time it takes to convert the format.
5181 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
5185 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
5186 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
5189 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
5190 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
5191 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
5192 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
5195 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
5196 of one coding system from another coding system.
5199 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
5200 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
5204 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
5205 it is read from a file without decoding.
5208 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
5209 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
5212 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
5213 current input method to input a character.
5215 ** Mode line changes:
5218 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
5220 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
5221 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
5224 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
5225 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
5228 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
5229 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
5233 *** Mouse-face on mode-line (and header-line) is now supported.
5235 ** Menu manipulation changes:
5238 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
5239 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
5240 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
5241 several versions ago.
5244 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
5245 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
5246 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
5248 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
5249 made with easy-menu.
5252 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
5253 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
5254 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
5255 need to have a name.
5257 ** Operating system access:
5260 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
5261 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
5264 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
5265 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
5266 accepts a float as UID parameter.
5269 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
5272 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
5273 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
5274 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
5277 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
5278 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
5283 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
5285 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
5286 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
5287 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
5288 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
5289 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
5290 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
5291 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
5293 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
5296 *** local-write-file-hooks is marked obsolete
5298 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
5301 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
5307 *** New variable `gc-cons-percentage' automatically grows the GC cons threshold
5308 as the heap size increases.
5311 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
5312 on garbage collection.
5315 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
5317 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
5319 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
5322 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
5323 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
5324 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
5325 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
5326 such things as help and apropos buffers.
5329 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
5330 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
5331 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
5334 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
5335 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
5339 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
5340 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
5342 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
5343 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
5344 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
5347 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
5348 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
5351 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
5352 (function (lambda ()
5354 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5355 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
5356 (function (lambda ()
5357 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
5360 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
5362 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
5365 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
5367 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
5368 code. It works with edebug.
5370 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
5371 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
5372 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
5373 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
5374 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
5376 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
5377 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
5378 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
5379 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
5380 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
5381 value, such as (setq x 14).
5383 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
5384 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
5385 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
5386 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
5387 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
5388 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
5390 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5392 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5396 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5398 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5401 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5404 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5407 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5408 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5409 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5410 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5411 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5412 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5413 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5414 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5415 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5416 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5418 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5419 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5421 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5422 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5423 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5424 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5425 contrary to the compound text specification.
5428 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5430 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5432 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5435 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5437 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5439 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5440 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5441 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5442 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5443 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5445 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5448 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5449 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5451 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5452 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5453 instead of using default-major-mode.
5455 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5456 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5457 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5458 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5459 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5460 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5461 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5463 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5467 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5469 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5470 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5471 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5473 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5474 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5477 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5479 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5480 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5481 charsets in this release.
5483 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5485 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5487 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5488 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5491 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5492 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5493 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5494 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5495 necessary changes to unexec.
5497 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5498 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5500 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5501 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5503 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5504 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5506 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5507 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5508 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5509 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5510 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5512 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5513 new display features described below.
5516 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5518 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5520 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5521 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5522 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5523 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5526 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5528 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5529 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5530 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5531 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5534 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5535 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5536 under Lisp changes, below.
5538 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5540 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5541 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5542 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5543 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5544 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5545 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5548 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5549 supported on character terminals.
5551 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5552 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5553 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5554 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5556 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5560 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5561 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5562 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5563 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5566 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5568 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5569 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5570 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5571 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5573 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5575 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5576 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5577 specifies a number of lines.
5581 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5583 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5584 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5585 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5588 Default is `grow-only'.
5592 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5593 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5595 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5597 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5598 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5601 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5603 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5604 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5605 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5607 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5609 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5610 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5611 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5612 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5613 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5616 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5617 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5618 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5619 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5620 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5621 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5623 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5624 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5625 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5626 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5627 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5628 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5630 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5631 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5632 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5633 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5634 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5636 ** Tool bar support.
5638 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5639 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5640 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5641 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5642 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5645 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5646 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5650 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5651 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5652 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5654 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5655 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5656 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5657 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5659 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5661 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5662 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5665 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5666 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5667 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5668 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5669 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5671 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5672 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5673 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5674 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5675 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5676 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5678 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5679 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5680 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5681 customizing face `fringe'.
5683 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5684 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5685 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5686 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5687 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5688 the window to be partially obscured.)
5690 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5691 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5692 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5693 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5695 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5697 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5698 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5699 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5700 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5701 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5704 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5706 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5708 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5710 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5711 `*') toggles the status.
5713 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5715 ** Hourglass pointer
5717 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5718 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5722 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5723 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5724 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5727 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5729 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5730 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5731 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5734 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5735 have to do anything to activate it.
5737 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5739 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5740 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5742 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5743 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5744 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5745 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5746 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5747 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5748 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5749 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5751 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5752 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5753 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5754 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5755 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5756 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5758 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5759 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5761 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5762 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5765 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5766 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5767 beginning and end of the buffer.
5769 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5770 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5773 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5774 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5776 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5777 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5780 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5781 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5784 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5786 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5787 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5788 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5790 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5791 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5792 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5794 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5797 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5799 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5800 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5801 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5802 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5803 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5806 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5807 all frames except the selected one.
5809 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5810 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5812 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5813 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5814 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5815 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5816 `Info-use-header-line'.
5818 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5819 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5820 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5822 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5824 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5825 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5828 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5829 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5830 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5831 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5833 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5835 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5836 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5837 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5838 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5840 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5841 point in a pop-up window.
5843 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5844 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5845 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5847 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5848 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5850 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5851 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5852 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5853 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5855 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5857 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5858 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5860 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5861 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5862 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5864 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5865 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5868 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5869 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5870 file that is already visited under a different name.
5872 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5873 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5875 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5876 and displays information about that.
5878 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5879 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5881 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5882 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5883 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5884 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5885 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5886 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5888 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5889 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5891 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5892 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5893 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5894 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5895 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5896 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5897 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5899 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5900 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5902 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5903 system for keyboard input.
5905 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5906 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5907 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5908 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5909 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5910 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5911 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5912 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5913 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5915 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5916 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5918 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5919 displays all characters in that character set.
5921 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5922 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5924 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5925 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5926 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5928 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5929 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5930 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5931 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5932 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5933 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5936 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
5937 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
5940 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
5941 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
5942 Lisp Coding Convention".
5944 new command old-binding
5945 --- ------- -----------
5946 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
5947 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
5948 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
5950 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
5951 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
5952 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
5954 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
5955 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
5956 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
5957 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
5958 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
5959 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
5961 ** There are new Leim input methods.
5962 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
5963 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
5966 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
5967 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
5968 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
5969 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
5970 "`", you must type "=q".
5972 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
5973 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
5974 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
5975 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
5976 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
5979 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
5980 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
5981 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
5982 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
5984 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
5985 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
5986 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
5987 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
5989 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
5990 on the display using several methods
5992 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
5993 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
5994 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
5996 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
5997 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
5999 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
6001 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
6002 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
6004 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
6005 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
6006 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
6007 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
6009 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
6010 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
6011 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
6013 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
6014 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
6016 ** New X resources recognized
6018 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
6019 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
6020 is useful for debugging X problems.
6024 emacs.synchronous: true
6026 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
6027 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
6028 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
6029 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
6030 visual class names are
6039 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
6040 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
6043 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
6044 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
6045 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
6050 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
6052 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
6053 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
6054 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
6055 resource values are `true' or `on'.
6059 emacs.privateColormap: true
6061 ** Faces and frame parameters.
6063 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
6064 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
6065 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
6066 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
6067 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
6068 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
6069 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
6071 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
6072 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
6073 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
6074 `default' face and vice versa.
6078 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
6080 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
6082 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
6083 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
6084 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
6085 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
6087 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
6088 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
6089 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
6091 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
6094 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
6096 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
6097 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
6098 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
6099 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
6101 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
6103 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
6105 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
6107 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
6110 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
6113 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
6115 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
6116 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
6117 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
6119 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
6120 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
6122 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
6123 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
6124 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
6126 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
6128 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
6129 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
6130 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6131 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
6133 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
6134 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
6135 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
6136 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
6138 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
6139 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
6140 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
6143 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
6145 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
6146 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
6147 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
6149 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
6150 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
6151 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
6152 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
6153 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
6154 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
6156 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
6158 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
6159 notably at the end of lines.
6161 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
6162 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
6164 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
6166 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
6167 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
6169 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
6170 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
6171 after each match to get the replacement text.
6173 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
6174 you edit the replacement string.
6176 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
6177 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
6178 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
6180 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
6182 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
6183 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
6185 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
6186 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
6187 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
6188 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
6191 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
6192 read mail from the menu etc.
6194 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
6195 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
6196 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
6197 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
6199 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
6200 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6202 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
6203 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
6204 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
6205 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
6206 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
6209 ** Customize changes
6211 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
6212 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
6213 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
6214 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
6215 earlier versions of Emacs.
6217 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
6218 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
6221 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6222 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
6223 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
6224 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
6227 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
6228 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
6229 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
6230 already in your init file.
6232 ** New features in evaluation commands
6234 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
6235 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
6236 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
6237 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
6238 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
6240 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
6241 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
6242 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
6243 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
6246 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
6247 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
6249 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
6250 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
6252 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
6253 code when called with a prefix argument.
6257 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
6258 current user setups (although it's believed that these
6259 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
6260 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
6261 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
6262 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
6265 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
6266 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
6267 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
6270 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
6271 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
6272 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
6273 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
6275 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
6276 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
6278 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
6279 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
6281 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
6282 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
6283 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
6284 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
6286 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
6287 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
6288 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
6289 earlier statement. An example:
6291 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
6293 res += a[i]->offset;
6296 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
6297 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
6298 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
6299 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
6302 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
6305 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
6306 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
6307 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
6308 documentation or other natural language text.
6310 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
6311 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
6312 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
6313 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
6314 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
6315 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
6316 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
6318 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
6319 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
6320 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
6321 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
6323 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
6324 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
6325 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
6326 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
6329 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
6330 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
6331 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
6332 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
6333 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
6334 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
6335 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
6336 is reported afterwards.
6338 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
6339 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
6340 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
6342 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
6343 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
6344 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
6345 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
6346 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
6347 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
6350 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
6351 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
6352 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
6353 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
6354 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
6357 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
6358 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
6359 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
6360 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
6361 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
6362 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
6364 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
6365 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
6366 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
6367 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
6368 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
6369 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
6370 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
6371 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
6373 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
6374 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
6375 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
6376 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
6379 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
6380 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
6381 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
6382 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
6383 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
6384 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
6385 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
6386 function documentation for more info.
6388 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
6389 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
6390 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
6391 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6392 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6393 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6394 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6395 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6397 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6399 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6400 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6402 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6403 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6404 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6405 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6406 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6409 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6410 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6411 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6414 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6415 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6416 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6417 chapter about this in the manual.
6419 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6420 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6421 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6422 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6423 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6425 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6426 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6427 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6429 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6430 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6432 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6433 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6434 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6437 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6438 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6439 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6440 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6443 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6444 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6445 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6446 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6447 they were before the filling.
6449 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6450 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6451 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6454 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6455 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6456 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6457 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6460 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6461 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6462 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6463 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6464 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6466 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6467 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6468 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6470 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6472 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6473 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6474 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6475 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6477 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6478 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6479 the column specified by comment-column.
6481 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6482 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6483 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6484 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6485 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6486 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6488 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6489 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6492 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6494 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6495 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6496 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6497 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6500 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6504 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6505 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6506 is, delete only empty directories.
6508 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6509 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6510 copy directories recursively.
6512 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6513 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6514 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6516 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6517 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6520 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6521 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6522 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6523 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6524 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6526 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6529 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6530 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6531 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6532 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6536 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6537 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6538 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6540 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6541 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6543 If you used procmail like in
6545 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6546 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6547 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6548 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6550 this now has changed to
6553 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6556 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6557 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6559 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6560 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6561 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6562 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6564 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6565 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6566 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6568 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6569 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6570 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6571 now just a compatibility layer.
6573 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6576 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6577 called to position point.
6579 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6580 summary buffers and NOV files.
6582 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6583 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6585 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6586 subtly different manner.
6588 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6589 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6590 ever-changing layouts.
6592 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6594 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6596 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6598 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6602 -------------------------
6606 C-c C-c q @quotation
6608 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6611 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6613 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6615 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6616 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6617 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6619 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6621 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6622 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6623 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6624 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6625 buffers to kill, as before.
6627 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6628 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6631 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6632 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6634 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6636 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6637 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6638 use. Default is 1000.
6640 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6641 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6643 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6645 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6647 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6648 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6649 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6650 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6652 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6653 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6654 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6657 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6658 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6659 the normal block-hiding function.
6661 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6663 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6664 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6665 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6666 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6668 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6669 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6671 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6673 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6674 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6675 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6677 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6680 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6683 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6684 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6685 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6686 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6687 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6688 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6690 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6692 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6694 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6695 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6697 ** Changes in Font Lock
6699 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6700 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6702 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6703 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6705 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6706 the face used for each string/comment.
6708 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6709 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6711 ** Changes to Shell mode
6713 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6714 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6715 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6716 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6718 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6720 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6721 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6723 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6724 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6725 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6726 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6727 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6728 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6730 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6731 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6732 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6733 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6734 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6735 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6736 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6737 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6739 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6740 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6742 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6743 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6744 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6746 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6747 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6748 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6750 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6751 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6752 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6754 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6755 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6756 argument, it appends to the file.
6758 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6759 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6762 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6765 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6766 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6767 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6769 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6771 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6772 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6773 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6774 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6775 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6778 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6779 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6780 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6782 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6783 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6784 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6785 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6786 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6788 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6791 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6792 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6795 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6796 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6798 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6799 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6800 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6802 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6803 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6805 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6806 use the -f option when sending mail.
6808 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6809 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6810 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6811 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6812 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6813 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6815 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6816 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6817 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6819 ** Changes to TeX mode
6821 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6824 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6826 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6828 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6830 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6832 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6833 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6834 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6835 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6836 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6837 can be edited from that buffer.
6839 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6840 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6841 `A' to use all marked entries).
6843 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6844 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6846 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6847 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6848 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6851 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6852 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6853 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6854 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6856 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6857 has the following new features:
6859 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6860 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6861 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6862 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6864 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6865 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6866 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6867 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6868 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6871 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6876 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6877 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6878 spell-checks the current buffer.
6880 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6883 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6884 correction is made and re-checked.
6886 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6888 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6891 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6894 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6897 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6899 ** Makefile mode changes
6901 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6903 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6904 Fontlock mode is active.
6908 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6909 so that searches can be resumed.
6911 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6912 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6913 that started the search.
6915 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6916 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6918 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6920 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6921 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6922 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6923 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6924 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6925 `secondary-selection'.
6927 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6928 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6929 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6930 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6931 usual snappy response.
6933 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6934 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6935 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6936 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
6940 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
6941 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
6942 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
6943 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
6944 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
6945 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
6946 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
6947 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
6948 file is registered in that backend.
6950 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
6951 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
6952 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
6953 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
6954 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
6955 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
6957 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
6958 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
6959 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
6960 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
6961 where it doesn't make sense.)
6963 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
6964 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
6965 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
6969 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
6970 checks are always done now.
6972 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
6975 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
6976 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
6977 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
6979 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
6980 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
6981 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
6982 the working file (``merge news'').
6984 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6985 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
6988 *** Multiple Backends
6990 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
6991 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
6992 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
6993 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
6996 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
6997 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
6998 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
6999 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
7001 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
7002 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
7003 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
7004 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
7005 current revision number from the more remote backend.
7007 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
7008 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
7009 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
7010 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
7012 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
7013 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
7014 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
7015 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
7019 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
7020 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
7021 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
7022 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
7023 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
7024 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
7025 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
7027 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
7028 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
7029 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
7030 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
7031 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
7032 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
7033 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
7034 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
7035 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
7036 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
7037 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
7040 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
7041 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
7042 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
7043 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
7044 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
7045 entire directory tree.
7047 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
7048 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
7049 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
7050 "watched" by other developers.)
7052 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
7053 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
7054 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
7055 starting at the given directory.
7057 *** Lisp Changes in VC
7059 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
7060 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
7061 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
7062 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
7063 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
7064 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
7065 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
7066 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
7067 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
7069 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
7070 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
7071 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
7072 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
7074 ** New modes and packages
7076 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
7077 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
7078 the default is not applicable.
7080 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
7081 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
7082 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
7086 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
7087 drawn, like this: | \ /
7091 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
7092 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
7093 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
7094 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
7095 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
7098 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
7099 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
7101 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
7104 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
7105 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
7106 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
7107 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
7109 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
7110 also do without the mouse.
7112 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
7113 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
7114 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
7115 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
7116 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
7118 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
7120 lines straight-lines
7122 poly-lines straight poly-lines
7124 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
7125 spray-can setting size for spraying
7126 vaporize line vaporize lines
7127 erase characters erase rectangles
7129 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
7130 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
7131 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
7134 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
7135 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
7136 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
7137 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
7139 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
7142 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
7143 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
7144 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
7145 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
7146 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
7147 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
7148 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
7149 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
7150 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
7152 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
7153 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
7154 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
7155 on certain projects.
7157 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
7158 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
7160 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
7162 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
7163 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
7164 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
7165 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
7166 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
7167 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
7168 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
7169 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
7171 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
7174 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
7175 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
7177 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
7178 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
7180 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
7181 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
7182 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
7183 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
7184 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
7186 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
7187 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
7188 separate Texinfo file.
7190 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
7191 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
7192 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
7193 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
7194 enter check-in log messages.
7196 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
7197 without invoking external programs.
7199 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
7200 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
7201 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
7202 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
7203 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
7205 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
7206 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
7208 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
7209 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
7211 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
7212 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
7213 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
7214 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
7215 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
7218 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
7219 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
7220 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
7221 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
7223 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
7224 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
7225 actually modifying content of a buffer.
7227 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
7230 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
7232 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
7234 ; comment (until end of line)
7238 $A default non-terminal
7239 $"C" default terminal
7240 $?C? default special
7241 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
7242 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
7243 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
7244 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
7245 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
7246 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
7247 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
7248 C+ one or more occurrences of C
7249 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
7250 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
7251 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
7252 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
7253 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
7254 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7255 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
7257 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
7259 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
7260 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
7261 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
7262 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
7263 equal signs of assignments.
7265 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
7266 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
7268 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
7269 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
7270 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
7272 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
7274 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
7275 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
7276 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
7277 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
7278 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
7279 which answers different needs.
7281 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
7282 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
7283 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
7284 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
7285 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
7288 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
7289 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
7291 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
7293 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
7294 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
7295 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
7297 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
7299 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
7300 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
7301 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
7302 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
7303 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
7304 and background colors.
7306 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
7309 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
7312 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
7314 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
7316 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
7317 whitespace in a file.
7319 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
7320 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
7321 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
7322 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
7323 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
7324 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
7325 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
7327 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
7329 Here is an example of columns:
7332 dog pineapple car EXTRA
7333 porcupine strawberry airplane
7335 Doing the following settings:
7337 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
7338 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
7339 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
7340 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
7343 Selecting the lines above and typing:
7345 M-x delimit-columns-region
7349 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
7350 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
7351 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
7353 delim-col has the following options:
7355 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
7358 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
7359 between each column.
7361 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
7364 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
7367 delim-col has the following commands:
7369 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
7370 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
7372 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
7373 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
7374 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
7375 recent file list can be displayed:
7377 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
7378 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
7379 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
7381 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
7382 dynamically change the menu appearance.
7384 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
7387 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
7388 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
7389 specific to Message mode.
7391 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7392 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7393 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7395 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7396 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7397 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7399 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7400 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7402 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7404 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7405 minibuffer with completion.
7407 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7408 with the diary features.
7410 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7411 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7413 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7416 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7417 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7418 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7419 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7421 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7422 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7425 ** Changes in sort.el
7427 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7428 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7429 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7432 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7434 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7435 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7436 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7438 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7439 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7441 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7442 output ^M at the end of lines.
7444 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7445 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7447 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7448 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7451 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7454 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7455 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7458 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7459 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7460 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7461 nil -- just delete one character.
7463 Default value is `untabify'.
7465 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7467 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7468 symbol, not double-quoted.
7470 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7471 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7472 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7473 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7475 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7476 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7477 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7479 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7480 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7481 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7483 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7484 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7486 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7487 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7489 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7490 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7492 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7493 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7494 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7495 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7496 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7497 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7499 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7500 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7502 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7504 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7505 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7507 ** Shell script mode changes.
7509 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7510 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7511 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7515 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7517 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7518 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7519 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7520 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7521 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7523 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7524 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7526 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7527 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7529 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7530 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7531 `template' keywords.
7533 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7534 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7536 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7539 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7541 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7543 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7546 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7548 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7549 variables are tagged.
7551 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7553 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7556 ** Changes in etags.el
7558 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7559 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7560 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7562 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7563 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7565 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7566 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7567 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7568 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7570 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7572 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7573 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7575 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7577 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7578 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7579 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7581 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7582 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7584 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7585 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7587 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7588 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7589 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7590 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7591 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7593 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7594 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7595 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7597 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7598 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7599 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7601 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7602 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7603 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7605 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7607 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7609 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7610 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7611 expression from that list, are not checked.
7613 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7614 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7615 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7616 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7618 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7620 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7621 displays local abbrevs, only.
7623 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7624 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7626 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7627 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7628 is measured in pixels.
7630 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7631 to be visited as images.
7633 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7634 were added to compile.el.
7636 ** Withdrawn packages
7638 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7639 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7641 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7643 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7646 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7648 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7649 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7650 See the sections below for details.
7652 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7653 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7654 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7655 to remove the properties of the copy.
7657 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7658 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7659 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7660 these properties are active.
7662 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7663 ranges may affect some code.
7665 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7666 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7667 make a difference to some code.
7669 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7670 operates on the minibuffer.
7672 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7673 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7674 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7675 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7676 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7677 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7678 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7679 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7680 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7681 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7682 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7683 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7685 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7686 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7687 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7689 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7690 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7691 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7693 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7694 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7695 such as `mapconcat'.
7697 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7700 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7701 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7702 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7703 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7704 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7705 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7706 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7707 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7709 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7710 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7711 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7712 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7713 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7714 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7715 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7716 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7717 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7718 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7721 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7722 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7724 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7726 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7727 allows the animated display of strings.
7729 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7730 interactive form of a function.
7732 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7733 between custom options. Example:
7735 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7736 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7737 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7738 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7740 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7741 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7743 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7744 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7745 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7747 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7748 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7749 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7750 (signal or normal termination).
7752 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7753 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7755 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7756 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7758 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7759 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7761 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7763 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7764 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7767 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7769 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7770 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7771 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7772 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7773 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7776 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7777 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7780 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7781 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7783 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7784 with the more general `:mask' property.
7786 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7788 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7791 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7792 is running in batch mode. For example,
7794 (message "%s" (read t))
7796 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7799 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7800 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7802 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7803 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7806 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7809 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7811 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7812 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7814 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7816 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7817 comparison is done with `eq'.
7819 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7821 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7822 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7823 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7825 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7826 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7827 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7829 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7830 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7832 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7833 function was declared obsolete.
7835 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7836 retained as an alias).
7838 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7839 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7841 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7843 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7845 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7846 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7847 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7848 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7849 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7850 means never include the minibuffer window.
7852 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7854 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7856 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7858 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7859 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7860 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7861 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7864 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7865 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7866 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7867 minibuffer even if it is active.
7869 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7870 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7871 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7872 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7873 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7874 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7876 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7877 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7878 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7879 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7880 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7881 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7882 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7884 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7885 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7886 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7888 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7889 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7890 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7891 Default value is nil.
7893 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7896 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7897 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7898 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7900 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7901 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7902 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7904 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7905 list of a primitive.
7907 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7909 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7910 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7911 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7912 than replacing the local map.
7914 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7915 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7916 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7919 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7921 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7922 as promised long ago.
7924 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7926 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7927 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7928 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7931 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7933 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7934 regular expressions.
7936 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
7938 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7942 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7944 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
7948 matches string STRING literally.
7951 matches character CHAR literally.
7954 matches any character except a newline.
7957 matches any character
7960 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
7961 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
7967 matches any character not in SET
7970 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
7971 in the text being matched
7974 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
7977 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7978 string being matched against.
7981 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7982 string being matched against.
7985 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7986 buffer being matched against.
7989 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7990 buffer being matched against.
7993 matches the empty string, but only at point.
7996 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8000 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
8003 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
8006 `(not word-boundary)'
8007 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
8011 matches 0 through 9.
8014 matches ASCII control characters.
8017 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8020 matches space and tab only.
8023 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8027 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8031 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8032 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8035 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8036 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8039 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8042 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8045 matches anything lower-case.
8048 matches anything upper-case.
8051 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8052 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8055 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8058 matches anything that has word syntax.
8061 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
8062 of the following symbols.
8064 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
8065 `punctuation' (\\s.)
8068 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
8069 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
8070 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
8071 `string-quote' (\\s\")
8072 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
8074 `character-quote' (\\s/)
8075 `comment-start' (\\s<)
8076 `comment-end' (\\s>)
8078 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
8079 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
8081 `(category CATEGORY)'
8082 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
8083 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
8085 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
8087 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
8088 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
8092 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
8094 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
8095 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
8096 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
8097 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
8098 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
8099 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
8100 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
8101 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
8102 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
8103 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
8104 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
8113 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
8117 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
8124 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
8125 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
8127 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8128 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
8130 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8131 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
8132 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
8134 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8135 another name for `submatch'.
8137 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
8138 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
8139 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
8142 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
8143 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
8144 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
8145 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
8146 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
8148 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
8149 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
8151 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
8152 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8155 like `zero-or-more'.
8158 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8161 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8163 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
8164 matches one or more occurrences of A.
8170 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8173 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8175 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
8176 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
8182 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
8185 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
8188 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8191 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
8194 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
8198 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
8200 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
8202 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
8203 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
8204 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
8205 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
8207 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
8208 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
8209 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
8210 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
8212 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
8213 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
8214 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
8216 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
8217 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
8218 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
8219 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
8220 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
8221 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
8222 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
8225 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
8227 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
8228 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
8229 character set as previously.
8231 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
8232 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
8233 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
8235 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
8236 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
8237 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
8238 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
8240 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
8241 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
8243 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
8244 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
8247 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
8248 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
8250 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
8251 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
8252 buffers and strings.
8254 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
8255 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
8256 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
8257 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
8258 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
8259 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
8260 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
8263 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
8264 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
8265 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
8267 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
8268 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
8269 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
8270 may differ between buffer and string text.
8272 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
8273 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
8275 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
8276 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
8277 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
8278 `composition' from STRING.
8280 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
8281 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
8283 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
8286 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
8287 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
8289 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
8290 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
8291 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
8292 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
8294 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
8295 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
8296 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
8297 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
8298 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
8299 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
8301 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
8302 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
8303 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
8305 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
8306 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
8307 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
8309 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
8310 have been introduced.
8312 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
8313 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
8314 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
8315 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
8316 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
8317 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
8318 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
8319 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
8320 their multibyte equivalent.
8322 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
8323 that offset in the file before writing.
8325 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
8326 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
8328 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
8329 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
8330 from which the command was issued.
8332 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
8333 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
8334 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
8335 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
8338 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
8339 to `window-buffer-height'.
8341 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
8343 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
8344 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
8345 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
8347 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
8350 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
8351 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
8353 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
8354 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
8355 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
8357 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
8358 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
8359 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
8360 is currently displayed in some window.
8362 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
8363 argument function's results.
8365 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
8366 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
8367 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
8368 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
8371 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
8372 header in the list of headers passed to it.
8374 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
8375 ignores differences in case and text representation.
8377 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
8378 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
8381 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
8382 nil don't display a cursor
8383 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
8384 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
8385 others display a box cursor.
8387 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
8388 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
8389 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
8390 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8392 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8393 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8394 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8395 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8399 (string-to-syntax "()")
8402 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8405 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8406 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8413 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8418 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8423 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8430 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8431 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8434 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8435 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8436 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8437 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8439 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8441 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8442 for a regexp in a string.
8444 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8445 `mouse-position-function'.
8447 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8448 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8450 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8451 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8453 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8456 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8457 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8459 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8460 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8461 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8462 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8465 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8466 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8468 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8469 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8470 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8471 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8474 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8475 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8476 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8477 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8479 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8480 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8481 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8483 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8484 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8487 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8489 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8490 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8491 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8494 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8495 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8496 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8497 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8498 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8500 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8501 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8503 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8504 instead of being optional.
8506 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8507 modify read-only text.
8509 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8511 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8512 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8513 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8514 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8515 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8517 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8518 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8519 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8520 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8521 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8522 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8523 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8525 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8526 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8527 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8530 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8531 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8533 ** New function `propertize'
8535 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8536 strings with text properties.
8538 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8540 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8541 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8542 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8543 specified value of that property. Example:
8545 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8547 ** push and pop macros.
8549 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8550 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8551 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8553 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8554 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8555 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8557 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8559 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8560 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8562 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8563 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8564 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8565 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8567 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8568 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8569 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8570 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8572 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8573 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8574 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8577 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8578 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8579 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8580 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8581 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8583 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8585 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8586 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8587 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8588 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8589 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8590 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8591 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8592 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8593 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8594 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8595 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8596 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8597 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8598 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8599 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8601 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8603 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8605 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8607 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8608 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8612 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8613 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8614 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8618 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8619 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8621 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8623 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8624 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8625 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8626 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8627 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8629 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8631 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8632 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8633 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8637 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8638 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8639 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8640 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8641 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8643 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8645 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8647 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8649 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8651 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8653 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8656 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8658 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8660 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8662 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8664 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8666 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8668 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8670 Returns the size of TABLE.
8672 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8674 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8676 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8678 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8680 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8684 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8686 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8689 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8691 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8692 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8694 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8696 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8698 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8700 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8701 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8703 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8705 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8707 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8709 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8710 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8711 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8712 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8713 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8715 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8717 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8718 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8719 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8721 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8722 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8724 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8725 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8727 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8728 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8730 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8731 'case-fold-string-hash))
8733 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8735 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8737 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8738 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8739 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8741 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8743 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8744 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8746 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8747 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8748 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8749 is too short to reach that column.
8751 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8752 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8753 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8754 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8756 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8757 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8758 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8760 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8761 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8763 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8764 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8766 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8767 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8768 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8769 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8770 temporary-file-directory instead.
8772 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8773 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8774 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8775 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8777 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8778 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8780 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8782 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8783 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8784 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8786 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8788 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8789 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8790 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8791 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8792 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8793 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8795 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8796 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8797 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8798 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8800 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8802 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8803 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8804 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8807 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8808 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8812 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8814 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8815 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8818 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8820 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8822 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8823 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8826 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8828 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8829 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8834 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8835 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8837 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8838 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8839 to enable sound support.
8841 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8842 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8843 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8844 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8845 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8847 The following sound properties are supported:
8851 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8852 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8856 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8857 may be present, but not both.
8861 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8862 0..1. This property is optional.
8866 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8867 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8869 Other properties are ignored.
8871 An alternative interface is called as
8872 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8874 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8876 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8879 ** Changes to garbage collection
8881 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8882 of live and free strings.
8884 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8885 strings that have been consed so far.
8888 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8891 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8894 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8895 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8896 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8898 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8900 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8902 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8905 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8907 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8909 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8910 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8911 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8912 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8913 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8915 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8918 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8920 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8921 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8922 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8924 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8925 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8927 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8930 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8934 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8936 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
8937 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
8939 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
8940 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
8941 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
8942 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
8943 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
8944 just display it black instead.
8946 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
8949 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
8953 ** New face implementation.
8955 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
8956 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
8960 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
8962 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
8964 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
8965 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
8967 3. Font height in 1/10pt
8969 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
8971 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
8973 6. Foreground color.
8975 7. Background color.
8977 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
8979 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
8981 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
8983 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
8985 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
8988 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
8989 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
8991 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
8992 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
8993 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
8994 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
8995 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
8996 attributes mentioned above.
8998 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
8999 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
9002 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
9003 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
9008 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
9009 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
9010 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
9011 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
9012 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
9013 results in a fully-specified face.
9015 *** Face realization.
9017 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
9018 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
9019 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
9020 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
9021 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
9022 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
9024 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
9025 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
9026 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
9027 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
9029 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
9030 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
9031 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
9032 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
9033 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
9035 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
9036 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9037 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
9038 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
9039 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
9042 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
9043 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
9044 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
9045 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
9047 **** Clearing face caches.
9049 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
9050 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
9055 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
9056 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
9057 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
9059 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
9060 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
9061 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
9062 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
9063 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
9065 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
9066 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
9067 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
9069 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
9071 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
9072 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
9073 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
9074 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
9075 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
9076 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
9077 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
9079 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9080 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
9083 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
9084 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
9087 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
9090 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
9095 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
9096 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
9099 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
9100 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
9101 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
9102 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
9103 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
9106 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
9108 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
9110 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
9112 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
9114 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
9115 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
9116 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
9118 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
9119 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
9120 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
9121 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
9122 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
9123 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
9124 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
9125 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
9126 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
9127 of the face font sort order.
9129 - Function: x-font-family-list
9131 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
9132 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
9133 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
9134 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
9136 - Variable: font-list-limit
9138 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
9139 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
9140 matching font. The default is currently 100.
9142 *** Setting face attributes.
9144 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
9145 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
9146 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
9149 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
9150 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
9152 The following attributes are recognized:
9156 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
9157 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
9158 and `?' are allowed.
9162 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
9163 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
9164 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
9165 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
9169 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
9170 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
9171 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
9172 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
9176 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
9177 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
9178 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
9182 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
9183 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
9186 `:foreground', `:background'
9188 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
9192 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
9193 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
9194 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
9199 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
9200 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
9201 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
9206 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
9207 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
9208 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
9209 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
9213 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
9214 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
9215 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
9216 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
9217 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
9218 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
9219 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
9220 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
9221 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
9222 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
9223 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
9224 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
9225 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
9226 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
9227 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
9228 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
9233 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
9234 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
9238 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
9239 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
9240 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
9241 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
9242 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
9243 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
9245 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
9246 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
9250 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
9251 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
9252 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
9255 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
9256 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
9257 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
9259 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
9264 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
9265 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
9266 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
9268 *** Face attributes and X resources
9270 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
9273 Face attribute X resource class
9274 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
9275 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
9276 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
9277 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
9278 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
9279 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
9280 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
9281 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
9282 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
9283 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
9284 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
9285 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
9286 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
9287 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
9288 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
9289 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
9290 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9291 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
9292 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
9293 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
9295 *** Text property `face'.
9297 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
9298 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
9299 specification can be
9301 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
9303 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
9304 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
9305 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
9306 for face attribute names.
9308 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
9309 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
9310 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
9312 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
9314 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
9315 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
9316 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
9317 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
9318 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
9319 used to clear the mapping table.
9321 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
9323 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
9324 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
9325 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
9326 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
9327 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
9328 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
9329 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
9330 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
9331 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
9332 modify their color-related behavior.
9334 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
9337 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
9339 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
9340 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
9341 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
9342 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
9343 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
9344 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
9345 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
9346 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
9347 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
9349 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
9350 display can display image files.
9352 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
9354 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
9355 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
9356 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
9357 `Inviolable' option.
9359 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
9360 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
9361 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
9363 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
9365 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
9366 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
9367 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
9369 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
9370 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
9371 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
9372 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
9373 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
9374 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
9375 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
9378 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
9379 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
9380 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
9382 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
9384 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
9386 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
9388 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9389 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
9390 constrained position if that is different.
9392 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9393 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9394 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9395 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9396 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9397 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9398 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9399 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9400 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9402 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9403 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9404 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9405 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9406 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9408 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9409 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9411 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9413 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9415 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9416 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9417 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9419 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9421 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9422 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9423 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9424 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9425 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9427 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9429 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9430 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9431 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9432 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9433 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9435 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9437 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9438 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9439 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9441 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9443 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9444 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9445 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9449 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9450 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9451 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9452 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9454 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9455 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9456 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9457 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9460 IMAGE is an image specification.
9462 *** Image specifications
9464 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9465 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9466 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9467 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9468 described below are ignored.
9470 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9474 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9475 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9476 to use for its ascent.
9478 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9479 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9481 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9482 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9483 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9484 overlays that apply to the image.
9488 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9489 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9490 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9494 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9499 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9501 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9502 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9504 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9505 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9506 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9507 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9508 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9509 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9510 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9511 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9514 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9516 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9518 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9519 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9520 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9521 of the factors' absolute values.
9523 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9529 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9535 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9540 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9541 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9542 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9543 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9544 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9545 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9546 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9549 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9550 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9555 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9556 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9557 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9558 may be present in the image specification.
9562 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9563 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9564 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9565 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9567 *** Supported image types
9569 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9571 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9572 properties supported are:
9576 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9577 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9581 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9582 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9584 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9585 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9586 instead of a `:file' property.
9590 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9594 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9600 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9601 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9603 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9605 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9608 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9609 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9612 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9614 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9615 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9616 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9617 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9619 Additional image properties supported are:
9621 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9623 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9624 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9627 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9628 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9630 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9631 to display compressed images.
9633 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9635 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9636 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9641 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9642 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9646 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9647 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9649 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9651 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9652 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9655 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9657 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9658 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9661 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9663 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9664 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9666 Additional image properties supported are:
9670 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9671 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9674 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9675 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9676 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9679 (defun show-anim (file max)
9680 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9681 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9683 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9686 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9689 (goto-char (point-min))
9690 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9691 (insert-image img "x"))
9692 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9694 **** PNG, image type `png'
9696 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9697 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9700 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9702 Additional image properties supported are:
9706 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9707 integer. This is a required property.
9711 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9712 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9716 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9717 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9718 files. This is an required property.
9720 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9725 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9726 which are supported in the current configuration.
9728 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9729 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9730 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9731 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9732 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9734 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9736 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9737 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9738 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9739 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9740 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9745 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9748 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9749 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9750 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9751 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9752 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9753 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9754 of the display margins.
9756 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9757 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9758 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9759 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9764 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9765 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9766 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9767 that have a `help-echo' property.
9769 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9770 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9771 the window in which the help was found.
9773 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9774 `help-echo' text property was found.
9776 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9777 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9779 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9780 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9783 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9784 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9786 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9787 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9788 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9789 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9790 used as help string.
9792 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9793 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9794 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9796 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9798 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9799 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9801 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9802 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9803 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9804 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9807 (global-set-key [A-down]
9810 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9811 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9812 (global-set-key [A-up]
9815 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9816 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9818 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9820 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9821 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9822 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9823 is called with one argument, POS.
9825 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9826 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9827 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9828 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9829 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9831 ** Tool bar support.
9833 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9834 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9835 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9836 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9837 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9838 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9840 *** Tool bar item definitions
9842 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9843 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9844 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9846 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9847 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9848 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9849 property (see below).
9851 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9852 binding are currently ignored.
9854 The following properties are recognized:
9858 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9863 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9867 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9868 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9869 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9871 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9873 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9874 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9878 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9879 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9880 meaning of each of the four elements:
9882 Index Use when item is
9883 ----------------------------------------
9884 0 enabled and selected
9885 1 enabled and deselected
9886 2 disabled and selected
9887 3 disabled and deselected
9889 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9890 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9892 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9894 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9895 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9897 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9898 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9899 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9902 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9903 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9904 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9906 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9908 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9909 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9910 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9912 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9913 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9915 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9916 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9917 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9918 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9920 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9921 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9923 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9925 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9928 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9929 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9930 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9932 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9934 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9936 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
9939 ** Mode line changes.
9941 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
9943 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
9944 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
9945 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
9947 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
9948 a `local-map' text property.
9950 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
9951 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
9953 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
9954 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
9955 `local-map' property.
9957 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
9958 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
9961 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
9962 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
9964 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
9965 variable mode-line-format to nil.
9967 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
9969 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
9970 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
9971 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
9972 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
9975 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
9978 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
9979 position in the header-line.
9981 ** Text property `display'
9983 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
9984 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
9985 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
9986 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
9987 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
9989 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
9991 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
9992 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
9994 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
9995 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
9996 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
9997 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9998 simpler form STRING as property value.
10000 *** Variable width and height spaces
10002 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
10003 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
10004 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
10005 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
10006 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
10007 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
10008 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
10010 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
10011 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
10012 properties described below.
10014 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
10015 characters having the `display' property.
10019 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
10020 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
10022 - :relative-width FACTOR
10024 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
10025 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
10026 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
10027 width of that character by FACTOR.
10031 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
10032 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
10034 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
10038 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
10039 normal line height.
10041 - :relative-height FACTOR
10043 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
10044 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
10048 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
10049 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
10050 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
10053 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
10057 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
10058 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
10059 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
10060 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
10061 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
10062 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
10063 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
10064 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
10065 as display specification.
10067 *** Other display properties
10069 - (space-width FACTOR)
10071 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
10072 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
10077 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
10079 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
10080 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
10081 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
10082 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
10083 a font is available counts as a step.
10085 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
10086 as tall as the frame's default font.
10088 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
10089 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
10091 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
10092 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
10096 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
10097 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
10098 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
10099 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
10100 `height' subproperty.
10102 *** Conditional display properties
10104 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
10105 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
10106 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
10107 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
10108 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
10109 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
10110 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
10111 different when object is a string.
10113 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
10116 ** New menu separator types.
10118 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
10119 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
10120 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
10121 to specify other menu separator types.
10123 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
10125 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
10128 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
10130 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
10132 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
10134 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
10136 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
10138 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10140 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
10142 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
10144 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
10146 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
10147 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
10149 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
10151 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
10153 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
10155 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
10157 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
10159 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
10161 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
10163 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10165 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
10167 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
10169 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
10171 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
10173 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
10175 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
10177 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
10178 the corresponding single-line separators.
10180 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
10182 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
10183 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
10184 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
10185 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
10186 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
10187 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
10188 default foreground is black.
10190 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
10191 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
10192 `ScrollBarBackground').
10194 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
10195 settings for scroll bar colors.
10197 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
10198 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
10200 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
10201 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
10202 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
10203 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
10204 the original window start.
10206 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
10207 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
10208 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
10210 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
10212 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
10213 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
10214 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
10215 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
10217 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
10218 fixed-width and fixed-height.
10220 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
10222 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
10223 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
10224 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
10225 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
10226 temporarily to nil, for example
10228 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
10229 (enlarge-window 10))
10231 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
10232 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
10234 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
10235 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
10236 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
10237 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
10238 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
10239 support a vertical-bar cursor).
10243 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
10245 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
10248 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
10250 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
10252 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
10253 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
10254 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
10255 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
10256 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
10258 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
10262 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
10264 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
10268 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
10270 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
10271 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
10273 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
10275 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
10277 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
10278 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
10279 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
10281 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
10282 is the one that is used.
10284 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
10285 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
10286 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
10287 separate from the command's regular output.
10288 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
10289 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
10290 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
10293 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
10294 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
10295 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
10296 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
10298 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
10299 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
10300 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
10301 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
10303 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
10304 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
10305 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
10306 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
10308 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
10309 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
10310 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
10311 they never ignore case.
10313 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
10314 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
10315 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
10316 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
10317 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
10318 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
10319 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
10321 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
10322 the same format that was used in the file before.
10324 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
10325 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
10327 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
10328 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
10329 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
10331 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
10332 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
10333 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
10334 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
10335 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
10336 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
10337 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
10339 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
10340 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
10341 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
10342 format. You can now customize these variables.
10344 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
10345 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
10346 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
10347 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
10349 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
10350 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
10351 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
10353 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
10354 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
10355 doesn't have any effect.
10357 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
10358 not one per buffer.
10360 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
10361 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
10362 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
10364 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
10365 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
10366 `auto-show-mode' command.
10368 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
10369 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
10370 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
10371 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
10372 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
10374 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
10375 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
10377 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
10378 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
10379 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
10381 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
10382 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
10383 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
10384 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
10386 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
10388 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
10389 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
10390 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
10391 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10392 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10394 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10395 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10397 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10398 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10399 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10400 `?' on other systems.
10402 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10403 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10406 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10407 current codepage when it starts.
10411 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10412 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10413 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10414 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10415 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10416 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10420 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10421 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10423 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10424 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10425 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10426 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10427 buffer-file-coding-system.
10429 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10430 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10433 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10434 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10435 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10436 list of possible coding systems.
10440 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10441 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10442 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10443 docstring for details.
10445 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10446 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10447 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10448 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10449 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10451 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10452 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10454 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10455 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10457 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10458 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10459 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10460 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10463 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10464 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10466 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10467 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10468 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10469 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10471 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10472 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10473 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10474 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10475 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10477 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10479 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10481 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10482 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10484 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10486 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10487 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10488 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10489 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10490 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10494 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10495 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10496 Gnus manual for the full story.
10498 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10499 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10500 group, which is created automatically.
10502 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10505 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10507 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10508 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10510 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10513 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10515 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10516 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10518 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10520 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10521 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10523 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10524 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10526 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10527 control over simplification.
10529 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10531 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10534 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10536 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10538 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10539 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10540 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10542 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10543 `a' forces normal posting method.
10545 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10548 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10549 to a non-nil value.
10551 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10552 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10554 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10557 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10559 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10561 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10562 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10564 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10565 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10567 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10569 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10572 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10573 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10575 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10576 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10578 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10580 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10582 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10584 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10586 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10587 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10588 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10590 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10591 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10592 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10593 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10594 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10596 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10597 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10598 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10599 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10601 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10602 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10603 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10606 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10608 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10609 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10611 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10612 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10613 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10614 removed from the label.
10616 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10617 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10619 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10620 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10622 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10623 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10626 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10628 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10630 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10631 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10633 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10634 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10635 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10637 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10638 changes with a special face.
10640 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10641 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10642 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10644 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10646 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10647 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10648 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10649 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10650 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10652 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10653 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10654 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10656 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10657 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10658 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10659 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10660 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10661 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10662 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10663 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10664 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10666 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10667 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10668 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10669 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10670 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10673 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10674 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10675 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10676 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10677 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10678 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10680 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10681 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10682 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10683 was not documented clearly before.
10685 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10686 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10688 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10690 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10691 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10692 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10693 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10695 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10696 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10697 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10699 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10701 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10702 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10704 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10705 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10708 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10709 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10710 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10711 file names and attributes are returned.
10713 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10714 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10715 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10716 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10717 returns the result.
10719 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10720 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10722 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10724 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10725 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10726 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10729 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10730 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10733 The new function process-running-child-p
10734 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10735 terminal to its own child process.
10737 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10738 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10739 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10740 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10742 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10743 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10745 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10746 :included is an alias for :visible.
10748 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10749 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10750 to move or copy menu entries.
10752 ** Multibyte editing changes
10754 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10755 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10756 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10757 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10758 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10759 (setq char (sref str idx)
10760 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10761 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10763 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10764 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10765 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10767 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10768 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10769 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10771 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10773 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10774 across the boundary.
10776 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10777 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10778 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10779 contains 8-bit characters.
10780 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10781 contains invalid characters.
10783 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10784 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10785 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10786 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10789 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10790 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10791 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10792 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10794 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10795 compose Thai characters in a string.
10797 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10798 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10799 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10800 menus should always use the third argument.
10802 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10803 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10804 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10805 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10807 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10808 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10809 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10810 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10812 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10813 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10814 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10815 echo area contents.
10817 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10819 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10820 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10821 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10823 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10824 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10825 means to clear out that attribute.
10827 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10828 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10830 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10831 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10832 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10833 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10835 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10836 the gap of the current buffer.
10838 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10839 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10842 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10843 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10844 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10845 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10847 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10849 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10850 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10851 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10852 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10853 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10855 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10856 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10857 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10858 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10859 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10861 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10862 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10863 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10865 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10866 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10867 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10868 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10869 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10872 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10873 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10874 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10875 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10877 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10879 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10880 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10881 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10882 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10884 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10885 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10886 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10887 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10888 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10889 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10890 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10893 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10896 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10897 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10898 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10899 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10900 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10902 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10903 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10904 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10905 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10907 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10908 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10909 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10910 something that most users not do.
10912 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10913 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10914 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10917 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10918 pasting operations.
10920 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10921 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10922 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10923 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10926 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10927 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10928 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10929 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10930 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10933 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10934 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10935 to be confused by TeX commands.
10937 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
10938 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
10939 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
10940 of various alternative replacements and actions.
10942 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
10943 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
10944 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
10945 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
10946 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
10948 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
10949 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
10951 ** Changes in input method usage.
10953 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
10954 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
10957 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
10959 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
10960 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
10962 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
10963 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
10965 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
10967 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
10969 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
10970 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
10972 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
10973 given in the following case:
10974 o When you are using a complex input method.
10975 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
10977 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
10978 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
10979 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
10980 setting it to t is helpful.
10982 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
10984 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
10986 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
10987 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
10988 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
10989 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
10992 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
10993 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
10994 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
10997 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
10999 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
11001 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
11002 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
11004 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
11005 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
11006 its owner and group.
11008 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
11009 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
11011 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
11012 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
11014 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
11015 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
11016 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
11017 by the left edge of the rectangle.
11019 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
11020 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
11021 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
11022 for writing keyboard macros.
11024 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
11025 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
11026 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
11027 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
11028 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
11031 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
11033 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
11034 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
11037 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
11038 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
11039 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
11040 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
11042 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
11043 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
11044 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
11046 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
11047 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
11048 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
11049 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
11051 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
11052 failure if the command produces no output.
11054 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
11055 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
11058 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
11059 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
11060 function and variable names.
11062 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
11063 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
11064 file-coding-system-alist.
11066 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
11067 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
11068 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
11069 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
11070 according to the current fontset.
11072 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
11074 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
11075 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
11076 nonascii-insert-offset.
11078 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
11079 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
11080 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
11081 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
11083 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
11084 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
11086 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
11087 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
11089 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
11090 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
11093 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
11094 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
11096 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
11097 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
11098 all variables that have documentation.
11100 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
11101 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
11102 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
11103 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
11104 it should show; the default is 20.
11106 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
11107 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
11110 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
11111 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
11112 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
11113 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
11114 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
11115 Newly added options are included as well.
11117 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
11118 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
11119 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
11121 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
11124 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
11125 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
11127 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
11128 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
11131 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
11132 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
11135 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
11136 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
11137 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
11138 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
11141 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
11143 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
11144 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
11145 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
11147 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
11148 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
11149 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
11154 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
11155 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
11157 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
11158 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
11160 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
11161 read and post multi-lingual articles.
11163 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
11164 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
11165 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
11166 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
11167 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
11168 made invisible again.
11170 ** Mail reading and sending changes
11172 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
11173 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
11174 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
11177 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
11178 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
11179 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
11180 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
11181 rmail-default-body-file.
11183 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
11184 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
11185 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
11187 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
11188 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
11189 is evaluated to insert the signature.
11191 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
11192 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
11193 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
11194 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
11195 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
11196 especially interested in trying feedmail.
11198 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
11199 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
11200 provided by feedmail are:
11202 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
11203 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
11204 there is also a queue for draft messages
11206 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
11207 be prompted for confirmation
11209 **** does smart filling of address headers
11211 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
11212 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
11213 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
11215 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
11216 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
11217 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
11218 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
11222 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
11223 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
11225 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
11226 run Dired on the directory name at point.
11228 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
11229 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
11230 for a specified regexp.
11234 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
11237 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
11238 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
11241 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
11242 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
11243 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
11244 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
11246 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
11247 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
11248 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
11249 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
11250 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
11252 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
11253 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
11254 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
11255 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
11256 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
11258 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
11259 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
11260 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
11261 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
11263 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
11264 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
11265 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
11267 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
11268 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
11269 session to resolve them.
11271 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
11272 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
11273 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
11276 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
11277 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
11278 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
11279 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
11280 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
11281 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
11284 ** Changes in Font Lock
11286 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
11287 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
11288 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
11289 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
11290 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
11292 ** Frame name display changes
11294 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
11295 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
11296 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
11297 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
11299 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
11300 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
11303 ** Comint (subshell) changes
11305 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
11306 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
11307 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
11309 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
11311 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
11312 that is, the line after the last line you got.
11313 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
11315 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
11316 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
11317 the following line.
11319 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
11320 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
11321 previously sent input.
11323 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
11324 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
11325 as the search string.
11327 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
11328 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
11332 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
11333 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
11334 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
11337 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
11338 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
11339 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
11340 style is still the default however.
11342 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
11344 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
11345 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
11346 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
11348 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
11349 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
11351 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
11352 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
11354 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
11355 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
11357 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
11358 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
11360 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
11361 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
11362 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
11363 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
11365 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
11367 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
11368 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
11369 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
11371 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
11372 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
11373 expanding dynamically.
11375 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
11376 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
11378 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
11379 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
11380 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
11381 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
11383 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
11385 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11387 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
11388 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
11389 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
11390 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
11391 against the first word in the title.
11393 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11394 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11395 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11396 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11397 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11398 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11400 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11401 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11402 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11403 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11405 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11407 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11408 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11409 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11410 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11411 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11412 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11414 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11415 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11417 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11418 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11419 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11421 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11422 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11426 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11427 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11428 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11430 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11431 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11432 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11433 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11436 o URLs are automatically skipped
11437 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11439 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11441 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11443 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11444 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11445 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11446 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11448 *** New recursive parser.
11450 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11451 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11452 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11454 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11456 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11457 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11458 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11460 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11462 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11464 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11466 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11468 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11470 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11471 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11473 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11475 *** References to external documents.
11477 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11478 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11479 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11480 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11481 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11482 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11483 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11485 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11487 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11488 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11490 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11491 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11493 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11495 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11496 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11498 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11500 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11501 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11502 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11503 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11504 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11505 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11508 *** Support for the varioref package
11510 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11514 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11515 and citations are created. These hooks are
11516 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11517 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11519 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11521 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11522 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11524 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11526 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11527 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11530 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11532 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11533 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11534 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11535 directories that contain the same file name.
11537 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11538 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11539 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11540 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11541 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11542 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11543 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11546 ** New modes and packages
11548 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11549 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11550 it, but some do not.
11552 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11555 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11556 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11557 around in a buffer.
11559 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11561 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11562 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11563 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11564 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11566 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11567 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11568 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11570 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11571 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11572 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
11573 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11574 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11577 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11578 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11580 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11581 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11582 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11583 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11585 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11587 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11588 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11589 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11590 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11591 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
11592 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11593 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11594 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11595 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11596 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11597 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11599 Platform-specific modes:
11601 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11602 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11603 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11604 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11605 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11606 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11607 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11608 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11609 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11611 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11613 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11614 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11615 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11616 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11618 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11619 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11620 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11622 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11623 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11624 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11625 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11627 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11628 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11629 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11632 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11633 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11634 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11635 current input method for reading this one event.
11637 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11638 now control whether to output certain characters as
11639 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11640 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11641 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11642 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11644 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11646 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11647 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11649 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11650 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11651 always increases point by 1.
11653 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11654 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11656 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11658 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11659 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11660 default value changed. For example,
11662 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11667 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11670 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11671 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11672 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11673 `:version' in the top level group.
11675 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11677 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11678 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11680 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11681 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11682 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11685 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11686 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11689 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11690 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11691 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11693 ** Frame-local variables.
11695 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11696 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11697 local bindings for that variable.
11699 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11700 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11701 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11704 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11705 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11706 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11707 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11709 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11710 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11711 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11712 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11714 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11715 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11716 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11717 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11718 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11720 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11721 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11722 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11723 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11725 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11726 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11728 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11729 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11730 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11732 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11733 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11734 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11735 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11737 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11738 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11741 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11742 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11743 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11744 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11745 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11747 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11748 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11749 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11750 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11752 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11753 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11754 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11755 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11756 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11758 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11759 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11760 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11761 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11763 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11764 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11765 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11767 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11768 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11769 was directed to display this buffer.
11771 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11772 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11773 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11774 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11775 set-window-configuration.
11777 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11778 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11779 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11780 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11782 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11783 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11784 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11786 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11787 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11788 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11790 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11791 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11793 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11794 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11796 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11797 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11798 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11800 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11801 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11802 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11803 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11807 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11808 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11811 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11812 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11813 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11814 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11815 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11817 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11819 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11820 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11821 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11822 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11825 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11826 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11827 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11828 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11829 The supported properties include
11831 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11833 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11834 item should appear in the menu.
11836 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11837 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11838 It should return a binding to use instead.
11840 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11841 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11842 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11843 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11844 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11847 This means that the command normally has no
11848 keyboard equivalent.
11849 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11850 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11851 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11852 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11853 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11855 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11856 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11858 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11862 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11863 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11864 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11865 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11867 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11869 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11870 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11871 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11872 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11873 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11874 forward, away from the user.
11876 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11878 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11879 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11880 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11881 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11882 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11884 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11886 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11887 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11888 that were dragged and dropped.
11890 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11892 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11894 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11895 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11896 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11898 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11899 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11900 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11902 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11903 in Emacs 19 and before.
11905 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11906 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11908 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11909 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11910 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11911 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11913 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11914 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11915 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11916 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11917 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11919 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11920 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11921 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11922 consistent with the new representation.
11924 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11925 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11926 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11927 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11929 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11930 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11931 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11933 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11934 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11935 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11937 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
11938 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
11939 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
11941 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11942 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
11944 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11945 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
11947 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
11948 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
11949 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
11950 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
11952 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
11953 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
11955 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
11956 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
11957 buffer or string being searched.
11959 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
11960 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
11961 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
11962 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
11963 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
11964 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
11965 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
11967 *** Structure of coding system changed.
11969 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
11970 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
11971 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
11972 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
11973 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
11974 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
11975 define-coding-system-alias.
11977 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
11978 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
11979 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
11980 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
11981 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
11982 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
11983 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
11986 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
11987 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
11988 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
11989 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
11991 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
11992 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
11993 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
11994 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
11996 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
11997 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
11998 This function requires a user interaction.
12000 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
12001 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
12002 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
12003 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
12004 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
12005 select-safe-coding-system.
12007 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
12008 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
12009 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
12012 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
12013 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
12014 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
12016 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
12017 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
12018 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
12019 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
12021 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
12022 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
12023 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
12026 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
12027 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
12029 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
12030 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
12031 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
12032 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
12033 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
12034 range of characters.
12036 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
12037 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
12039 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
12040 in the current buffer at position POS.
12042 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
12043 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
12044 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
12045 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
12046 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
12047 binding input-method-function to nil.
12049 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
12050 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
12051 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
12052 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
12053 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
12055 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
12056 subsequent events of a key sequence.
12058 *** You can customize any language environment by using
12059 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
12061 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
12062 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
12063 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
12064 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
12065 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
12067 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
12069 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
12070 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
12071 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
12074 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
12075 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
12077 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
12078 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
12079 in your .emacs file.)
12081 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
12082 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
12084 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
12085 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
12087 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
12088 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
12091 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
12092 delete the character before point, as usual.
12094 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
12095 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
12096 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
12098 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
12099 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
12100 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
12101 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
12102 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
12105 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
12106 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
12107 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
12108 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
12109 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
12111 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
12112 and is an alias for it.
12114 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
12115 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
12117 ** Scrolling changes
12119 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
12120 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
12122 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
12123 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
12126 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
12127 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
12128 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
12129 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
12131 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
12132 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
12133 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
12134 recenters the window.
12136 ** International character set support (MULE)
12138 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
12139 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
12140 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
12141 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
12142 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
12143 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
12145 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
12146 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
12147 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
12148 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
12149 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
12151 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
12152 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
12153 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
12154 language, to make it possible to type them.
12156 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
12157 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
12159 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
12160 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
12162 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
12164 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
12166 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
12167 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
12168 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
12169 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
12170 characters for their work until they want to change.
12174 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
12175 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
12176 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
12177 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
12178 support several input methods.
12180 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
12181 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
12184 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
12185 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
12186 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
12187 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
12188 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
12191 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
12192 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
12193 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
12194 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
12195 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
12197 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
12198 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
12199 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
12200 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
12202 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
12203 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
12204 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
12205 the first guess is wrong.
12207 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
12208 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
12210 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
12211 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
12212 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
12213 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
12215 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
12216 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
12217 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
12218 translate automatically to and from either one.
12220 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
12222 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
12223 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
12224 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
12227 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
12228 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
12229 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
12230 multibyte characters in that buffer.
12232 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
12233 character conversion as well.
12235 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
12237 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
12238 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
12239 requires using many fonts.
12241 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
12242 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
12244 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
12245 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
12246 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
12247 you would use a font.
12249 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
12250 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
12251 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
12253 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
12254 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
12257 *** Defining fontsets.
12259 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
12260 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
12261 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
12263 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
12264 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
12265 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
12266 standard fontset are created automatically.
12268 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
12269 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
12270 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
12271 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
12272 name is `fontset-startup'.
12274 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
12275 The resource value should have this form:
12276 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
12277 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
12278 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
12279 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
12280 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
12281 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
12282 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
12283 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
12284 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
12286 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
12287 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
12288 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
12290 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
12291 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
12292 following resource,
12293 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
12294 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
12295 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
12296 Here is the substitution rule:
12297 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
12298 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
12299 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
12300 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
12301 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
12303 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
12304 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
12305 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
12307 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
12308 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
12309 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
12310 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
12313 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
12314 defaults for a particular choice of language.
12316 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
12317 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
12318 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
12319 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
12320 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
12321 system for new files that you create.
12323 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
12324 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
12325 whole Emacs session.
12327 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
12328 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
12329 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
12331 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
12332 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
12333 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
12334 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
12335 coding systems that Emacs supports.
12337 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
12338 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
12339 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
12340 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
12341 is used for *the immediately following command*.
12343 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
12344 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
12346 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
12347 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
12349 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
12350 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
12352 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
12353 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
12354 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
12355 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
12358 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
12359 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
12360 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
12361 translated into that character code.
12363 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
12364 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
12366 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
12368 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
12369 the coding system for keyboard input.
12371 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
12372 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
12373 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
12375 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
12377 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
12378 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
12379 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
12380 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
12381 designed to work with terminals.
12383 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
12384 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
12385 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
12386 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
12387 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
12388 in the corresponding buffer.
12390 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12392 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12393 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12394 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12396 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12397 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12398 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12401 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12402 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12404 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12405 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12406 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12407 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12409 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12410 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12411 related information.
12413 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12414 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12417 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12418 information about the support for a particular language.
12419 You specify the language as an argument.
12421 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12422 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12425 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12426 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12427 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12428 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12430 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12432 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12433 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12434 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12435 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12436 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12437 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12438 K euc-korea (Korean)
12441 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12444 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12445 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12446 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12447 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12450 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12451 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12452 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12453 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12455 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12456 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12458 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12459 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12460 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12461 Rmail files themselves.
12463 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12464 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12466 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12469 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12470 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12471 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12472 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12473 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12475 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12476 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12477 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12480 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12481 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12482 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12483 without any conversion.
12485 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12486 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12487 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12488 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12490 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12491 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12493 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12494 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12496 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12497 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12499 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12500 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12501 in the buffer before point.
12503 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12504 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12507 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12508 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12510 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12512 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12513 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12515 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12516 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12517 can become a bottleneck.
12519 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12520 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12521 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12522 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12523 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12524 so useful that the change is worth while.
12526 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12527 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12528 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12529 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12531 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12532 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12535 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12536 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12537 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12539 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12540 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12541 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12543 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12544 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12545 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12547 ** Changes in View mode.
12549 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12550 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12552 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12553 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12555 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12558 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12559 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12561 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12562 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12563 not just the selected window.
12565 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12566 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12567 turns View mode on or off.
12569 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12570 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12571 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12573 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12574 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12576 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12577 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12578 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12579 which version to compare with.
12581 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12582 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12584 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12585 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12586 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12587 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12589 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12590 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12591 blocks, all of them or none.
12593 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12594 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12595 confirmation first.
12597 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12598 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12599 However, the mode will not be changed if
12600 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12601 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12602 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12603 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12605 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12607 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12608 these commands do not change the major mode.
12610 ** M-x occur changes.
12612 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12613 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12615 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12616 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12617 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12619 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12620 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12621 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12622 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12623 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12625 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12626 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12627 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12628 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12630 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12631 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12632 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12634 ** Outline mode changes.
12636 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12638 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12640 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12641 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12642 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12643 was already active.
12645 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12646 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12647 get confused by it.
12649 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12650 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12652 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12654 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12655 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12656 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12657 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12659 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12660 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12661 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12663 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12664 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12667 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12668 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12669 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12670 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12672 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12673 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12674 can be. The default value is 30.
12676 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12678 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12679 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12680 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12681 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12682 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12685 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12686 compose-mail-other-frame.
12688 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12689 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12690 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12691 buffer that shows the original message.
12693 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12694 with separator lines around the contents.
12696 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12697 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12698 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12699 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12701 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12703 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12704 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12705 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12706 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12708 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12709 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12712 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12713 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12716 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12717 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12718 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12719 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12721 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12722 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12723 be taken to be magic.
12725 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12726 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12727 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12729 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12730 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12732 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12733 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12735 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12737 new key dired.el binding old key
12738 ------- ---------------- -------
12739 * c dired-change-marks c
12741 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12742 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12743 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12745 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12746 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12747 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12748 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12749 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12750 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12754 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12755 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12756 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12757 each time you run it.
12759 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12760 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12762 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12763 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12764 means to move in the opposite direction.
12766 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12767 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12769 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12770 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12771 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12772 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12777 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12779 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12782 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12783 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12785 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12788 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12790 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12792 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12794 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12795 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12796 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12798 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12800 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12802 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12803 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12805 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12806 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12807 used to pick articles.
12809 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12810 another have been added.
12812 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12814 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12815 generating lines in buffers.
12817 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12820 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12822 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12824 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12826 *** Scores can be decayed.
12828 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12830 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12831 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12833 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12836 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12838 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12839 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12841 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12843 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12844 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12846 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12847 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12849 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12852 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12853 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12855 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12857 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12859 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12861 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12863 Use the `Y c' command.
12865 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12867 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12869 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12871 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12872 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12874 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12876 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12878 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12879 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12881 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12883 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12884 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12885 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12886 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12889 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12890 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12891 particular news group. This can be done by:
12893 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12895 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12896 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12897 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12898 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12899 for reading and posting).
12901 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12902 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12903 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12904 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12907 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12908 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12910 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12911 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12912 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12913 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12914 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12916 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12917 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12919 ** CC mode changes.
12921 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12922 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12923 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12924 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12925 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12928 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12929 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12930 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12931 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12932 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12933 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12935 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12936 of the current buffer.
12938 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
12939 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
12940 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
12942 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
12943 style that the Python developers like.
12945 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
12946 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
12947 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
12949 ** VC Changes [new]
12951 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
12952 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
12953 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
12955 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
12956 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
12959 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
12960 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
12962 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
12963 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
12964 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
12965 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
12967 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
12968 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
12970 ** Calendar changes.
12972 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
12973 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
12974 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
12975 following/previous years.
12977 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
12978 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
12979 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
12980 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
12981 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
12982 supposed attribute of God.
12984 ** ps-print changes
12986 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
12989 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
12991 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
12992 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
12993 printer system has this behavior, set variable
12994 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
12996 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
12997 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
12998 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
13000 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
13001 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
13003 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
13004 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
13005 printing for your printer.
13007 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
13008 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13010 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
13011 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
13013 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
13014 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
13015 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
13016 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
13017 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
13018 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
13019 The default value is nil.
13021 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
13022 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
13024 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
13025 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
13026 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
13027 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
13028 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
13029 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
13030 color). The default is 0 ("black").
13032 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
13033 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
13035 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
13036 The default is 0 ("black").
13038 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
13039 The default is 0 ("black").
13041 border-width Specify the border width.
13042 The default is 0.4.
13044 Any other property is ignored.
13046 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
13047 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
13050 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
13051 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
13052 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
13053 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
13054 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
13055 controlling headers.
13057 *** Color management (subgroup)
13059 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
13062 *** Face Management (subgroup)
13064 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
13065 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
13066 background should be used. Valid values are:
13068 t always use face background color.
13069 nil never use face background color.
13070 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
13072 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
13074 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
13077 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
13078 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
13080 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
13083 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
13084 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
13085 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
13087 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
13091 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
13095 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
13099 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
13103 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
13105 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
13107 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
13110 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
13111 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
13112 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
13114 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
13115 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13116 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13117 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13118 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13122 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13123 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13124 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13127 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13128 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13129 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
13130 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
13131 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
13132 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13133 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13134 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
13135 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
13136 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
13137 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
13140 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
13142 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
13145 *** Printer management (subgroup)
13147 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
13148 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
13149 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
13150 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
13153 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
13154 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
13155 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
13157 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
13158 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
13161 *** Page settings (subgroup)
13163 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
13164 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
13165 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
13166 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
13167 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
13168 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
13171 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
13172 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
13173 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
13175 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
13176 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
13177 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
13178 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
13179 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
13180 its TO, are ignored.
13182 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
13183 pages. Valid values are:
13185 nil print all pages.
13187 `even-page' print only even pages.
13189 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
13191 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
13192 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13193 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
13194 print only the even sheet of paper.
13196 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
13197 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
13198 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
13199 only the odd sheet of paper.
13201 Any other value is treated as nil.
13203 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
13204 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
13205 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
13207 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
13209 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
13210 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
13212 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
13213 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13214 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
13215 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13216 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13217 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
13218 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
13220 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
13221 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
13222 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
13223 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
13224 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
13225 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
13226 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
13228 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
13230 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
13231 messages should be sent.
13233 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
13234 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
13235 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
13237 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
13239 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
13240 points for line numbers.
13242 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
13243 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
13245 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
13246 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
13247 to 2, the printing will look like:
13259 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
13260 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
13263 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
13264 zebra stripe is to be printed.
13266 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
13268 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
13269 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
13270 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
13271 3, the output will look like:
13285 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
13286 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
13288 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
13289 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13292 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
13293 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
13296 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
13298 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
13299 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
13301 ** hideshow changes.
13303 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
13306 *** Support for java-mode added.
13308 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
13309 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
13311 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
13312 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
13313 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
13315 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
13316 robust and a lot faster.
13318 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
13320 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
13321 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
13322 documentation for more details.
13324 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
13326 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
13327 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
13328 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
13329 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
13330 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
13332 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
13333 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
13334 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
13335 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
13341 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
13342 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify
13343 the faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new
13344 custom group font-lock-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in your
13345 ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
13346 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
13348 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
13350 *** Maximum decoration
13352 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
13353 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
13354 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
13355 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
13356 to get the old behavior.
13360 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
13362 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
13363 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
13365 *** Configurable support
13367 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
13368 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
13369 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
13370 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
13371 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
13372 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
13373 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
13375 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
13376 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
13377 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
13379 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
13381 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
13382 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
13385 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
13387 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13393 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13394 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13395 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13396 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13398 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13400 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13401 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13402 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13404 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13406 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13407 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13408 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13409 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13410 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13411 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13412 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13414 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13415 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13416 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13417 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13418 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13419 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13421 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13423 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13424 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13425 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13426 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13428 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13431 ** Ada mode changes.
13433 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13434 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13435 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13436 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13439 *** There are two new commands:
13440 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13441 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13443 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13444 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13445 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13447 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13448 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13449 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13451 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13452 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13453 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13454 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13456 ** Scheme mode changes.
13458 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13459 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13460 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13461 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13464 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13465 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13466 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13467 variables as buffer-local variables.
13469 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13470 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13472 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13474 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13475 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13476 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13477 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13479 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13480 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13483 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13484 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13485 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13486 option takes precedence.
13488 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13489 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13490 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13492 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13493 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13496 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13497 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13499 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13500 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13503 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13504 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13505 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13506 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13507 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13508 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13510 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13511 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13512 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13513 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13515 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13516 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13517 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13518 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13519 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13521 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13522 since it applies only to the current frame.
13524 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13525 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13526 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13528 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13529 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13530 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13531 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13532 instead of just the file you are editing.
13536 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13537 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13538 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13539 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13540 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13543 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13544 knows which kind of label is needed.
13546 C-c ) reftex-reference
13547 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13548 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13550 C-c [ reftex-citation
13551 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13552 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13554 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13555 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13558 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13559 can quickly jump to every section.
13561 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13562 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13563 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13564 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13565 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13567 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13569 *** Info documentation is now available.
13571 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13572 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13574 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13575 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13577 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13578 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13580 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13581 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13582 appropriate functions.
13584 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13585 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13587 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13590 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13591 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13593 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13594 shall be delimited.
13596 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13597 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13598 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13600 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13601 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13602 prefixed with `ALT'.
13604 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13605 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13606 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13609 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13610 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13611 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13613 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13614 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13616 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13617 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13618 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13620 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13622 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13624 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13625 from alien sources.
13627 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13628 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13631 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13634 *** Added support for imenu.
13636 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13637 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13638 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13639 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13641 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13642 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13644 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13646 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13648 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13649 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13650 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13653 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13654 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13656 ** browse-url changes
13658 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13659 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13660 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13661 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13662 customization variables.
13664 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13666 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13667 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13668 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13670 ** Changes in Ediff
13672 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13673 pops up the Info file for this command.
13675 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13676 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13677 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13680 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13681 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13682 files in the same directory.
13684 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13685 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13686 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13688 ** Changes in Viper
13690 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13691 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13693 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13694 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13695 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13696 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13697 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13698 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13699 color when Viper is in insert state.
13700 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13701 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13702 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13706 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13707 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13708 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13709 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13710 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13712 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13714 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13715 constructs are tagged. Files are recognized by the extension .java.
13717 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13718 recognized by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13719 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13721 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13722 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13723 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13724 methods and protocols.
13726 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognized by the extension
13727 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13728 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13731 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13732 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13733 at least M times and as many as N times.
13735 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13736 in files has changed slightly.
13738 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13739 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13740 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13741 with old time-stamp-format values.
13743 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13744 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13745 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13748 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13749 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13750 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13751 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13752 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13753 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13755 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13756 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13757 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13759 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13760 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13761 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13762 recommended now will continue to work then.
13764 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13767 ** There are some additional major modes:
13769 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13770 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13771 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13773 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13774 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13777 ** New Lisp packages include:
13779 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13781 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13782 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13784 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13786 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13789 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13790 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13793 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13794 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13795 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13796 strings or comments.
13798 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13799 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13800 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13801 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13804 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13805 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13807 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13808 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13810 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13812 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13813 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13815 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13817 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13819 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13821 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13822 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13824 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13825 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13826 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13827 original place after inserting the copy.
13829 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13832 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13833 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13834 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13836 Enable mouse-drag with:
13837 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13839 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13841 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13842 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13844 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13845 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13849 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13850 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13851 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13852 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13853 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13854 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13855 instance) and vice versa.
13857 To use this package load it using
13858 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13859 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13860 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13861 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13862 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13863 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13865 *** Interface to ph.
13867 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13869 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13870 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13873 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13875 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13876 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13877 while the real cursor does not move.
13879 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13880 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13882 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13883 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13887 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13888 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13889 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13890 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13892 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13894 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13896 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13898 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13899 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13900 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13901 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13902 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13904 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13905 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13906 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13907 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13908 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13909 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13911 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13913 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13914 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13915 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13916 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13918 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13919 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13921 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13922 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13925 ** Basic Lisp changes
13927 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13928 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13930 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13931 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13934 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13936 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
13938 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
13939 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
13941 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
13942 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
13945 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
13947 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
13949 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
13951 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
13952 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
13953 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
13956 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
13957 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
13958 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
13960 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
13961 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
13962 adding one of these suffixes.
13964 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
13965 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
13966 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
13968 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
13969 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
13971 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
13973 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
13974 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
13976 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
13977 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
13979 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
13981 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
13982 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
13984 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
13985 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
13986 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
13987 works using `save-current-buffer'.
13989 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
13990 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
13993 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
13994 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
13995 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
13998 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
13999 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
14002 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
14004 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
14005 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
14006 Then it returns that string.
14008 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
14010 (with-output-to-string
14011 (princ "The buffer is ")
14012 (princ (buffer-name)))
14014 returns "The buffer is foo".
14016 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
14019 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
14020 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
14021 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
14023 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
14024 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
14026 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
14027 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
14028 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
14029 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
14030 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
14031 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
14033 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
14034 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
14035 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
14038 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
14039 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
14040 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
14041 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
14042 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
14044 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
14045 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
14046 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
14047 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
14049 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
14050 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
14052 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
14054 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
14055 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
14056 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
14057 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
14060 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
14061 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
14064 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
14066 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
14067 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
14068 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
14069 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
14070 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
14072 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
14074 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
14075 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
14076 more than the number of characters.
14078 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
14079 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
14080 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
14081 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
14082 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
14083 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
14085 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
14086 and returns a string containing those characters.
14088 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
14089 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
14090 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
14091 character, sref signals an error.
14093 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
14094 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
14095 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14097 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
14098 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
14099 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
14101 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
14102 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
14103 to a vector of the characters in it.
14105 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
14106 of a string. You call it as follows:
14108 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
14110 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
14111 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
14112 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
14113 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
14114 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
14116 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
14117 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14119 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
14120 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
14122 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
14123 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
14124 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
14125 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
14127 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
14129 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
14131 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
14132 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
14133 are not included in the resulting value.
14135 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
14136 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
14137 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
14138 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
14140 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
14141 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
14142 character extends across that column), then the padding character
14143 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
14144 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
14145 column START-COLUMN.
14147 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
14148 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
14149 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
14150 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
14151 changed text, before the change.
14153 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
14154 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
14155 one character set for each script, not for each language.
14157 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
14159 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
14161 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
14162 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
14164 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
14165 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
14166 which identify the character within that character set.
14168 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
14169 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
14170 opposite of split-char.
14172 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
14173 of all the characters between BEG and END.
14175 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
14176 of all the characters in a string.
14178 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
14179 and specifying coding systems.
14181 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
14182 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
14183 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
14184 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
14185 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
14186 as what to do about code conversion.)
14188 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
14189 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
14191 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14192 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14193 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
14195 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14196 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
14197 to match against a file name.
14199 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14200 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14201 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14202 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14203 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14204 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14206 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14207 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14209 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
14210 the coding system to use for network sockets.
14212 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
14213 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
14214 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
14217 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
14218 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
14219 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
14220 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
14221 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
14222 specifies the coding system for encoding.
14224 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
14225 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
14227 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
14228 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
14229 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
14230 start the subprocess.
14232 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
14233 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
14234 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
14235 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
14236 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
14238 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
14239 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
14242 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
14243 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
14244 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
14245 connection permanently or until overridden.
14247 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
14248 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
14249 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
14250 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
14251 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
14252 system for one operation at a time.
14254 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
14255 files, subprocesses or network connections.
14257 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
14258 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
14259 The value is a cons cell,
14260 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
14261 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
14262 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
14263 input to the subprocess.
14265 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
14266 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
14268 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
14269 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
14270 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
14272 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
14273 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
14274 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
14275 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
14278 Thus, instead of writing
14280 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
14281 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
14283 you would now write this:
14285 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
14286 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
14290 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
14291 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
14292 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
14293 for a description of them.
14295 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
14296 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
14298 (defgroup ispell nil
14299 "Spell checking using Ispell."
14302 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
14303 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
14304 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
14305 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
14306 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
14308 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
14309 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
14310 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
14311 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
14312 first-level subgroups.
14314 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
14316 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
14317 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
14321 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
14322 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
14323 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
14324 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
14325 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
14326 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
14328 ** Text property changes
14330 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
14333 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
14334 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
14335 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
14336 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
14337 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
14339 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
14340 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
14341 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
14342 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
14344 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
14345 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
14346 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
14348 ** Changes in invisibility features
14350 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
14351 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
14352 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
14353 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
14354 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
14355 make the overlay visible.
14357 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
14358 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
14359 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
14360 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
14361 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
14362 t when it should hide it.
14364 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
14366 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
14367 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
14368 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
14369 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
14370 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
14371 Here is an example of how to do this:
14373 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
14374 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14375 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
14376 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14379 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
14382 ;; When done with the overlays:
14383 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
14384 ;; Or respectively:
14385 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
14387 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
14389 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
14390 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
14391 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14392 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14394 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14395 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14396 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14398 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14399 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14401 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14402 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14404 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14405 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14406 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14408 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14409 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14410 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14411 determine the syntax type of the character.
14413 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14414 of the current buffer.
14416 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14417 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14418 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14420 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14421 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14422 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14423 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14424 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14426 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14429 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14430 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14431 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14433 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14434 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14435 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14436 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14437 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14439 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14440 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14441 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14443 ** Changes in face features
14445 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14446 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14448 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14449 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14451 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14452 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14454 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14455 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14457 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14458 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14459 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14460 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14463 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14464 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14466 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14468 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14469 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14470 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14471 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14473 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14476 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14477 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14479 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14480 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14482 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14483 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14485 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14486 character code conversion as well as other things.
14488 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14489 (formerly it did not).
14491 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14492 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14494 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14495 instead of constant strings.
14497 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14498 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14499 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14501 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14502 in the same way as before.
14504 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14505 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14506 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14508 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14509 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14510 else, and returns nil.
14512 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14513 directory cannot be listed.
14515 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14517 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14518 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14519 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14520 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14523 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14524 It is available through the history command M-n.
14526 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14527 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14528 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14529 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14530 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14532 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14533 argument in this way.
14535 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14536 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14537 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14539 ** Echo area features
14541 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14542 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14543 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14544 after the echo area is cleared.
14546 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14547 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14549 ** Keyboard input features
14551 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14552 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14554 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14555 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14556 by keyboard macros.
14558 ** Frame-related changes
14560 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14561 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14562 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14564 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14565 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14566 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14568 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14569 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14570 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14571 in the selected frame.
14573 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14574 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14575 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14577 ** X Windows features
14579 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14580 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14581 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14583 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14584 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14586 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14587 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14588 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14590 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14591 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14593 ** Subprocess features
14595 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14596 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14599 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14600 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14602 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14603 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14605 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14606 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14608 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14609 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14610 goes after the other menu items.
14612 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14613 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14614 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14617 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14618 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14620 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14621 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14624 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14625 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14626 but its hook is still run.
14628 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14629 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14631 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14632 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14633 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14635 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14636 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14637 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14640 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14641 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14643 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14644 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14645 functions like display-time.
14647 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14648 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14650 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14651 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14652 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14654 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14655 if there is an error in compilation.
14657 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14658 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14659 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14660 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14662 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14663 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14664 the *scratch* buffer.
14666 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14667 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14668 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14669 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14671 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14672 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14673 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14675 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14676 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14677 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14678 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14680 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14681 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14682 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14684 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14685 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14686 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14687 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14688 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14691 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14692 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14693 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14694 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14696 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14697 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14698 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14699 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14701 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14703 ** imenu.el changes.
14705 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14706 item from menu created by imenu.
14708 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14709 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14710 select one of those items.
14712 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14714 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14715 Copyright information:
14717 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004,
14718 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14720 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14721 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14722 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14723 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14725 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14726 of this document, or of portions of it,
14727 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14728 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14732 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14735 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793