1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-09-17
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
34 * When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
35 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
36 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
37 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
38 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
41 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
42 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
43 file that is already visited under a different name.
45 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
46 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
47 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
48 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
49 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
50 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
53 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
54 and displayes information about that.
56 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
57 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
59 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
60 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
61 Postscript files are included.
63 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
66 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
67 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
69 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
70 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
71 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
72 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
73 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
74 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
77 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
78 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
79 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
80 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
82 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
83 a version-dependent component.
85 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
86 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
87 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
88 character is still bound as before.
90 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
93 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
94 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
97 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
98 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
99 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
100 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
101 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
102 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
103 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
106 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
107 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
108 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
109 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
110 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
111 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
112 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
113 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
114 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
116 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
117 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
120 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
121 point in a pop-up window.
124 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
125 displays all characters in that character set.
127 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
128 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
131 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
132 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
133 defined on newcomment.el.
136 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
138 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
139 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
142 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
143 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
144 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
145 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
148 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
149 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
150 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
151 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
154 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
155 on the display using several methods
158 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
159 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
160 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
163 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
164 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
166 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
168 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
169 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
172 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
173 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
174 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
175 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
178 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
179 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
180 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
182 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
183 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
186 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
187 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
190 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
191 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
195 ** New X resources recognized
197 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
198 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
199 is useful for debugging X problems.
203 emacs.synchronous: true
205 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
206 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
207 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
208 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
209 visual class names are
218 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
219 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
222 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
223 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
224 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
229 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
231 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
232 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
233 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
234 resource values are `true' or `on'.
238 emacs.privateColormap: true
240 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
241 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
242 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
244 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
245 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
246 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
250 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
253 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
254 all frames except the selected one.
256 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
257 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
259 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
260 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
261 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
262 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
265 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
266 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
268 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
269 read mail from the menu etc.
272 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
273 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
275 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
277 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
281 -------------------------
288 ** Changes in Outline mode.
290 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
291 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
292 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
294 ** Changes to Emacs Server
297 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
298 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
299 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
300 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
301 buffers to kill, as before.
303 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
304 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
307 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
309 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
310 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
311 use. Default is 1000.
314 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
315 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
318 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
319 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
320 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
324 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
325 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
328 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
329 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
331 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
332 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
333 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
335 ** Faces and frame parameters.
337 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
338 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
339 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
340 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
341 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
342 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
343 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
345 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
346 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
347 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
348 `default' face and vice versa.
353 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
354 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
355 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
358 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
360 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
361 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
362 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
363 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
365 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
366 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
367 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
369 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
372 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
374 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
375 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
376 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
377 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
380 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
382 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
383 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
384 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
385 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
388 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
389 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
390 under Lisp changes, below.
392 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
395 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
396 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
397 otherwise, it is hollow.
399 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
400 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
401 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
402 customizing face `fringe'.
404 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
405 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
409 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
410 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
412 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
414 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
415 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
416 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
417 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
418 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
421 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
422 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
423 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
424 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
425 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
426 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
428 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
429 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
430 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
431 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
432 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
433 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
435 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
436 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
437 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
438 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
439 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
441 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
443 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
444 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
445 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
448 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
450 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
451 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
452 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
453 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
454 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
460 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
461 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
466 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
467 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
468 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
471 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
473 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
474 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
475 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
478 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
479 have to do anything to activate it.
481 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
483 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
484 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
485 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
486 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
488 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
491 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
493 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
495 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
498 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
502 ** Hscrolling in C code.
504 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
505 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
510 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
511 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
512 Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is displayed.
513 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
514 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
517 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
519 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
520 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
521 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
522 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
523 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
525 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
527 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
530 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
531 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
533 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
535 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
536 `*') toggles the status.
538 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
540 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
542 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
543 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
546 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
548 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
549 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
550 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
551 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
552 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
553 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
558 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
559 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
560 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
563 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
564 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
565 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
566 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
567 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
568 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
570 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
573 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
575 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
576 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
577 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
580 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
581 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
583 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
584 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
585 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
588 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
590 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
591 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
592 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
593 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
595 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
596 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
597 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
598 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
600 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
601 notably at the end of lines.
603 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
604 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
607 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
609 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
610 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
611 after each match to get the replacement text.
614 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
615 you edit the replacement string.
617 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
618 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
619 lisp-complete-symbol.
622 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
624 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
625 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
626 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
627 window size by setting the following variable:
629 - User option: max-mini-window-height
631 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
632 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
633 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
637 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
639 ** Changes to hideshow.el
641 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
642 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
644 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
646 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
647 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
648 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
649 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
650 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
651 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
653 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
654 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
655 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
656 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
658 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
660 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
661 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
662 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
663 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
664 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
666 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
667 something like this in your .emacs.
669 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
671 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
673 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
676 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
677 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
678 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
681 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
685 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
689 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
690 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
693 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
694 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
695 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
696 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
698 ** Changes in Font Lock
700 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
701 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
704 ** Comint (subshell) changes
706 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
707 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
708 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
709 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
710 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
711 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
712 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
713 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
715 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
716 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
718 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
719 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
720 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
722 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
723 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
724 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
726 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
727 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
728 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
729 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
731 ** Changes to Rmail mode
733 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
734 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
735 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
736 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
737 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
740 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
741 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
742 regexp matching your mail addresses.
744 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
745 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
746 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
747 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
748 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
750 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
753 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
754 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
757 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
758 in which folder to put messages automatically.
760 ** Changes to TeX mode
762 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
765 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
767 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
768 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
769 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
770 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
771 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
772 can be edited from that buffer.
774 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
775 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
776 `A' to use all marked entries).
778 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
779 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
781 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
782 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
783 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
786 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
787 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
788 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
789 in column 1 are always made leaves.
791 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
792 has the following new features:
794 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
795 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
796 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
797 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
799 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
800 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
801 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
802 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
803 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
806 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
812 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
813 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
814 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
816 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
817 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
818 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
819 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
824 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
825 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
826 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
828 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
829 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
832 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
833 between custom options. Example:
835 (defcustom default-input-method nil
836 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
837 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
838 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
840 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
841 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
843 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
844 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
845 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
847 ** New features in evaluation commands
849 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
850 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
851 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
852 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
853 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
855 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
856 code when called with a prefix argument.
861 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
862 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
863 spell-checks the current buffer.
866 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
869 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
870 correction is made and re-checked.
872 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
874 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
877 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
880 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
885 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
886 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
887 is, delete only empty directories.
889 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
890 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
891 copy directories recursively.
893 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
894 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
895 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
897 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
898 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
901 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
902 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
903 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
904 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
905 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
907 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
910 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
911 use the -f option when sending mail.
915 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
916 current user setups (although it's believed that these
917 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
918 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
919 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
920 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
923 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
924 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
925 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
926 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
927 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
930 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
931 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
932 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
933 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
934 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
935 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
937 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
938 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
939 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
940 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
941 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
942 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
943 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
944 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
946 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
947 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
948 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
949 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
952 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
953 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
954 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
955 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
956 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
957 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
958 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
959 function documentation for more info.
961 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
962 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
963 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
964 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
965 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
966 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
967 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
968 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
970 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
972 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
973 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
975 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
976 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
977 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
978 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
979 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
982 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
983 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
984 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
987 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
988 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
989 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
990 chapter about this in the manual.
992 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
993 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
994 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
995 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
996 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
998 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
999 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1000 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1002 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1003 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1005 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1006 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1007 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1010 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1011 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1012 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1013 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1016 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1017 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1018 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1021 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1022 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1023 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1024 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1027 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1028 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1029 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1030 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1031 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1033 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1034 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1035 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1037 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1039 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1040 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1041 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1042 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1044 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1045 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1046 the column specified by comment-column.
1048 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1049 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1050 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1051 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1052 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1053 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1055 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1056 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1059 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1061 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1062 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1063 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1064 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1067 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1069 ** Makefile mode changes
1071 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1073 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1074 Fontlock mode is active.
1078 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1079 so that searches can be resumed.
1081 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1082 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1083 that started the search.
1085 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1086 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1089 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1091 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1092 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1093 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1094 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1095 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1096 `secondary-selection'.
1098 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1099 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1100 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1101 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1102 usual snappy response.
1104 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1105 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1106 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1107 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1110 ** Changes in sort.el
1112 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1113 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1114 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1117 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1120 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1121 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1122 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1124 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1125 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1127 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1128 output ^M at the end of lines.
1130 ** Shell script mode changes.
1132 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1133 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1134 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1138 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1140 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1141 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1142 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1143 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1144 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1146 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1147 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1149 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1150 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1152 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1155 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1157 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1159 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1162 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1163 variables are tagged.
1165 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1167 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1171 ** Changes in etags.el
1173 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1174 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1175 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1177 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1178 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1180 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1181 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1182 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1183 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1185 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1187 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1188 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1190 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1192 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1193 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1194 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1196 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1197 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1199 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1200 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1203 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1204 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1205 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1208 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1209 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1210 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1211 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1212 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1213 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1214 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1217 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1218 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1219 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1221 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1224 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1227 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1228 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1229 expression from that list, are not checked.
1231 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1232 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1233 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1234 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1236 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1239 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1240 displays local abbrevs, only.
1244 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1245 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1246 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1247 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1248 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1249 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1250 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1251 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1252 file is registered in that backend.
1254 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1255 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1256 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1257 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1258 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1259 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1261 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1262 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1263 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1264 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1265 where it doesn't make sense.)
1267 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1268 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1269 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1273 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1274 checks are always done now.
1276 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1281 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1282 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1283 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1284 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1285 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1286 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1287 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1289 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1290 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1291 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1292 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1293 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1294 entire directory tree.
1296 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1297 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1298 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1299 "watched" by other developers.)
1301 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1303 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1304 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1305 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1306 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1307 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1308 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1309 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1310 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1311 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1313 ** New modes and packages
1316 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1317 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1318 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1319 on certain projects.
1322 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1323 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1325 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1327 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1328 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1329 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1330 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1331 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1332 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1333 corresponding file is read.
1336 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1339 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1340 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1342 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1343 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1344 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1347 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1348 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1349 separate Texinfo file.
1352 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1353 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1354 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1355 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1356 enter checkin log messages.
1359 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1360 without invoking external programs.
1362 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1363 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1364 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1365 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1366 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1368 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1369 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1372 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1373 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1375 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1376 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1377 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1378 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1379 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1382 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1383 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1384 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1385 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1388 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1389 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1390 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1392 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1395 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1397 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1399 ; comment (until end of line)
1403 $A default non-terminal
1404 $"C" default terminal
1405 $?C? default special
1406 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1407 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1408 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1409 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1410 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1411 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1412 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1413 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1414 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1415 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1416 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1417 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1418 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1419 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1420 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1422 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1424 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1425 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1426 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1427 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1428 equal signs of assignments.
1431 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1432 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1435 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1436 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1437 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1438 customize the package.
1440 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1442 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1443 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1444 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1445 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1446 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1447 which answers different needs.
1450 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1451 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1452 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1453 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1454 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1458 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1459 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1462 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1465 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1467 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1469 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1473 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1476 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1479 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1481 *** whitespace.el ???
1483 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1484 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1485 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1486 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1487 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1488 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1489 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1491 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1493 Here is an example of columns:
1496 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1497 porcupine strawberry airplane
1499 Doing the following settings:
1501 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1502 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1503 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1504 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1507 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1509 M-x delimit-columns-region
1513 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1514 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1515 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1517 delim-col has the following options:
1519 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1522 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1523 between each column.
1525 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1528 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1531 delim-col has the following commands:
1533 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1534 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1537 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1538 were operated on recently.
1540 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1542 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1543 recentf at Emacs startup.
1545 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1546 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1547 file list can be displayed:
1549 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1550 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1551 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1553 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1554 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1556 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1560 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1561 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1562 specific to Message mode.
1565 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1566 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1567 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1570 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1571 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1572 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1574 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1575 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1578 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1580 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1581 minibuffer with completion.
1583 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1584 with the diary features.
1586 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1587 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1589 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1592 ** Withdrawn packages
1594 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1595 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1597 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1599 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1602 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1603 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1605 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1606 with the more general `:mask' property.
1608 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1610 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1614 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1615 is running in batch mode. For example,
1617 (message "%s" (read t))
1619 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1623 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1624 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1626 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1627 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1631 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1634 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1636 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1637 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1639 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1641 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1642 comparison is done with `eq'.
1644 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1646 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1650 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1651 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1652 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1654 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1655 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1657 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1658 function was declared obsolete.
1660 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1661 retained as an alias).
1663 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1664 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1665 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1667 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1669 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1671 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1672 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1674 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1676 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1678 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1680 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1681 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1682 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1683 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1686 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1687 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1688 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1689 minibuffer even if it is active.
1691 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1692 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1693 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1694 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1695 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1696 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1698 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1699 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1700 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1701 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1702 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1703 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1704 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1706 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1707 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1708 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1710 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1711 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1712 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1713 Default value is nil.
1715 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1718 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1719 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1720 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1722 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1725 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1726 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1727 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1728 than replacing the local map.
1730 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1731 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1733 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1736 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1739 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1741 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1743 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1744 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1745 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1746 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1748 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1749 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1750 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1751 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1753 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1754 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1755 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1756 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1758 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1759 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1760 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1762 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1763 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1764 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1765 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1766 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1767 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1768 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1771 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1773 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1774 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1775 character set as previously.
1777 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1778 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1779 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1781 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1782 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1783 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1784 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1786 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1787 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1789 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1790 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1793 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1794 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1796 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1797 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1798 buffers and strings.
1800 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1801 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1802 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1803 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1804 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1805 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1806 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1809 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1810 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1811 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1813 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1814 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1815 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1816 may differ between buffer and string text.
1818 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1819 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1821 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1822 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1823 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1824 `composition' from STRING.
1826 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1827 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1829 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1832 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1833 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1834 character set is not used.
1836 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1837 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1838 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1841 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1842 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1843 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1846 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1847 that offset in the file before writing.
1849 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1850 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1852 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1853 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1854 from which the command was issued.
1856 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1857 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1858 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1859 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1862 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1863 to `window-buffer-height'.
1865 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1867 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1868 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1869 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1871 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1874 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1875 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1877 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1878 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1879 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1881 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1882 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1883 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1884 is currently displayed in some window.
1886 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1887 argument function's results.
1889 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1890 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1892 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1893 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1895 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1896 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1898 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1899 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1902 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1903 nil don't display a cursor
1904 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1905 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1906 others display a box cursor.
1908 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1909 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1910 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1911 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1913 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1914 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1915 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1916 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1920 (string-to-syntax "()")
1923 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1926 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1927 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1934 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1939 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1944 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1951 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1952 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1955 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1956 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1957 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1958 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1961 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1963 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1964 for a regexp in a string.
1966 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1967 `mouse-position-function'.
1969 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1970 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1972 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1973 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1976 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1979 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1980 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1983 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1984 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1985 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1986 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1990 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1991 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1994 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1995 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1996 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1997 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2000 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2001 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2002 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2003 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2006 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2007 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2008 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2011 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2012 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2015 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2017 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2018 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2019 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2023 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2024 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2027 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2028 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2031 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2032 instead of being optional.
2035 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2036 modify read-only text.
2039 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2041 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2042 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2043 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2044 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2045 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2047 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2048 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2049 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2050 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2051 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2052 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2053 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2056 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2057 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2058 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2062 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2063 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2066 ** New function `propertize'
2068 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2069 strings with text properties.
2071 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2073 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2074 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2075 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2076 specified value of that property. Example:
2078 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2081 ** push and pop macros.
2083 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2084 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2085 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2087 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2088 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2089 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2091 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2093 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2094 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2096 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2097 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2098 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2099 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2101 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2102 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2103 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2104 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2107 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2108 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2110 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2111 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2112 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2113 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2114 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2116 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2118 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2119 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2120 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2121 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2122 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2123 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2124 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2125 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2126 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2127 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2128 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2129 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2130 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2131 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2132 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2135 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2137 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2139 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2141 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2142 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2146 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2147 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2148 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2152 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2153 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2155 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2157 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2158 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2159 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2160 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2161 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2163 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2165 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2166 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2167 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2171 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2172 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2173 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2174 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2175 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2177 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2179 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2181 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2183 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2185 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2187 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2190 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2192 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2194 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2196 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2198 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2200 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2202 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2204 Returns the size of TABLE.
2206 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2208 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2210 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2212 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2214 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2218 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2220 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2223 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2225 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2226 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2228 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2230 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2232 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2234 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2235 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2237 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2239 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2241 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2243 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2244 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2245 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2246 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2247 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2249 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2251 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2252 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2253 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2255 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2256 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2258 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2259 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2261 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2262 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2264 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2265 'case-fold-string-hash))
2267 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2270 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2272 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2273 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2274 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2277 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2279 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2280 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2283 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2284 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2285 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2286 is too short to reach that column.
2289 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2290 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2291 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2292 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2294 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2295 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2296 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2299 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2300 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2303 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2304 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2307 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2308 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2309 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2310 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2311 temporary-file-directory instead.
2314 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2315 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2316 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2317 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2320 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2321 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2324 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2326 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2327 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2328 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2331 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2333 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2334 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2335 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2336 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2337 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2338 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2340 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2341 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2342 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2343 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2346 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2348 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2349 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2350 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2353 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2354 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2358 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2360 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2361 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2364 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2367 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2369 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2370 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2373 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2375 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2376 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2382 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2383 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2385 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2386 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2387 to enable sound support.
2389 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2390 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2391 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2392 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2393 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2395 The following sound properties are supported:
2399 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2400 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2404 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2405 may be present, but not both.
2409 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2410 0..1. This property is optional.
2412 Other properties are ignored.
2414 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2416 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2419 ** Changes to garbage collection
2421 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2422 of live and free strings.
2424 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2425 strings that have been consed so far.
2428 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2431 *** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2434 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2436 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2439 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2441 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2443 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2444 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2445 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2446 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2447 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2449 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2452 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2454 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2455 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2456 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2459 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2460 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2463 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2467 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2471 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2473 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2474 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2475 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2476 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2478 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2479 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2481 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2482 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2483 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2484 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2485 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2486 just display it black instead.
2488 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2491 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2495 ** New face implementation.
2497 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2498 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2503 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2505 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2507 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2508 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2510 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2512 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2514 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2516 6. Foreground color.
2518 7. Background color.
2520 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2522 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2524 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2526 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2528 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2531 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2532 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2534 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2535 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2536 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2537 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2538 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2539 attributes mentioned above.
2541 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2542 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2545 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2546 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2552 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2553 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2554 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2555 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2556 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2557 results in a fully-specified face.
2560 *** Face realization.
2562 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2563 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2564 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2565 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2566 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2567 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2569 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2570 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2571 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2572 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2574 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2575 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2576 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2577 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2578 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2580 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2581 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2582 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2583 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2584 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2587 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2588 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2589 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2590 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2593 **** Clearing face caches.
2595 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2596 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2602 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2603 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2604 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2606 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2607 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2608 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2609 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2610 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2612 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2613 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2614 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2616 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2618 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2619 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2620 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2621 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2622 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2623 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2624 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2626 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2627 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2633 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2634 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2637 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2638 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2639 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2640 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2641 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2644 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2646 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2649 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2651 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2653 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2654 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2655 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2657 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2658 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2659 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2660 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2661 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2662 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2663 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2664 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2665 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2666 of the face font sort order.
2668 - Function: x-font-family-list
2670 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2671 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2672 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2673 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2675 - Variable: font-list-limit
2677 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2678 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2679 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2682 *** Setting face attributes.
2684 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2685 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2686 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2689 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2690 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2692 The following attributes are recognized:
2696 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2697 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2698 and `?' are allowed.
2702 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2703 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2704 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2705 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2709 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2710 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2711 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2712 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2716 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2717 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2718 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2722 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2723 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2726 `:foreground', `:background'
2728 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2732 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2733 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2734 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2739 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2740 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2741 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2746 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2747 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2748 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2749 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2753 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2754 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2755 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2756 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2757 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2758 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2759 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2760 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2761 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2762 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2763 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2764 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2765 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2766 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2767 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2768 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2773 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2774 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2778 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2779 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2780 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2781 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2782 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2783 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2785 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2786 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2790 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2791 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2792 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2795 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2796 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2797 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2799 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2804 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
2805 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
2806 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
2808 *** Face attributes and X resources
2810 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2813 Face attribute X resource class
2814 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2815 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2816 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2817 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2818 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2819 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2820 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2821 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2822 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2823 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2824 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2825 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2826 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2827 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2828 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2829 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2830 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2831 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2832 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2833 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2836 *** Text property `face'.
2838 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2839 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2840 specification can be
2842 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2844 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2845 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2846 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2847 for face attribute names.
2849 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2850 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2851 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2854 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2856 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2857 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2858 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2859 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2860 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2861 used to clear the mapping table.
2863 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2865 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2866 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2867 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2868 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2869 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2870 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2871 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2872 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2873 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2874 modify their color-related behavior.
2876 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2879 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2881 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2882 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2883 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2884 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2885 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2886 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2887 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2888 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2889 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2892 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2894 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2896 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2897 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2898 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2900 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2902 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2903 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2904 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2906 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2907 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2908 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2909 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2910 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2911 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2912 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2915 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2916 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2917 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2919 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2921 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2923 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2925 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2926 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2927 constrained position if that is is different.
2929 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2930 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2931 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2932 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2933 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2934 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2935 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2936 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2937 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2939 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2940 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2941 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2942 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2943 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2945 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2946 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2948 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
2950 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
2952 Delete the field surrounding POS.
2953 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2954 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2956 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2958 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2959 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2960 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2961 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
2962 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2964 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2966 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2967 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2968 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2969 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
2970 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2972 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2974 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2975 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2976 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2978 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2980 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2981 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2982 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
2987 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2988 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2989 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2990 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2992 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2993 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2994 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2995 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2998 IMAGE is an image specification.
3000 *** Image specifications
3002 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3003 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3004 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3005 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3006 described below are ignored.
3008 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3012 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3013 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3014 to use for its ascent.
3016 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3017 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3019 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3020 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3021 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3022 overlays that apply to the image.
3026 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3027 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3031 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3036 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3038 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3039 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3041 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3042 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3043 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3044 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3045 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3046 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3047 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3048 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3051 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3053 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3055 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3056 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3057 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3058 of the factors' absolute values.
3060 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3066 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3072 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3077 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3078 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3079 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3080 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3081 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3082 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3083 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3086 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3087 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3092 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3093 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3094 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3095 may be present in the image specification.
3099 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3100 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3101 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3102 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3104 *** Supported image types
3106 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3108 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3109 properties supported are
3113 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3114 is the frame's foreground.
3118 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3119 the frame's background color.
3121 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3122 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3123 instead of a `:file' property.
3127 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3131 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3137 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3138 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3140 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3142 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3145 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3146 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3149 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3151 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3152 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3153 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3154 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3156 Additional image properties supported are:
3158 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3160 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3161 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3164 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3165 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3167 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3168 to display compressed images.
3170 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3172 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3173 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3176 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3178 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3179 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3182 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3184 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3185 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3188 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3190 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3191 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3193 Additional image properties supported are:
3197 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3198 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3200 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3201 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3202 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3205 (defun show-anim (file max)
3206 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3207 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3209 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3212 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3215 (goto-char (point-min))
3216 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3217 (insert-image img "x"))
3218 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3220 **** PNG, image type `png'
3222 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3223 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3226 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3228 Additional image properties supported are:
3232 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3233 integer. This is a required property.
3237 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3238 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3242 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3243 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3244 files. This is an required property.
3246 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3251 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3252 which are supported in the current configuration.
3254 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3255 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3256 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3257 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3258 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3260 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3262 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3263 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3264 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3265 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3266 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3272 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3275 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3276 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3277 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3278 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3279 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3280 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3281 of the display margins.
3283 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3284 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3285 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3286 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3292 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3293 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3294 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3295 that have a `help-echo' property.
3297 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3298 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3299 the window in which the help was found.
3301 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3302 `help-echo' text property was found.
3304 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3305 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3307 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3308 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3311 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3312 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3314 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3315 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3316 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3317 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3318 used as help string.
3320 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3321 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3322 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3325 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3327 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3328 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3330 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3331 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3332 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3333 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3336 (global-set-key [A-down]
3339 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3340 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3341 (global-set-key [A-up]
3344 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3345 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3348 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3350 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3351 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3352 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3353 is called with one argument, POS.
3355 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3356 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3357 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3358 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3359 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3362 ** Tool bar support.
3364 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3365 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3366 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3367 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3368 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3369 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3371 *** Tool bar item definitions
3373 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3374 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3375 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3377 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3378 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3379 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3380 property (see below).
3382 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3383 binding are currently ignored.
3385 The following properties are recognized:
3389 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3394 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3398 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3399 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3400 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3402 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3404 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3405 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3409 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3410 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3411 meaning of each of the four elements:
3413 Index Use when item is
3414 ----------------------------------------
3415 0 enabled and selected
3416 1 enabled and deselected
3417 2 disabled and selected
3418 3 disabled and deselected
3420 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3421 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3423 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3425 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3426 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3428 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3429 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3430 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3433 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3435 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3436 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3437 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3439 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3440 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3442 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3443 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3444 pixels. Default is 1.
3446 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3447 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3449 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3451 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3454 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3455 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3456 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3458 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3460 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3462 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3465 ** Mode line changes.
3468 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3470 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3471 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3472 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3474 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3475 a `local-map' text property.
3477 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3478 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3480 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3481 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3482 `local-map' property.
3484 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3485 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3488 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3489 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3492 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3493 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3496 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3498 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3499 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3500 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3501 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3504 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3507 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3508 position in the header-line.
3511 ** Text property `display'
3513 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3514 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3515 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3516 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3518 *** Variable width and height spaces
3520 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3521 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3522 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3523 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3524 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3525 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3526 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3528 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3529 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3530 properties described below.
3532 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3533 characters having the `display' property.
3537 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3538 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3540 - :relative-width FACTOR
3542 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3543 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3544 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3545 width of that character by FACTOR.
3549 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3550 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3552 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3556 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3559 - :relative-height FACTOR
3561 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3562 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3566 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3567 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3568 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3571 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3575 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3576 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3577 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3578 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3579 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3580 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3581 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3582 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3583 as display specification.
3585 *** Other display properties
3587 - :space-width FACTOR
3589 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3590 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3595 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3597 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3598 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3599 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3600 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3601 a font is available counts as a step.
3603 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3604 as tall as the frame's default font.
3606 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3607 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3609 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3610 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3614 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3615 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3616 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3617 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3618 `:height' subproperty.
3620 *** Conditional display properties
3622 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3623 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3624 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3625 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3626 the text having the `display' property.
3628 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3632 ** New menu separator types.
3634 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3635 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3636 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3637 to specify other menu separator types.
3639 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3641 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3644 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3646 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3648 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3650 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3652 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3654 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3656 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3658 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3660 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3662 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3663 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3665 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3667 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3669 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3671 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3673 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3675 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3677 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3679 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3681 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3683 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3685 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3687 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3689 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3691 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3693 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3694 the corresponding single-line separators.
3697 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3699 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3700 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3701 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3702 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3703 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3704 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3705 default foreground is black.
3707 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3708 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3709 `ScrollBarBackground').
3711 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3712 settings for scroll bar colors.
3715 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3716 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3719 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3720 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3721 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3722 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3723 the original window start.
3726 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3727 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3728 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3731 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3733 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3734 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3735 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3736 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3738 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3739 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3741 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3743 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3744 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3745 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3746 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3747 temporarily to nil, for example
3749 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3750 (enlarge-window 10))
3752 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3753 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3755 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3756 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3757 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3758 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3759 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3760 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3764 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3766 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3769 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3771 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3773 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3774 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3775 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3776 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3777 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3779 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3783 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3785 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3788 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3790 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3791 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3793 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3795 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3797 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3798 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3799 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3801 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3802 is the one that is used.
3804 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3805 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3806 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3807 separate from the command's regular output.
3808 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3809 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3810 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3813 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3814 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3815 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3816 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3818 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3819 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3820 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3821 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3823 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3824 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3825 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3826 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3828 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3829 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3830 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3831 they never ignore case.
3833 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3834 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3835 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3836 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3837 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3838 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3839 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3841 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3842 the same format that was used in the file before.
3844 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3845 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3847 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3848 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3849 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3851 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3852 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3853 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3854 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3855 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3856 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3857 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3859 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3860 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3861 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3862 format. You can now customize these variables.
3864 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3865 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3866 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3867 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3869 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3870 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3871 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3873 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3874 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3875 doesn't have any effect.
3877 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3880 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3881 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3882 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3884 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3885 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3886 `auto-show-mode' command.
3888 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3889 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3890 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3891 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3892 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3894 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3895 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3897 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3898 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3899 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3901 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3902 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3903 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3904 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3906 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3908 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3909 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3910 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3911 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3912 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3914 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3915 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3917 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3918 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3919 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3920 `?' on other systems.
3922 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3923 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3926 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3927 current codepage when it starts.
3931 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3932 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3933 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3934 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3935 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3936 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3940 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3941 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3943 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3944 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3945 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3946 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3947 buffer-file-coding-system.
3949 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3950 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3953 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3954 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3955 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3956 list of possible coding systems.
3960 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3961 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3962 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3963 docstring for details.
3965 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3966 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3967 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3968 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3969 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3971 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3972 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3974 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3975 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3977 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3978 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3979 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3980 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3983 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3984 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3986 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3987 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3988 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3989 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3991 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3992 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3993 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3994 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3995 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3997 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3999 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4001 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4002 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4004 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4006 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4007 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4008 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4009 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4010 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4014 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4015 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4016 Gnus manual for the full story.
4018 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4019 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4020 group, which is created automatically.
4022 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4025 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4027 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4028 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4030 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4033 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4035 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4036 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4038 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4040 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4041 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4043 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4044 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4046 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4047 control over simplification.
4049 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4051 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4054 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4056 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4058 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4059 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4060 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4062 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4063 `a' forces normal posting method.
4065 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4068 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4071 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4072 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4074 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4077 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4079 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4081 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4082 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4084 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4085 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4087 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4089 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4092 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4093 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4095 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4096 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4098 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4100 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4102 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4104 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4106 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4107 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4108 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4110 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4111 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4112 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4113 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4114 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4116 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4117 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4118 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4119 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4121 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4122 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4123 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4126 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4128 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4129 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4131 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4132 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4133 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4134 removed from the label.
4136 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4137 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4139 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4140 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4142 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4143 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4146 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4148 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4150 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4151 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4153 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4154 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4155 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4157 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4158 changes with a special face.
4160 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4161 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4162 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4164 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4166 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4167 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4168 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4169 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4170 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4172 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4173 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4174 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4176 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4177 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4178 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4179 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4180 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4181 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4182 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4183 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4184 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4186 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4187 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4188 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4189 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4190 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4193 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4194 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4195 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4196 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4197 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4198 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4200 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4201 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4202 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4203 was not documented clearly before.
4205 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4206 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4208 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4210 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4211 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4212 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4213 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4215 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4216 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4217 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4219 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4221 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4222 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4224 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4225 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4228 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4229 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4230 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4231 file names and attributes are returned.
4233 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4234 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4235 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4236 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4239 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4240 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4242 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4244 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4245 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4246 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4249 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4250 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4253 The new function process-running-child-p
4254 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4255 terminal to its own child process.
4257 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4258 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4259 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4260 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4262 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4263 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4265 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4266 :included is an alias for :visible.
4268 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4269 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4270 to move or copy menu entries.
4272 ** Multibyte editing changes
4274 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4275 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4276 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4277 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4278 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4279 (setq char (sref str idx)
4280 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4281 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4283 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4284 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4285 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4287 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4288 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4289 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4291 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4293 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4294 across the boundary.
4296 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4297 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4298 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4299 contains 8-bit characters.
4300 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4301 contains invalid characters.
4303 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4304 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4305 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4306 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4309 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4310 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4311 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4312 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4314 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4315 compose Thai characters in a string.
4317 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4318 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4319 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4320 menus should always use the third argument.
4322 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4323 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4324 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4325 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4327 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4328 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4329 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4330 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4332 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4333 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4334 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4337 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4339 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4340 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4341 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4343 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4344 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4345 means to clear out that attribute.
4347 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4348 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4350 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4351 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4352 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4353 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4355 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4356 the gap of the current buffer.
4358 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4359 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4362 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4363 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4364 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4365 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4367 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4369 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4370 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4371 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4372 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4373 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4375 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4376 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4377 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4378 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4379 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4381 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4382 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4383 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4385 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4386 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4387 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4388 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4389 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4392 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4393 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4394 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4395 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4397 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4399 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4400 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4401 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4402 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4404 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4405 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4406 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4407 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4408 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4409 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4410 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4413 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4416 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4417 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4418 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4419 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4420 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4422 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4423 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4424 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4425 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4427 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4428 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4429 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4430 something that most users not do.
4432 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4433 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4434 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4437 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4440 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4441 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4442 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4443 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4446 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4447 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4448 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4449 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4450 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4453 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4454 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4455 to be confused by TeX commands.
4457 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4458 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4459 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4460 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4462 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4463 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4464 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4465 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4466 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4468 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4469 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4471 ** Changes in input method usage.
4473 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4474 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4477 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4479 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4480 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4482 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4483 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4485 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4487 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4489 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4490 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4492 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4493 given in the following case:
4494 o When you are using a complex input method.
4495 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4497 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4498 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4499 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4500 setting it to t is helpful.
4502 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4504 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4506 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4507 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4508 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4509 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4512 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4513 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4514 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4517 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4519 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4521 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4522 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4524 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4525 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4526 its owner and group.
4528 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4529 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4531 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4532 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4534 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4535 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4536 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4537 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4539 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4540 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4541 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4542 for writing keyboard macros.
4544 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4545 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4546 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4547 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4548 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4551 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4553 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4554 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4557 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4558 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4559 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4560 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4562 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4563 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4564 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4566 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4567 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4568 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4569 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4571 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4572 failure if the command produces no output.
4574 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4575 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4578 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4579 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4580 function and variable names.
4582 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4583 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4584 file-coding-system-alist.
4586 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4587 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4588 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4589 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4590 according to the current fontset.
4592 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4594 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4595 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4596 nonascii-insert-offset.
4598 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4599 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4600 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4601 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4603 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4604 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4606 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4607 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4609 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4610 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4613 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4614 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4616 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4617 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4618 all variables that have documentation.
4620 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4621 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4622 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4623 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4624 it should show; the default is 20.
4626 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4627 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4630 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4631 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4632 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4633 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4634 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4635 Newly added options are included as well.
4637 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4638 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4639 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4641 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4644 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4645 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4647 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4648 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4651 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4652 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4655 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4656 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4657 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4658 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4661 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4663 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4664 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4665 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4667 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4668 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4669 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4674 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4675 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4677 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4678 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4680 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4681 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4683 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4684 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4685 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4686 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4687 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4688 made invisible again.
4690 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4692 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4693 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4694 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4697 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4698 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4699 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4700 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4701 rmail-default-body-file.
4703 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4704 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4705 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4707 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4708 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4709 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4711 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4712 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4713 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4714 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4715 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4716 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4718 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4719 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4720 provided by feedmail are:
4722 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4723 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4724 there is also a queue for draft messages
4726 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4727 be prompted for confirmation
4729 **** does smart filling of address headers
4731 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4732 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4733 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4735 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4736 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4737 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4738 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4742 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4743 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4745 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4746 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4748 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4749 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4750 for a specified regexp.
4754 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4757 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4758 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4761 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4762 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4763 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4764 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4766 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4767 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4768 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4769 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4770 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4772 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4773 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4774 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4775 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4776 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4778 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4779 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4780 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4781 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4783 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4784 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4785 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4787 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4788 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4789 session to resolve them.
4791 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4792 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4793 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4796 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4797 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4798 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4799 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4800 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4801 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4804 ** Changes in Font Lock
4806 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4807 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4808 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4809 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4810 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4812 ** Frame name display changes
4814 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4815 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4816 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4817 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4819 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4820 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4823 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4825 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4826 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4827 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4829 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4831 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4832 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4833 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4835 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4836 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4839 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4840 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4841 previously sent input.
4843 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4844 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4845 as the search string.
4847 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4848 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4852 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4853 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4854 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4857 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4858 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4859 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4860 style is still the default however.
4862 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4864 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4865 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4866 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4868 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4869 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4871 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4872 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4874 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4875 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4877 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4878 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4880 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4881 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4882 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4883 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4885 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4887 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4888 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4889 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4891 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4892 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4893 expanding dynamically.
4895 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4896 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4898 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4899 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4900 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4901 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4903 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4905 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4907 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4908 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4909 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4910 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4911 against the first word in the title.
4913 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4914 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4915 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4916 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4917 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4918 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4920 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4921 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4922 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4923 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4925 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4927 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4928 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4929 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4930 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4931 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4932 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4934 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4935 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4937 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4938 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4939 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4941 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4942 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4946 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4947 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4948 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4950 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4951 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4952 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4953 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4956 o URLs are automatically skipped
4957 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4959 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4961 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4963 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4964 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4965 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4966 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4968 *** New recursive parser.
4970 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4971 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4972 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4974 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4976 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4977 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4978 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4980 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4982 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4984 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4986 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4988 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4990 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4991 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4993 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4995 *** References to external documents.
4997 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4998 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4999 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5000 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5001 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5002 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5003 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5005 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5007 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5008 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5010 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5011 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5013 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5015 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5016 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5018 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5020 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5021 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5022 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5023 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5024 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5025 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5028 *** Support for the varioref package
5030 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5034 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5035 and citations are created. These hooks are
5036 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5037 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5039 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5041 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5042 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5044 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5046 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5047 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5050 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5052 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5053 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5054 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5055 directories that contain the same file name.
5057 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5058 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5059 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5060 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5061 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5062 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5063 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5066 ** New modes and packages
5068 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5069 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5070 it, but some do not.
5072 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5075 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5076 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5079 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5081 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5082 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5083 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5084 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5086 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5087 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5088 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5090 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5091 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5092 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5093 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5094 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5097 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5098 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5100 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5101 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5102 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5103 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5105 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5107 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5108 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5109 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5110 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5111 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5112 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5113 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5114 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5115 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5116 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5117 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5119 Platform-specific modes:
5121 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5122 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5123 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5124 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5125 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5126 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5127 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5128 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5129 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5131 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5133 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5134 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5135 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5136 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5138 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5139 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5140 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5142 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5143 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5144 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5145 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5147 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5148 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5149 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5152 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5153 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5154 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5155 current input method for reading this one event.
5157 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5158 now control whether to output certain characters as
5159 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5160 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5161 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5162 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5164 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5166 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5167 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5169 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5170 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5171 always increases point by 1.
5173 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5174 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5176 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5178 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5179 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5180 default value changed. For example,
5182 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5187 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5190 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5191 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5192 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5193 `:version' in the top level group.
5195 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5197 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5198 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5200 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5201 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5202 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5205 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5206 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5209 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5210 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5211 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5213 ** Frame-local variables.
5215 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5216 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5217 local bindings for that variable.
5219 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5220 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5221 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5224 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5225 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5226 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5227 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5229 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5230 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5231 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5232 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5234 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5235 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5236 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5237 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5238 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5240 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5241 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5242 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5243 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5245 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5246 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5248 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5249 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5250 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5252 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5253 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5254 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5255 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5257 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5258 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5261 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5262 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5263 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5264 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5265 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5267 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5268 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5269 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5270 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5272 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5273 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5274 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5275 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5276 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5278 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5279 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5280 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5281 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5283 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5284 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5285 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5287 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5288 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5289 was directed to display this buffer.
5291 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5292 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5293 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5294 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5295 set-window-configuration.
5297 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5298 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5299 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5300 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5302 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5303 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5304 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5306 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5307 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5308 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5310 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5311 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5313 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5314 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5316 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5317 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5318 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5320 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5321 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5322 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5323 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5327 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5328 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5331 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5332 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5333 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5334 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5335 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5337 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5339 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5340 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5341 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5342 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5345 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5346 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5347 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5348 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5349 The supported properties include
5351 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5353 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5354 item should appear in the menu.
5356 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5357 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5358 It should return a binding to use instead.
5360 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5361 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5362 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5363 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5364 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5367 This means that the command normally has no
5368 keyboard equivalent.
5369 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5370 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5371 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5372 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5373 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5375 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5376 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5378 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5382 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5383 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5384 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5385 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5387 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5389 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5390 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5391 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5392 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5393 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5394 forward, away from the user.
5396 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5398 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5399 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5400 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5401 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5402 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5404 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5406 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5407 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5408 that were dragged and dropped.
5410 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5412 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5414 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5415 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5416 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5418 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5419 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5420 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5422 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5423 in Emacs 19 and before.
5425 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5426 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5428 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5429 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5430 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5431 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5433 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5434 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5435 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5436 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5437 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5439 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5440 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5441 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5442 consistent with the new representation.
5444 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5445 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5446 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5447 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5449 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5450 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5451 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5453 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5454 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5455 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5457 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5458 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5459 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5461 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5462 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5464 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5465 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5467 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5468 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5469 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5470 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5472 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5473 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5475 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5476 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5477 buffer or string being searched.
5479 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5480 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5481 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5482 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5483 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5484 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5485 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5487 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5489 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5490 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5491 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5492 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5493 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5494 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5495 define-coding-system-alias.
5497 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5498 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5499 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5500 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5501 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5502 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5503 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5506 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5507 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5508 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5509 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5511 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5512 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5513 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5514 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5516 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5517 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5518 This function requires a user interaction.
5520 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5521 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5522 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5523 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5524 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5525 select-safe-coding-system.
5527 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5528 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5529 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5532 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5533 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5534 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5536 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5537 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5538 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5539 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5541 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5542 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5543 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5546 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5547 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5549 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5550 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5551 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5552 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5553 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5554 range of characters.
5556 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5557 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5559 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5560 in the current buffer at position POS.
5562 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5563 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5564 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5565 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5566 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5567 binding input-method-function to nil.
5569 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5570 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5571 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5572 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5573 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5575 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5576 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5578 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5579 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5581 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5582 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5583 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5584 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5585 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5587 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5589 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5590 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5591 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5594 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5595 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5597 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5598 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5599 in your .emacs file.)
5601 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5602 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5604 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5605 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5607 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5608 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5611 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5612 delete the character before point, as usual.
5614 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5615 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5616 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5618 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5619 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5620 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5621 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5622 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5625 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5626 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5627 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5628 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5629 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5631 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5632 and is an alias for it.
5634 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5635 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5637 ** Scrolling changes
5639 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5640 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5642 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5643 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5646 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5647 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5648 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5649 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5651 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5652 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5653 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5654 recenters the window.
5656 ** International character set support (MULE)
5658 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5659 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5660 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5661 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5662 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5663 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5665 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5666 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5667 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5668 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5669 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5671 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5672 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5673 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5674 language, to make it possible to type them.
5676 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5677 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5679 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5680 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5682 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5684 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5686 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5687 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5688 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5689 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5690 characters for their work until they want to change.
5694 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5695 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5696 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5697 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5698 support several input methods.
5700 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5701 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5704 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5705 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5706 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5707 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5708 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5711 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5712 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5713 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5714 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5715 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5717 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5718 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5719 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5720 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5722 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5723 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5724 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5725 the first guess is wrong.
5727 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5728 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5730 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5731 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5732 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5733 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5735 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5736 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5737 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5738 translate automatically to and from either one.
5740 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5742 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5743 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5744 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5747 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5748 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5749 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5750 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5752 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5753 character conversion as well.
5755 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5757 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5758 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5759 requires using many fonts.
5761 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5762 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5764 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5765 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5766 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5767 you would use a font.
5769 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5770 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5771 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5773 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5774 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5775 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5776 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5777 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5779 *** Defining fontsets.
5781 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5782 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5783 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5785 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5786 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5787 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5788 standard fontset are created automatically.
5790 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5791 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5792 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5793 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5794 name is `fontset-startup'.
5796 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5797 The resource value should have this form:
5798 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5799 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5800 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5801 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5802 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5803 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5804 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5805 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5806 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5808 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5809 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5810 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5812 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5813 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5815 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5816 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5817 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5818 Here is the substitution rule:
5819 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5820 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5821 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5822 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5823 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5825 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5826 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5827 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5829 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5830 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5831 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5832 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5835 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5836 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5838 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5839 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5840 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5841 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5842 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5843 system for new files that you create.
5845 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5846 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5847 whole Emacs session.
5849 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5850 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5851 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5853 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5854 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5855 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5856 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5857 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5859 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5860 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5861 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5862 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5863 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5865 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5866 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5868 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5869 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5871 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5872 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5874 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5875 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5876 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5877 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5880 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5881 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5882 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5883 translated into that character code.
5885 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5886 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5888 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5890 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5891 the coding system for keyboard input.
5893 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5894 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5895 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5897 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5899 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5900 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5901 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5902 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5903 designed to work with terminals.
5905 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5906 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5907 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5908 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5909 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5910 in the corresponding buffer.
5912 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5914 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5915 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5916 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5918 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5919 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5920 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5923 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5924 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5926 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5927 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5928 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5929 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5931 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5932 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5933 related information.
5935 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5936 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5939 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5940 information about the support for a particular language.
5941 You specify the language as an argument.
5943 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5944 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5947 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5948 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5949 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5950 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5952 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5954 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5955 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5956 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5957 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5958 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5959 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5960 K euc-korea (Korean)
5963 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5966 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5967 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5968 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5972 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5973 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5974 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5975 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5977 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5978 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5980 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5981 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5982 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5983 Rmail files themselves.
5985 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5986 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5988 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5991 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5992 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5993 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5994 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5995 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5997 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5998 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5999 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6002 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6003 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6004 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6005 without any conversion.
6007 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6008 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6009 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6010 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6012 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6013 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6015 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6016 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6018 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6019 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6021 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6022 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6023 in the buffer before point.
6025 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6026 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6029 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6030 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6032 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6034 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6035 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6037 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6038 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6039 can become a bottleneck.
6041 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6042 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6043 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6044 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6045 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6046 so useful that the change is worth while.
6048 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6049 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6050 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6051 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6053 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6054 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6057 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6058 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6059 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6061 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6062 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6063 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6065 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6066 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6067 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6069 ** Changes in View mode.
6071 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6072 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6074 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6075 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6077 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6080 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6081 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6083 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6084 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6085 not just the selected window.
6087 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6088 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6089 turns View mode on or off.
6091 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6092 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6093 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6095 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6096 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6098 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6099 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6100 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6101 which version to compare with.
6103 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6104 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6106 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6107 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6108 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6109 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6111 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6112 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6113 blocks, all of them or none.
6115 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6116 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6119 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6120 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6121 However, the mode will not be changed if
6122 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6123 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6124 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6125 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6127 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6129 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6130 these commands do not change the major mode.
6132 ** M-x occur changes.
6134 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6135 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6137 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6138 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6139 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6141 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6142 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6143 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6144 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6145 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6147 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6148 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6149 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6150 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6152 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6153 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6154 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6156 ** Outline mode changes.
6158 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6160 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6162 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6163 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6164 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6167 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6168 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6171 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6172 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6174 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6176 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6177 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6178 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6179 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6181 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6182 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6183 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6185 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6186 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6189 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6190 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6191 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6192 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6194 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6195 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6196 can be. The default value is 30.
6198 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6200 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6201 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6202 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6203 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6204 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6207 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6208 compose-mail-other-frame.
6210 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6211 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6212 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6213 buffer that shows the original message.
6215 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6216 with separator lines around the contents.
6218 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6219 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6220 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6221 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6223 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6225 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6226 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6227 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6228 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6230 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6231 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6234 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6235 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6238 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6239 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6240 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6241 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6243 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6244 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6245 be taken to be magic.
6247 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6248 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6249 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6251 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6252 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6254 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6255 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6257 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6259 new key dired.el binding old key
6260 ------- ---------------- -------
6261 * c dired-change-marks c
6263 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6264 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6265 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6267 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6268 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6269 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6270 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6271 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6272 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6276 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6277 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6278 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6279 each time you run it.
6281 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6282 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6284 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6285 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6286 means to move in the opposite direction.
6288 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6289 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6291 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6292 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6293 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6294 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6299 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6301 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6304 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6305 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6307 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6310 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6312 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6314 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6316 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6317 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6318 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6320 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6322 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6324 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6325 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6327 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6328 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6329 used to pick articles.
6331 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6332 another have been added.
6334 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6336 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6337 generating lines in buffers.
6339 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6342 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6344 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6346 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6348 *** Scores can be decayed.
6350 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6352 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6353 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6355 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6358 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6360 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6361 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6363 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6365 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6366 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6368 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6369 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6371 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6374 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6375 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6377 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6379 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6381 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6383 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6385 Use the `Y c' command.
6387 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6389 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6391 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6393 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6394 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6396 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6398 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6400 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6401 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6403 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6405 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6406 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6407 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6408 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6411 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6412 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6413 particular news group. This can be done by:
6415 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6417 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6418 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6419 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6420 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6421 for reading and posting).
6423 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6424 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6425 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6426 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6429 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6430 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6432 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6433 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6434 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6435 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6436 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6438 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6439 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6443 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6444 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6445 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6446 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6447 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6450 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6451 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6452 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6453 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6454 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6455 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6457 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6458 of the current buffer.
6460 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6461 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6462 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6464 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6465 style that the Python developers like.
6467 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6468 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6469 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6473 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6474 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6475 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6477 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6478 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6481 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6482 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6484 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6485 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6486 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6487 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6489 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6490 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6492 ** Calendar changes.
6494 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6495 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6496 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6500 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6502 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6504 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6505 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6506 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6507 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6508 It defaults to `letter'.
6509 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6511 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6512 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6513 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6515 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6516 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6519 *** Horizontal layout
6521 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6522 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6523 All are measured in points.
6527 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6528 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6529 All are measured in points.
6533 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6534 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6535 margin above the text.
6537 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6538 framing box is printed around the header.
6540 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6541 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6543 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6544 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6545 `ps-header-font-size'.
6549 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6550 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6551 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6552 elements to this alist.
6554 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6555 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6557 ** hideshow changes.
6559 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6562 *** Support for java-mode added.
6564 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6565 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6567 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6568 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6569 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6571 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6572 robust and a lot faster.
6574 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6576 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6577 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6578 documentation for more details.
6580 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6582 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6583 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6584 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6585 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6586 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6588 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6589 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6590 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6591 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6597 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6598 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6599 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6600 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6601 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6602 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6604 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6606 *** Maximum decoration
6608 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6609 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6610 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6611 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6612 to get the old behavior.
6616 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6618 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6619 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6621 *** Configurable support
6623 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6624 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6625 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6626 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6627 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6628 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6629 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6631 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6632 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6633 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6635 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6637 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6638 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6641 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6643 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6649 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6650 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6651 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6652 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6654 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6656 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6657 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6658 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6660 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6662 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6663 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6664 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6665 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6666 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6667 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6668 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6670 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6671 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6672 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6673 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6674 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6675 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6677 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6679 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6680 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6681 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6682 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6684 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6687 ** Ada mode changes.
6689 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6690 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6691 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6692 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6695 *** There are two new commands:
6696 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6697 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6699 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6700 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6701 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6703 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6704 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6705 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6707 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6708 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6709 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6710 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6712 ** Scheme mode changes.
6714 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6715 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6716 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6717 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6720 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6721 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6722 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6723 variables as buffer-local variables.
6725 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6728 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6730 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6731 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6732 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6733 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6735 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6736 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6739 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6740 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6741 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6742 option takes precedence.
6744 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6745 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6746 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6748 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6749 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6752 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6753 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6755 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6756 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6759 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6760 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6761 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6762 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6763 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6764 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6766 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6767 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6768 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6769 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6771 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6772 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6773 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6774 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6775 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6777 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6778 since it applies only to the current frame.
6780 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6781 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6782 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6784 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6785 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6786 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6787 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6788 instead of just the file you are editing.
6792 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6793 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6794 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6795 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6796 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6799 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6800 knows which kind of label is needed.
6802 C-c ) reftex-reference
6803 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6804 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6806 C-c [ reftex-citation
6807 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6808 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6810 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6811 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6814 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6815 can quickly jump to every section.
6817 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6818 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6819 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6820 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6821 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6823 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6825 *** Info documentation is now available.
6827 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6828 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6830 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6831 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6833 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6834 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6836 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6837 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6838 appropriate functions.
6840 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6841 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6843 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6846 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6847 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6849 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6852 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6853 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6854 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6856 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6857 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6858 prefixed with `ALT'.
6860 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6861 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6862 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6865 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6866 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6867 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6869 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6870 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6872 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6873 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6874 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6876 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6878 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6880 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6883 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6884 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6887 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6890 *** Added support for imenu.
6892 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6893 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6894 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6895 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6897 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6898 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6900 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6902 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6904 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6905 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6906 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6909 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6910 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6912 ** browse-url changes
6914 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6915 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6916 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6917 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6918 customization variables.
6920 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6922 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6923 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6924 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6928 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6929 pops up the Info file for this command.
6931 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6932 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6933 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6936 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6937 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6938 files in the same directory.
6940 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6941 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6942 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6946 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6947 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6949 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6950 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6951 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6952 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6953 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6954 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6955 color when Viper is in insert state.
6956 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6957 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6958 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6962 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6963 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6964 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6965 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6966 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6968 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6970 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6971 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6973 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6974 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6975 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6977 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6978 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6979 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6980 methods and protocols.
6982 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6983 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6984 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6987 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6988 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6989 at least M times and as many as N times.
6991 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6992 in files has changed slightly.
6994 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6995 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6996 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6997 with old time-stamp-format values.
6999 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7000 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7001 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7004 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7005 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7006 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7007 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7008 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7009 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7011 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7012 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7013 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7015 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7016 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7017 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7018 recommended now will continue to work then.
7020 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7023 ** There are some additional major modes:
7025 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7026 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7027 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7029 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7030 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7033 ** New Lisp packages include:
7035 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7037 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7038 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7040 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7042 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7045 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7046 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7049 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7050 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7051 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7052 strings or comments.
7054 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7055 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7056 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7057 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7060 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7061 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7063 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7064 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7066 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7068 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7069 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7071 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7073 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7075 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7077 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7078 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7080 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7081 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7082 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7083 original place after inserting the copy.
7085 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7088 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7089 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7090 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7092 Enable mouse-drag with:
7093 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7095 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7097 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7098 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7100 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7101 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7105 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7106 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7107 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7108 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7109 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7110 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7111 instance) and vice versa.
7113 To use this package load it using
7114 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7115 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7116 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7117 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7118 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7119 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7121 *** Interface to ph.
7123 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7125 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7126 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7129 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7131 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7132 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7133 while the real cursor does not move.
7135 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7136 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7138 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7139 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7143 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7144 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7145 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7146 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7148 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7150 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7152 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7154 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7155 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7156 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7157 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7158 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7160 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7161 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7162 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7163 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7164 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7165 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7167 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7169 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7170 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7171 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7172 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7174 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7175 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7177 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7178 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7181 ** Basic Lisp changes
7183 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7184 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7186 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7187 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7190 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7192 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7194 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7195 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7197 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7198 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7201 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7203 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7205 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7207 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7208 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7209 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7212 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7213 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7214 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7216 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7217 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7218 adding one of these suffixes.
7220 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7221 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7222 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7224 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7225 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7227 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7229 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7230 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7232 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7233 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7235 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7237 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7238 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7240 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7241 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7242 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7243 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7245 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7246 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7249 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7250 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7251 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7254 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7255 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7258 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7260 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7261 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7262 Then it returns that string.
7264 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7266 (with-output-to-string
7267 (princ "The buffer is ")
7268 (princ (buffer-name)))
7270 returns "The buffer is foo".
7272 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7275 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7276 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7277 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7279 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7280 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7282 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7283 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7284 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7285 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7286 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7287 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7289 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7290 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7291 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7294 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7295 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7296 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7297 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7298 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7300 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7301 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7302 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7303 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7305 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7306 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7308 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7310 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7311 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7312 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7313 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7316 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7317 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7320 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7322 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7323 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7324 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7325 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7326 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7328 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7330 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7331 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7332 more than the number of characters.
7334 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7335 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7336 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7337 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7338 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7339 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7341 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7342 and returns a string containing those characters.
7344 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7345 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7346 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7347 character, sref signals an error.
7349 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7350 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7351 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7353 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7354 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7355 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7357 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7358 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7359 to a vector of the characters in it.
7361 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7362 of a string. You call it as follows:
7364 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7366 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7367 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7368 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7369 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7370 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7372 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7373 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7375 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7376 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7378 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7379 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7380 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7381 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7383 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7385 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7387 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7388 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7389 are not included in the resulting value.
7391 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7392 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7393 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7394 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7396 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7397 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7398 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7399 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7400 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7401 column START-COLUMN.
7403 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7404 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7405 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7406 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7407 changed text, before the change.
7409 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7410 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7411 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7413 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7415 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7417 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7418 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7420 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7421 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7422 which identify the character within that character set.
7424 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7425 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7426 opposite of split-char.
7428 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7429 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7431 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7432 of all the characters in a string.
7434 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7435 and specifying coding systems.
7437 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7438 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7439 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7440 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7441 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7442 as what to do about code conversion.)
7444 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7445 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7447 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7448 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7449 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7451 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7452 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7453 to match against a file name.
7455 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7456 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7457 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7458 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7459 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7460 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7462 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7463 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7465 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7466 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7468 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7469 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7470 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7473 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7474 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7475 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7476 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7477 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7478 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7480 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7481 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7483 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7484 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7485 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7486 start the subprocess.
7488 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7489 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7490 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7491 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7492 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7494 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7495 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7498 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7499 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7500 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7501 connection permanently or until overridden.
7503 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7504 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7505 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7506 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7507 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7508 system for one operation at a time.
7510 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7511 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7513 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7514 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7515 The value is a cons cell,
7516 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7517 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7518 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7519 input to the subprocess.
7521 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7522 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7524 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7525 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7526 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7528 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7529 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7530 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7531 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7534 Thus, instead of writing
7536 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7537 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7539 you would now write this:
7541 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7542 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7546 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7547 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7548 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7549 for a description of them.
7551 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7552 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7554 (defgroup ispell nil
7555 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7558 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7559 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7560 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7561 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7562 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7564 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7565 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7566 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7567 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7568 first-level subgroups.
7570 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7572 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7573 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7577 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7578 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7579 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7580 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7581 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7582 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7584 ** Text property changes
7586 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7589 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7590 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7591 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7592 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7593 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7595 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7596 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7597 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7598 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7600 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7601 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7602 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7604 ** Changes in invisibility features
7606 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7607 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7608 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7609 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7610 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7611 make the overlay visible.
7613 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7614 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7615 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7616 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7617 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7618 t when it should hide it.
7620 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7622 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7623 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7624 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7625 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7626 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7627 Here is an example of how to do this:
7629 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7630 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7631 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7632 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7635 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7638 ;; When done with the overlays:
7639 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7641 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7643 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7645 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7646 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7647 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7648 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7650 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7651 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7652 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7654 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7655 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7657 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7658 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7660 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7661 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7662 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7664 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7665 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7666 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7667 determine the syntax type of the character.
7669 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7670 of the current buffer.
7672 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7673 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7674 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7676 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7677 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7678 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7679 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7680 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7682 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7685 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7686 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7687 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7689 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7690 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7691 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7692 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7693 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7695 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7696 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7697 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7699 ** Changes in face features
7701 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7702 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7704 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7705 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7707 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7708 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7710 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7711 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7713 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7714 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7715 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7716 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7719 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7720 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7722 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7724 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7725 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7726 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7727 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7729 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7732 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7733 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7735 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7736 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7738 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7739 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7741 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7742 character code conversion as well as other things.
7744 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7745 (formerly it did not).
7747 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7748 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7750 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7751 instead of constant strings.
7753 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7754 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7755 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7757 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7758 in the same way as before.
7760 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7761 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7762 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7764 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7765 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7766 else, and returns nil.
7768 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7769 directory cannot be listed.
7771 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7773 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7774 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7775 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7776 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7779 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7780 It is available through the history command M-n.
7782 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7783 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7784 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7785 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7786 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7788 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7789 argument in this way.
7791 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7792 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7793 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7795 ** Echo area features
7797 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7798 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7799 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7800 after the echo area is cleared.
7802 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7803 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7805 ** Keyboard input features
7807 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7808 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7810 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7811 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7814 ** Frame-related changes
7816 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7817 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7818 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7820 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7821 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7822 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7824 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7825 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7826 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7827 in the selected frame.
7829 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7830 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7831 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7833 ** X Windows features
7835 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7836 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7837 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7839 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7840 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7842 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7843 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7844 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7846 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7847 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7849 ** Subprocess features
7851 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7852 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7855 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7856 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7858 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7859 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7861 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7862 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7864 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7865 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7866 goes after the other menu items.
7868 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7869 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7870 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7873 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7874 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7876 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7877 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7880 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7881 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7882 but its hook is still run.
7884 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7885 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7887 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7888 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7889 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7891 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7892 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7893 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7896 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7897 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7899 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7900 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7901 functions like display-time.
7903 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7904 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7906 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7907 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7908 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7910 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7911 if there is an error in compilation.
7913 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7914 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7915 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7916 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7918 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7919 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7920 the *scratch* buffer.
7922 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7923 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7924 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7925 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7927 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7928 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7929 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7931 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7932 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7933 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7934 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7936 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7937 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7938 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7940 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7941 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7942 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7943 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7944 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7947 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7948 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7949 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7950 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7952 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7953 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7954 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7955 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7957 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7959 ** imenu.el changes.
7961 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7962 item from menu created by imenu.
7964 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7965 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7966 select one of those items.
7968 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7970 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7972 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7973 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7975 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7976 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7977 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7979 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7981 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7982 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7984 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7985 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7986 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7987 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7988 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7991 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7992 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7994 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7995 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7996 as in previous Emacs versions.
7998 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7999 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8000 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8003 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8004 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8005 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8006 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8009 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8010 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8011 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8012 line and then executing the macro.
8014 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8016 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8017 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8018 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8023 *** Font Lock support modes
8025 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8026 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8027 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8028 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8029 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8031 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8033 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8039 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8040 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8041 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8042 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8043 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8044 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8045 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8047 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8049 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8051 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8053 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8055 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8058 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8063 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8064 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8065 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8066 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8068 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8069 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8071 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8072 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8075 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8076 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8078 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8080 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8082 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8084 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8087 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8089 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8091 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8093 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8095 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8098 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8100 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8102 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8104 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8106 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8108 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8110 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8112 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8115 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8117 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8120 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8122 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8123 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8125 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8127 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8129 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8131 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8133 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8136 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8138 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8139 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8141 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8142 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8143 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8145 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8146 articles with the `*' command.
8148 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8150 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8152 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8154 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8156 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8157 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8159 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8162 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8164 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8166 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8168 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8170 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8172 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8174 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8176 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8178 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8180 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8181 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8183 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8186 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8188 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8189 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8191 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8193 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8195 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8197 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8200 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8202 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8204 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8205 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8207 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8209 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8211 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8213 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8215 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8217 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8220 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8222 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8223 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8224 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8227 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8230 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8233 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8234 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8237 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8238 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8239 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8240 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8241 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8244 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8246 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8248 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8249 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8250 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8251 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8252 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8254 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8255 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8256 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8258 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8260 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8261 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8262 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8263 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8264 chapter of the manual for details.
8266 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8267 customization variables take effect.
8269 ** Marking with the mouse.
8271 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8272 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8273 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8275 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8277 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8279 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8280 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8282 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8283 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8284 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8285 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8286 applications, these problems are significant.
8288 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8289 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8290 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8291 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8292 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8294 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8295 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8297 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8298 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8299 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8300 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8301 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8302 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8304 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8306 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8307 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8308 minibuffer contains.
8310 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8312 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8313 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8314 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8315 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8317 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8318 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8319 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8320 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8322 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8323 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8325 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8326 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8327 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8329 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8330 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8331 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8332 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8334 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8336 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8337 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8339 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8341 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8342 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8343 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8344 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8345 immediately after the selected one.
8347 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8348 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8350 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8352 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8353 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8354 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8355 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8358 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8359 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8362 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8363 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8364 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8365 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8366 now that the bug is fixed.
8368 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8370 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8371 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8372 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8373 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8375 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8376 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8377 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8378 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8380 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8381 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8382 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8384 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8385 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8386 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8387 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8390 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8391 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8393 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8394 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8395 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8396 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8398 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8399 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8400 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8401 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8402 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8403 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8405 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8406 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8407 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8408 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8410 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8411 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8412 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8414 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8415 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8416 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8417 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8418 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8419 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8420 to a limitation in font-lock).
8422 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8424 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8425 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8426 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8429 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8430 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8432 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8434 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8436 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8438 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8440 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8441 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8442 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8443 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8444 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8445 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8447 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8450 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8451 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8453 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8458 *** Global Font Lock mode
8460 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8461 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8462 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8463 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8464 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8466 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8468 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8472 *** Local Refontification
8474 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8475 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8476 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8477 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8479 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8480 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8481 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8482 above and below point.
8484 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8488 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8489 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8490 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8491 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8492 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8495 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8497 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8498 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8500 ** hide-show changes.
8502 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8503 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8506 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8507 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8509 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8510 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8511 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8515 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8516 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8518 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8519 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8521 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8523 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8524 pressing both mouse buttons.
8526 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8527 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8530 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8533 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8535 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8536 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8538 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8540 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8542 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8544 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8546 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8548 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8550 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8551 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8552 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8553 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8554 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8556 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8558 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8559 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8560 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8563 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8566 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8568 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8569 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8571 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8572 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8574 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8575 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8576 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8578 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8579 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8582 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8584 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8585 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8586 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8588 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8589 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8590 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8592 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8593 up if too much time passes.
8595 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8597 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8598 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8599 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8602 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8603 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8604 call looks like this:
8606 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8608 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8609 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8610 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8613 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8614 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8617 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8618 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8619 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8620 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8622 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8623 idle for SECS seconds.
8625 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8626 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8627 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8630 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8631 there is no answer within a certain time.
8633 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8635 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8636 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8637 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8639 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8640 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8641 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8642 arguments in between are ignored.
8644 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8645 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8647 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8648 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8649 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8650 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8653 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8654 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8655 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8656 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8657 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8658 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8660 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8661 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8662 systems with limited file name syntax.
8664 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8665 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8666 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8669 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8670 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8671 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8673 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8674 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8675 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8676 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8677 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8679 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8680 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8681 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8683 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8684 marker from its buffer position.
8686 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8687 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8688 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8690 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8691 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8692 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8693 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8694 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8695 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8697 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8698 errors that happen often during editing.
8700 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8701 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8702 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8704 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8705 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8707 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8708 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8709 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8710 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8711 and not get-buffer-window.
8713 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8714 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8715 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8717 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8718 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8719 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8720 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8721 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8722 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8723 over and over for the same text.
8725 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8727 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8728 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8730 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8733 in addition to the normal
8737 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8738 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8739 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8743 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8745 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8746 Copyright information:
8748 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8750 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8751 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8752 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8753 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8755 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8756 of this document, or of portions of it,
8757 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8758 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8762 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"