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 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs header-line
35 (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window), so that it
36 remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled. This behavior
37 may be disabled by customizing the option `Info-use-header-line'.
39 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
40 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
43 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
48 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
49 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
50 internationalization and mail-fetching.
52 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
53 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
55 If you used procmail like in
57 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
58 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
59 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
60 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
62 this now has changed to
65 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
68 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
69 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
71 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
72 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
74 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
75 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
77 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
78 called to position point.
80 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
81 summary buffers and NOV files.
83 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
84 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
86 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
87 subtly different manner.
89 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
90 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
91 ever-changing layouts.
93 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
95 *** There is image support.
97 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
98 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
99 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
100 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
101 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
104 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
105 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
106 file that is already visited under a different name.
108 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
109 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
111 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
112 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
115 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
116 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
117 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
118 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
119 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
120 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
123 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
124 and displayes information about that.
126 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
127 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
129 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
130 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
131 Postscript files are included.
133 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
136 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
137 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
139 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
140 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
141 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
142 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
143 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
144 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
147 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
148 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
149 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
150 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
152 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
153 a version-dependent component.
155 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
156 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
157 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
158 character is still bound as before.
160 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
163 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
164 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
167 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
168 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
169 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
170 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
171 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
172 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
173 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
176 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
177 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
178 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
179 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
180 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
181 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
182 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
183 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
184 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
186 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
187 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
190 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
191 point in a pop-up window.
194 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
195 displays all characters in that character set.
197 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
198 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
201 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
202 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
203 defined on newcomment.el.
206 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
208 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
209 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
212 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
213 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
214 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
215 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
218 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
219 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
220 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
221 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
224 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
225 on the display using several methods
228 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
229 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
230 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
233 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
234 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
236 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
238 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
239 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
242 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
243 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
244 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
245 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
248 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
249 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
250 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
252 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
253 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
256 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
257 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
260 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
261 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
265 ** New X resources recognized
267 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
268 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
269 is useful for debugging X problems.
273 emacs.synchronous: true
275 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
276 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
277 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
278 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
279 visual class names are
288 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
289 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
292 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
293 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
294 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
299 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
301 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
302 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
303 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
304 resource values are `true' or `on'.
308 emacs.privateColormap: true
310 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
311 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
312 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
314 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
315 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
316 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
320 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
323 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
324 all frames except the selected one.
326 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
327 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
329 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
330 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
331 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
332 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
335 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
336 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
338 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
339 read mail from the menu etc.
342 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
343 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
345 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
347 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
351 -------------------------
358 ** Changes in Outline mode.
360 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
361 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
362 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
364 ** Changes to Emacs Server
367 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
368 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
369 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
370 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
371 buffers to kill, as before.
373 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
374 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
377 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
379 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
380 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
381 use. Default is 1000.
384 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
385 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
388 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
389 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
390 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
394 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
395 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
398 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
399 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
401 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
402 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
403 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
405 ** Faces and frame parameters.
407 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
408 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
409 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
410 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
411 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
412 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
413 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
415 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
416 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
417 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
418 `default' face and vice versa.
423 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
424 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
425 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
428 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
430 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
431 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
432 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
433 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
435 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
436 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
437 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
439 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
442 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
444 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
445 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
446 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
447 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
450 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
452 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
453 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
454 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
455 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
458 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
459 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
460 under Lisp changes, below.
462 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
465 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
466 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
467 otherwise, it is hollow.
469 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
470 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
471 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
472 customizing face `fringe'.
474 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
475 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
479 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
480 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
482 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
484 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
485 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
486 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
487 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
488 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
491 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
492 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
493 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
494 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
495 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
496 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
498 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
499 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
500 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
501 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
502 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
503 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
505 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
506 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
507 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
508 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
509 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
511 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
513 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
514 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
515 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
518 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
520 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
521 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
522 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
523 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
524 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
530 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
531 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
536 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
537 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
538 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
541 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
543 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
544 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
545 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
548 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
549 have to do anything to activate it.
551 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
553 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
554 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
555 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
556 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
558 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
561 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
563 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
565 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
568 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
572 ** Hscrolling in C code.
574 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
575 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
580 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
581 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
582 Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is displayed.
583 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
584 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
587 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
589 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
590 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
591 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
592 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
593 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
595 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
597 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
600 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
601 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
603 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
605 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
606 `*') toggles the status.
608 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
610 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
612 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
613 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
616 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
618 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
619 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
620 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
621 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
622 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
623 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
628 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
629 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
630 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
633 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
634 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
635 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
636 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
637 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
638 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
640 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
643 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
645 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
646 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
647 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
650 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
651 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
653 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
654 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
655 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
658 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
660 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
661 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
662 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
663 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
665 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
666 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
667 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
668 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
670 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
671 notably at the end of lines.
673 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
674 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
677 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
679 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
680 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
681 after each match to get the replacement text.
684 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
685 you edit the replacement string.
687 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
688 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
689 lisp-complete-symbol.
692 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
694 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
695 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
696 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
697 window size by setting the following variable:
699 - User option: max-mini-window-height
701 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
702 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
703 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
707 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
709 ** Changes to hideshow.el
711 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
712 selection and traversal, includes more isearch support, and has more
713 conventional keybindings.
715 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
717 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
718 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
719 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
720 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
721 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
722 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
724 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
725 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
726 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
727 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
729 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
731 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
732 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
733 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
734 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
735 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
737 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
738 something like this in your .emacs.
740 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
742 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
744 *** New customization var: `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function'
746 Normally, `hs-hide-all' hides everything, leaving only the
747 header lines of top-level forms (and comments, unless var
748 `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is non-nil). It does this by
749 moving point to each top-level block beginning and hiding the
750 block there. In some major modes (for example, Java), this
751 behavior results in few blocks left visible, which may not be so
754 You can now set var `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' to a
755 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead
756 of the normal block-hiding function. For example, the following
757 code defines a function to hide one level down and move point
758 appropriately, and then tells hideshow to use the new function.
760 (defun ttn-hs-hide-level-1 ()
763 (setq hs-hide-all-non-comment-function 'ttn-hs-hide-level-1)
765 The name `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' was chosen to
766 emphasize that this function is not called for comment blocks,
767 only for code blocks.
769 *** Command deleted: `hs-show-region'
771 Historical Note: This command was added to handle "unbalanced
772 parentheses" emergencies back when hideshow.el used selective
773 display for implementation.
775 *** Commands rebound to more conventional keys
777 The hideshow commands used to be bound to keys of the form "C-c
778 LETTER". This is contrary to the Emacs keybinding convention,
779 which reserves that space for user modification. Here are the
780 new bindings (which includes the addition of `hs-toggle-hiding'):
782 hs-hide-block C-c C-h
783 hs-show-block C-c C-s
784 hs-hide-all C-c C-M-h
785 hs-show-all C-c C-M-s
786 hs-hide-level C-c C-l
787 hs-toggle-hiding C-c C-c
788 hs-mouse-toggle-hiding [(shift button-2)]
790 These were chosen to roughly imitate those used by Outline mode.
792 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
795 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
796 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
797 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
800 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
804 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
808 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
809 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
812 *** Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
813 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
814 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
815 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
817 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock
820 ** Changes in Font Lock
822 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
823 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
826 ** Comint (subshell) changes
828 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
829 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
830 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
831 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
832 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
833 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
834 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
835 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
837 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
838 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
840 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
841 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
842 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
844 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
845 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
846 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
848 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
849 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
850 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
851 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
853 ** Changes to Rmail mode
855 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
856 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
857 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
858 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
859 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
862 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
863 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
864 regexp matching your mail addresses.
866 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
867 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
868 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
869 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
870 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
872 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
875 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
876 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
879 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
880 in which folder to put messages automatically.
882 ** Changes to TeX mode
884 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
887 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
889 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
890 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
891 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
892 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
893 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
894 can be edited from that buffer.
896 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
897 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
898 `A' to use all marked entries).
900 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
901 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
903 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
904 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
905 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
908 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
909 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
910 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
911 in column 1 are always made leaves.
913 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
914 has the following new features:
916 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
917 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
918 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
919 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
921 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
922 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
923 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
924 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
925 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
928 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
934 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
935 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
936 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
938 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
939 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
940 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
941 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
946 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
947 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
948 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
950 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
951 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
954 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
955 between custom options. Example:
957 (defcustom default-input-method nil
958 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
959 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
960 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
962 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
963 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
965 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
966 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
967 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
969 ** New features in evaluation commands
971 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
972 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
973 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
974 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
975 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
977 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
978 code when called with a prefix argument.
983 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
984 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
985 spell-checks the current buffer.
988 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
991 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
992 correction is made and re-checked.
994 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
996 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
999 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1002 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1007 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1008 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1009 is, delete only empty directories.
1011 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1012 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1013 copy directories recursively.
1015 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1016 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1017 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1019 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1020 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1023 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1024 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1025 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1026 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1027 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1029 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1032 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1033 use the -f option when sending mail.
1037 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1038 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1039 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1040 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1041 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1042 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1045 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1046 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1047 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1048 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1049 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1052 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1053 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1054 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1055 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1056 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1057 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1059 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1060 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1061 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1062 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1063 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1064 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1065 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1066 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1068 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1069 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1070 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1071 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1074 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1075 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1076 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1077 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1078 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1079 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1080 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1081 function documentation for more info.
1083 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1084 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1085 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1086 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1087 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1088 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1089 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1090 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1092 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1094 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1095 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1097 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1098 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1099 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1100 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1101 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1104 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1105 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1106 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1109 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1110 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1111 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1112 chapter about this in the manual.
1114 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1115 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1116 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1117 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1118 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1120 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1121 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1122 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1124 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1125 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1127 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1128 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1129 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1132 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1133 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1134 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1135 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1138 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1139 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1140 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1143 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1144 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1145 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1146 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1149 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1150 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1151 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1152 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1153 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1155 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1156 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1157 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1159 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1161 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1162 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1163 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1164 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1166 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1167 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1168 the column specified by comment-column.
1170 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1171 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1172 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1173 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1174 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1175 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1177 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1178 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1181 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1183 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1184 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1185 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1186 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1189 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1191 ** Makefile mode changes
1193 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1195 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1196 Fontlock mode is active.
1200 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1201 so that searches can be resumed.
1203 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1204 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1205 that started the search.
1207 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1208 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1211 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1213 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1214 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1215 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1216 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1217 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1218 `secondary-selection'.
1220 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1221 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1222 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1223 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1224 usual snappy response.
1226 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1227 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1228 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1229 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1232 ** Changes in sort.el
1234 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1235 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1236 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1239 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1242 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1243 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1244 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1246 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1247 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1249 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1250 output ^M at the end of lines.
1252 ** Shell script mode changes.
1254 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1255 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1256 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1260 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1262 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1263 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1264 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1265 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1266 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1268 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1269 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1271 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1272 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1274 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1277 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1279 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1281 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1284 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1285 variables are tagged.
1287 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1289 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1293 ** Changes in etags.el
1295 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1296 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1297 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1299 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1300 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1302 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1303 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1304 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1305 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1307 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1309 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1310 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1312 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1314 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1315 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1316 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1318 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1319 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1321 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1322 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1325 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1326 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1327 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1330 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1331 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1332 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1333 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1334 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1335 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1336 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1339 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1340 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1341 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1343 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1346 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1349 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1350 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1351 expression from that list, are not checked.
1353 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1354 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1355 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1356 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1358 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1361 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1362 displays local abbrevs, only.
1366 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1367 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1368 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1369 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1370 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1371 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1372 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1373 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1374 file is registered in that backend.
1376 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1377 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1378 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1379 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1380 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1381 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1383 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1384 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1385 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1386 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1387 where it doesn't make sense.)
1389 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1390 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1391 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1395 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1396 checks are always done now.
1398 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1403 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1404 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1405 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1406 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1407 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1408 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1409 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1411 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1412 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1413 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1414 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1415 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1416 entire directory tree.
1418 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1419 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1420 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1421 "watched" by other developers.)
1423 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1425 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1426 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1427 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1428 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1429 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1430 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1431 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1432 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1433 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1435 ** New modes and packages
1438 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1439 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1440 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1441 on certain projects.
1444 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1445 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1447 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1449 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1450 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1451 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1452 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1453 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1454 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1455 corresponding file is read.
1458 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1461 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1462 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1464 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1465 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1466 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1469 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1470 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1471 separate Texinfo file.
1474 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1475 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1476 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1477 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1478 enter checkin log messages.
1481 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1482 without invoking external programs.
1484 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1485 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1486 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1487 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1488 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1490 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1491 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1494 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1495 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1497 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1498 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1499 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1500 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1501 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1504 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1505 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1506 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1507 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1510 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1511 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1512 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1514 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1517 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1519 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1521 ; comment (until end of line)
1525 $A default non-terminal
1526 $"C" default terminal
1527 $?C? default special
1528 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1529 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1530 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1531 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1532 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1533 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1534 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1535 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1536 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1537 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1538 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1539 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1540 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1541 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1542 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1544 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1546 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1547 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1548 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1549 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1550 equal signs of assignments.
1553 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1554 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1557 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1558 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1559 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1560 customize the package.
1562 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1564 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1565 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1566 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1567 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1568 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1569 which answers different needs.
1572 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1573 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1574 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1575 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1576 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1580 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1581 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1584 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1587 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1589 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1591 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-shell-mode' and
1592 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
1593 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
1594 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
1595 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
1596 and background colors.
1598 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1602 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1605 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1608 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1610 *** whitespace.el ???
1612 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1613 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1614 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1615 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1616 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1617 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1618 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1620 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1622 Here is an example of columns:
1625 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1626 porcupine strawberry airplane
1628 Doing the following settings:
1630 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1631 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1632 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1633 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1636 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1638 M-x delimit-columns-region
1642 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1643 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1644 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1646 delim-col has the following options:
1648 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1651 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1652 between each column.
1654 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1657 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1660 delim-col has the following commands:
1662 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1663 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1666 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1667 were operated on recently.
1669 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1671 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1672 recentf at Emacs startup.
1674 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1675 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1676 file list can be displayed:
1678 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1679 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1680 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1682 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1683 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1685 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1689 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1690 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1691 specific to Message mode.
1694 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1695 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1696 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1699 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1700 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1701 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1703 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1704 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1707 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1709 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1710 minibuffer with completion.
1712 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1713 with the diary features.
1715 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1716 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1718 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1721 ** Withdrawn packages
1723 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1724 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1726 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1728 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1731 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1732 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1734 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1735 with the more general `:mask' property.
1737 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1739 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1743 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1744 is running in batch mode. For example,
1746 (message "%s" (read t))
1748 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1752 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1753 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1755 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1756 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1760 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1763 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1765 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1766 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1768 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1770 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1771 comparison is done with `eq'.
1773 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1775 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1779 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1780 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1781 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1783 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1784 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1786 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1787 function was declared obsolete.
1789 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1790 retained as an alias).
1792 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1793 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1794 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1796 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1798 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1800 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1801 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1803 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1805 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1807 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1809 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1810 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1811 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1812 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1815 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1816 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1817 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1818 minibuffer even if it is active.
1820 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1821 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1822 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1823 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1824 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1825 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1827 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1828 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1829 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1830 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1831 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1832 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1833 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1835 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1836 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1837 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1839 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1840 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1841 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1842 Default value is nil.
1844 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1847 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1848 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1849 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1851 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1854 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1855 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1856 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1857 than replacing the local map.
1859 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1860 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1862 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1865 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1868 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1870 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1872 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1873 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1874 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1875 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1877 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1878 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1879 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1880 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1882 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1883 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1884 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1885 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1887 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1888 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1889 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1891 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1892 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1893 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1894 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1895 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1896 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1897 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1900 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1902 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1903 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1904 character set as previously.
1906 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1907 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1908 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1910 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1911 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1912 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1913 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1915 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1916 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1918 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1919 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1922 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1923 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1925 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1926 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1927 buffers and strings.
1929 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1930 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1931 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1932 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1933 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1934 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1935 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1938 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1939 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1940 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1942 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1943 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1944 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1945 may differ between buffer and string text.
1947 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1948 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1950 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1951 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1952 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1953 `composition' from STRING.
1955 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1956 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1958 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1961 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1962 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1963 character set is not used.
1965 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1966 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1967 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1970 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1971 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1972 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1975 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1976 that offset in the file before writing.
1978 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1979 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1981 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1982 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1983 from which the command was issued.
1985 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1986 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1987 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1988 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1991 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1992 to `window-buffer-height'.
1994 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1996 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1997 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1998 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2000 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2003 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
2004 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2006 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2007 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2008 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2010 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2011 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2012 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2013 is currently displayed in some window.
2015 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2016 argument function's results.
2018 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2019 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
2021 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2022 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2024 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2025 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2027 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2028 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2031 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2032 nil don't display a cursor
2033 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2034 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2035 others display a box cursor.
2037 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2038 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2039 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2040 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2042 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2043 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2044 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2045 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2049 (string-to-syntax "()")
2052 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2055 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2056 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2063 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2068 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2073 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2080 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2081 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2084 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2085 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2086 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2087 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2090 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2092 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2093 for a regexp in a string.
2095 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2096 `mouse-position-function'.
2098 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2099 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2101 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2102 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2105 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2108 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2109 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2112 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2113 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2114 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2115 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2119 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2120 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2123 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2124 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2125 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2126 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2129 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2130 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2131 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2132 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2135 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2136 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2137 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2140 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2141 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2144 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2146 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2147 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2148 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2152 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2153 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2156 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2157 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2160 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2161 instead of being optional.
2164 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2165 modify read-only text.
2168 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2170 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2171 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2172 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2173 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2174 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2176 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2177 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2178 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2179 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2180 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2181 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2182 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2185 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2186 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2187 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2191 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2192 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2195 ** New function `propertize'
2197 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2198 strings with text properties.
2200 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2202 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2203 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2204 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2205 specified value of that property. Example:
2207 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2210 ** push and pop macros.
2212 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2213 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2214 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2216 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2217 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2218 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2220 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2222 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2223 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2225 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2226 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2227 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2228 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2230 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2231 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2232 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2233 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2236 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2237 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2239 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2240 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2241 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2242 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2243 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2245 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2247 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2248 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2249 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2250 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2251 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2252 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2253 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2254 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2255 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2256 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2257 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2258 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2259 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2260 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2261 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2264 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2266 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2268 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2270 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2271 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2275 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2276 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2277 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2281 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2282 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2284 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2286 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2287 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2288 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2289 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2290 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2292 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2294 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2295 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2296 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2300 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2301 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2302 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2303 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2304 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2306 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2308 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2310 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2312 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2314 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2316 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2319 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2321 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2323 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2325 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2327 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2329 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2331 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2333 Returns the size of TABLE.
2335 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2337 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2339 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2341 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2343 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2347 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2349 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2352 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2354 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2355 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2357 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2359 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2361 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2363 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2364 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2366 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2368 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2370 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2372 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2373 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2374 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2375 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2376 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2378 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2380 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2381 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2382 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2384 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2385 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2387 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2388 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2390 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2391 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2393 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2394 'case-fold-string-hash))
2396 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2399 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2401 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2402 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2403 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2406 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2408 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2409 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2412 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2413 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2414 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2415 is too short to reach that column.
2418 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2419 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2420 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2421 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2423 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2424 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2425 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2428 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2429 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2432 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2433 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2436 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2437 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2438 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2439 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2440 temporary-file-directory instead.
2443 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2444 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2445 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2446 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2449 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2450 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2453 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2455 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2456 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2457 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2460 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2462 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2463 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2464 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2465 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2466 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2467 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2469 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2470 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2471 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2472 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2475 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2477 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2478 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2479 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2482 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2483 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2487 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2489 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2490 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2493 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2496 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2498 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2499 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2502 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2504 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2505 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2511 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2512 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2514 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2515 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2516 to enable sound support.
2518 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2519 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2520 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2521 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2522 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2524 The following sound properties are supported:
2528 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2529 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2533 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2534 may be present, but not both.
2538 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2539 0..1. This property is optional.
2541 Other properties are ignored.
2543 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2545 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2548 ** Changes to garbage collection
2550 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2551 of live and free strings.
2553 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2554 strings that have been consed so far.
2557 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2560 *** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2563 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2565 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2568 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2570 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2572 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2573 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2574 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2575 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2576 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2578 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2581 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2583 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2584 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2585 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2588 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2589 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2592 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2596 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2600 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2602 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2603 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2604 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2605 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2607 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2608 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2610 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2611 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2612 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2613 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2614 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2615 just display it black instead.
2617 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2620 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2624 ** New face implementation.
2626 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2627 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2632 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2634 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2636 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2637 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2639 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2641 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2643 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2645 6. Foreground color.
2647 7. Background color.
2649 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2651 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2653 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2655 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2657 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2660 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2661 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2663 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2664 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2665 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2666 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2667 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2668 attributes mentioned above.
2670 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2671 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2674 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2675 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2681 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2682 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2683 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2684 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2685 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2686 results in a fully-specified face.
2689 *** Face realization.
2691 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2692 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2693 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2694 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2695 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2696 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2698 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2699 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2700 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2701 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2703 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2704 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2705 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2706 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2707 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2709 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2710 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2711 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2712 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2713 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2716 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2717 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2718 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2719 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2722 **** Clearing face caches.
2724 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2725 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2731 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2732 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2733 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2735 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2736 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2737 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2738 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2739 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2741 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2742 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2743 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2745 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2747 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2748 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2749 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2750 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2751 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2752 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2753 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2755 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2756 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2762 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2763 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2766 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2767 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2768 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2769 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2770 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2773 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2775 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2778 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2780 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2782 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2783 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2784 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2786 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2787 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2788 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2789 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2790 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2791 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2792 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2793 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2794 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2795 of the face font sort order.
2797 - Function: x-font-family-list
2799 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2800 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2801 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2802 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2804 - Variable: font-list-limit
2806 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2807 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2808 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2811 *** Setting face attributes.
2813 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2814 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2815 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2818 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2819 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2821 The following attributes are recognized:
2825 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2826 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2827 and `?' are allowed.
2831 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2832 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2833 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2834 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2838 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2839 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2840 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2841 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2845 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2846 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2847 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2851 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2852 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2855 `:foreground', `:background'
2857 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2861 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2862 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2863 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2868 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2869 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2870 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2875 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2876 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2877 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2878 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2882 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2883 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2884 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2885 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2886 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2887 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2888 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2889 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2890 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2891 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2892 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2893 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2894 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2895 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2896 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2897 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2902 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2903 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2907 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2908 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2909 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2910 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2911 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2912 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2914 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2915 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2919 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2920 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2921 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2924 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2925 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2926 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2928 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2933 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
2934 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
2935 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
2937 *** Face attributes and X resources
2939 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2942 Face attribute X resource class
2943 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2944 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2945 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2946 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2947 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2948 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2949 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2950 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2951 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2952 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2953 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2954 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2955 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2956 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2957 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2958 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2959 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2960 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2961 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2962 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2965 *** Text property `face'.
2967 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2968 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2969 specification can be
2971 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2973 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2974 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2975 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2976 for face attribute names.
2978 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2979 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2980 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2983 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2985 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2986 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2987 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2988 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2989 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2990 used to clear the mapping table.
2992 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2994 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2995 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2996 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2997 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2998 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2999 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3000 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3001 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3002 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3003 modify their color-related behavior.
3005 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3008 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3010 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3011 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3012 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3013 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3014 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3015 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3016 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3017 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3018 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3021 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3023 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3025 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3026 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3027 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3029 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3031 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3032 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3033 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3035 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3036 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3037 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3038 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3039 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3040 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3041 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3044 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3045 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3046 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3048 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3050 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3052 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3054 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3055 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3056 constrained position if that is is different.
3058 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3059 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3060 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3061 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3062 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3063 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3064 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3065 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3066 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3068 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3069 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3070 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3071 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3072 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3074 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3075 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3077 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3079 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3081 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3082 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3083 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3085 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3087 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3088 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3089 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3090 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3091 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3093 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3095 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3096 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3097 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3098 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3099 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3101 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3103 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3104 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3105 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3107 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3109 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3110 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3111 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3116 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3117 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3118 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3119 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3121 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3122 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3123 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3124 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3127 IMAGE is an image specification.
3129 *** Image specifications
3131 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3132 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3133 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3134 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3135 described below are ignored.
3137 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3141 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3142 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3143 to use for its ascent.
3145 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3146 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3148 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3149 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3150 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3151 overlays that apply to the image.
3155 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3156 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3160 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3165 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3167 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3168 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3170 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3171 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3172 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3173 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3174 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3175 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3176 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3177 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3180 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3182 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3184 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3185 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3186 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3187 of the factors' absolute values.
3189 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3195 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3201 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3206 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3207 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3208 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3209 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3210 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3211 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3212 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3215 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3216 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3221 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3222 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3223 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3224 may be present in the image specification.
3228 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3229 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3230 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3231 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3233 *** Supported image types
3235 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3237 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3238 properties supported are
3242 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3243 is the frame's foreground.
3247 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3248 the frame's background color.
3250 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3251 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3252 instead of a `:file' property.
3256 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3260 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3266 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3267 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3269 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3271 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3274 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3275 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3278 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3280 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3281 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3282 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3283 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3285 Additional image properties supported are:
3287 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3289 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3290 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3293 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3294 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3296 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3297 to display compressed images.
3299 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3301 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3302 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3305 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3307 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3308 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3311 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3313 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3314 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3317 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3319 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3320 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3322 Additional image properties supported are:
3326 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3327 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3329 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3330 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3331 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3334 (defun show-anim (file max)
3335 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3336 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3338 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3341 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3344 (goto-char (point-min))
3345 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3346 (insert-image img "x"))
3347 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3349 **** PNG, image type `png'
3351 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3352 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3355 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3357 Additional image properties supported are:
3361 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3362 integer. This is a required property.
3366 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3367 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3371 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3372 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3373 files. This is an required property.
3375 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3380 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3381 which are supported in the current configuration.
3383 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3384 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3385 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3386 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3387 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3389 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3391 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3392 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3393 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3394 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3395 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3401 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3404 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3405 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3406 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3407 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3408 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3409 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3410 of the display margins.
3412 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3413 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3414 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3415 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3421 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3422 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3423 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3424 that have a `help-echo' property.
3426 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3427 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3428 the window in which the help was found.
3430 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3431 `help-echo' text property was found.
3433 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3434 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3436 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3437 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3440 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3441 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3443 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3444 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3445 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3446 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3447 used as help string.
3449 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3450 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3451 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3454 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3456 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3457 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3459 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3460 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3461 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3462 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3465 (global-set-key [A-down]
3468 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3469 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3470 (global-set-key [A-up]
3473 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3474 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3477 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3479 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3480 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3481 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3482 is called with one argument, POS.
3484 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3485 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3486 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3487 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3488 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3491 ** Tool bar support.
3493 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3494 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3495 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3496 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3497 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3498 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3500 *** Tool bar item definitions
3502 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3503 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3504 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3506 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3507 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3508 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3509 property (see below).
3511 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3512 binding are currently ignored.
3514 The following properties are recognized:
3518 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3523 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3527 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3528 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3529 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3531 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3533 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3534 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3538 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3539 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3540 meaning of each of the four elements:
3542 Index Use when item is
3543 ----------------------------------------
3544 0 enabled and selected
3545 1 enabled and deselected
3546 2 disabled and selected
3547 3 disabled and deselected
3549 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3550 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3552 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3554 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3555 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3557 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3558 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3559 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3562 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3564 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3565 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3566 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3568 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3569 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3571 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3572 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3573 pixels. Default is 1.
3575 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3576 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3578 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3580 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3583 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3584 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3585 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3587 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3589 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3591 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3594 ** Mode line changes.
3597 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3599 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3600 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3601 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3603 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3604 a `local-map' text property.
3606 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3607 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3609 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3610 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3611 `local-map' property.
3613 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3614 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3617 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3618 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3621 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3622 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3625 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3627 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3628 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3629 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3630 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3633 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3636 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3637 position in the header-line.
3640 ** Text property `display'
3642 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
3643 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
3644 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
3645 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3646 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3648 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
3650 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
3651 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
3653 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
3654 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
3655 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
3656 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3657 simpler form STRING as property value.
3659 *** Variable width and height spaces
3661 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3662 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3663 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3664 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3665 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3666 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3667 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3669 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3670 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3671 properties described below.
3673 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3674 characters having the `display' property.
3678 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3679 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3681 - :relative-width FACTOR
3683 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3684 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3685 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3686 width of that character by FACTOR.
3690 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3691 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3693 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3697 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3700 - :relative-height FACTOR
3702 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3703 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3707 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3708 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3709 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3712 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3716 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3717 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3718 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3719 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3720 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3721 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3722 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3723 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3724 as display specification.
3726 *** Other display properties
3728 - :space-width FACTOR
3730 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3731 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3736 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3738 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3739 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3740 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3741 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3742 a font is available counts as a step.
3744 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3745 as tall as the frame's default font.
3747 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3748 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3750 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3751 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3755 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3756 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3757 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3758 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3759 `:height' subproperty.
3761 *** Conditional display properties
3763 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3764 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3765 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3766 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3767 the text having the `display' property.
3769 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3773 ** New menu separator types.
3775 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3776 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3777 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3778 to specify other menu separator types.
3780 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3782 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3785 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3787 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3789 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3791 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3793 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3795 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3797 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3799 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3801 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3803 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3804 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3806 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3808 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3810 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3812 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3814 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3816 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3818 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3820 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3822 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3824 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3826 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3828 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3830 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3832 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3834 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3835 the corresponding single-line separators.
3838 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3840 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3841 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3842 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3843 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3844 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3845 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3846 default foreground is black.
3848 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3849 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3850 `ScrollBarBackground').
3852 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3853 settings for scroll bar colors.
3856 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3857 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3860 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3861 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3862 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3863 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3864 the original window start.
3867 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3868 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3869 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3872 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3874 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3875 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3876 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3877 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3879 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3880 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3882 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3884 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3885 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3886 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3887 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3888 temporarily to nil, for example
3890 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3891 (enlarge-window 10))
3893 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3894 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3896 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3897 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3898 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3899 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3900 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3901 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3905 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3907 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3910 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3912 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3914 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3915 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3916 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3917 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3918 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3920 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3924 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3926 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3929 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3931 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3932 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3934 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3936 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3938 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3939 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3940 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3942 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3943 is the one that is used.
3945 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3946 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3947 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3948 separate from the command's regular output.
3949 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3950 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3951 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3954 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3955 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3956 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3957 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3959 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3960 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3961 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3962 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3964 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3965 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3966 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3967 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3969 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3970 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3971 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3972 they never ignore case.
3974 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3975 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3976 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3977 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3978 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3979 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3980 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3982 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3983 the same format that was used in the file before.
3985 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3986 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3988 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3989 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3990 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3992 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3993 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3994 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3995 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3996 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3997 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3998 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4000 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4001 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4002 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4003 format. You can now customize these variables.
4005 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4006 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4007 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4008 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4010 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4011 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4012 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4014 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4015 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4016 doesn't have any effect.
4018 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4021 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4022 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4023 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4025 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4026 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4027 `auto-show-mode' command.
4029 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4030 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4031 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4032 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4033 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4035 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4036 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4038 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4039 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4040 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4042 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4043 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4044 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4045 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4047 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4049 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4050 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4051 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4052 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4053 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4055 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4056 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4058 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4059 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4060 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4061 `?' on other systems.
4063 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4064 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4067 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4068 current codepage when it starts.
4072 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4073 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4074 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4075 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4076 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4077 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4081 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4082 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4084 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4085 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4086 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4087 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4088 buffer-file-coding-system.
4090 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4091 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4094 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4095 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4096 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4097 list of possible coding systems.
4101 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4102 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4103 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4104 docstring for details.
4106 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4107 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4108 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4109 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4110 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4112 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4113 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4115 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4116 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4118 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4119 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4120 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4121 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4124 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4125 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4127 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4128 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4129 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4130 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4132 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4133 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4134 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4135 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4136 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4138 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4140 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4142 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4143 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4145 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4147 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4148 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4149 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4150 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4151 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4155 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4156 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4157 Gnus manual for the full story.
4159 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4160 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4161 group, which is created automatically.
4163 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4166 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4168 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4169 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4171 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4174 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4176 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4177 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4179 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4181 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4182 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4184 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4185 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4187 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4188 control over simplification.
4190 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4192 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4195 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4197 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4199 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4200 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4201 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4203 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4204 `a' forces normal posting method.
4206 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4209 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4212 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4213 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4215 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4218 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4220 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4222 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4223 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4225 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4226 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4228 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4230 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4233 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4234 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4236 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4237 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4239 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4241 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4243 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4245 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4247 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4248 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4249 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4251 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4252 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4253 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4254 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4255 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4257 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4258 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4259 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4260 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4262 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4263 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4264 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4267 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4269 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4270 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4272 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4273 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4274 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4275 removed from the label.
4277 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4278 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4280 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4281 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4283 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4284 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4287 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4289 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4291 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4292 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4294 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4295 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4296 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4298 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4299 changes with a special face.
4301 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4302 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4303 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4305 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4307 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4308 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4309 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4310 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4311 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4313 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4314 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4315 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4317 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4318 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4319 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4320 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4321 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4322 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4323 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4324 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4325 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4327 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4328 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4329 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4330 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4331 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4334 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4335 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4336 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4337 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4338 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4339 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4341 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4342 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4343 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4344 was not documented clearly before.
4346 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4347 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4349 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4351 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4352 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4353 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4354 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4356 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4357 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4358 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4360 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4362 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4363 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4365 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4366 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4369 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4370 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4371 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4372 file names and attributes are returned.
4374 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4375 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4376 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4377 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4380 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4381 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4383 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4385 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4386 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4387 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4390 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4391 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4394 The new function process-running-child-p
4395 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4396 terminal to its own child process.
4398 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4399 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4400 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4401 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4403 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4404 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4406 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4407 :included is an alias for :visible.
4409 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4410 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4411 to move or copy menu entries.
4413 ** Multibyte editing changes
4415 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4416 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4417 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4418 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4419 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4420 (setq char (sref str idx)
4421 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4422 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4424 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4425 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4426 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4428 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4429 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4430 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4432 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4434 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4435 across the boundary.
4437 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4438 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4439 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4440 contains 8-bit characters.
4441 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4442 contains invalid characters.
4444 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4445 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4446 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4447 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4450 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4451 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4452 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4453 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4455 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4456 compose Thai characters in a string.
4458 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4459 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4460 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4461 menus should always use the third argument.
4463 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4464 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4465 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4466 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4468 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4469 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4470 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4471 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4473 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4474 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4475 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4478 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4480 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4481 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4482 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4484 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4485 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4486 means to clear out that attribute.
4488 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4489 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4491 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4492 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4493 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4494 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4496 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4497 the gap of the current buffer.
4499 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4500 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4503 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4504 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4505 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4506 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4508 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4510 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4511 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4512 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4513 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4514 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4516 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4517 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4518 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4519 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4520 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4522 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4523 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4524 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4526 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4527 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4528 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4529 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4530 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4533 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4534 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4535 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4536 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4538 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4540 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4541 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4542 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4543 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4545 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4546 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4547 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4548 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4549 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4550 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4551 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4554 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4557 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4558 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4559 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4560 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4561 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4563 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4564 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4565 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4566 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4568 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4569 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4570 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4571 something that most users not do.
4573 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4574 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4575 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4578 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4581 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4582 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4583 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4584 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4587 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4588 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4589 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4590 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4591 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4594 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4595 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4596 to be confused by TeX commands.
4598 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4599 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4600 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4601 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4603 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4604 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4605 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4606 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4607 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4609 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4610 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4612 ** Changes in input method usage.
4614 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4615 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4618 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4620 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4621 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4623 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4624 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4626 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4628 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4630 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4631 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4633 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4634 given in the following case:
4635 o When you are using a complex input method.
4636 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4638 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4639 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4640 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4641 setting it to t is helpful.
4643 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4645 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4647 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4648 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4649 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4650 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4653 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4654 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4655 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4658 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4660 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4662 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4663 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4665 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4666 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4667 its owner and group.
4669 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4670 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4672 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4673 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4675 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4676 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4677 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4678 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4680 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4681 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4682 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4683 for writing keyboard macros.
4685 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4686 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4687 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4688 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4689 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4692 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4694 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4695 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4698 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4699 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4700 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4701 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4703 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4704 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4705 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4707 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4708 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4709 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4710 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4712 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4713 failure if the command produces no output.
4715 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4716 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4719 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4720 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4721 function and variable names.
4723 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4724 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4725 file-coding-system-alist.
4727 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4728 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4729 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4730 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4731 according to the current fontset.
4733 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4735 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4736 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4737 nonascii-insert-offset.
4739 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4740 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4741 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4742 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4744 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4745 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4747 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4748 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4750 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4751 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4754 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4755 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4757 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4758 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4759 all variables that have documentation.
4761 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4762 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4763 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4764 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4765 it should show; the default is 20.
4767 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4768 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4771 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4772 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4773 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4774 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4775 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4776 Newly added options are included as well.
4778 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4779 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4780 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4782 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4785 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4786 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4788 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4789 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4792 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4793 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4796 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4797 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4798 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4799 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4802 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4804 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4805 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4806 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4808 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4809 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4810 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4815 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4816 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4818 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4819 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4821 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4822 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4824 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4825 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4826 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4827 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4828 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4829 made invisible again.
4831 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4833 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4834 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4835 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4838 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4839 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4840 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4841 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4842 rmail-default-body-file.
4844 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4845 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4846 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4848 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4849 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4850 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4852 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4853 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4854 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4855 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4856 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4857 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4859 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4860 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4861 provided by feedmail are:
4863 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4864 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4865 there is also a queue for draft messages
4867 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4868 be prompted for confirmation
4870 **** does smart filling of address headers
4872 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4873 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4874 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4876 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4877 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4878 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4879 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4883 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4884 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4886 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4887 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4889 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4890 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4891 for a specified regexp.
4895 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4898 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4899 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4902 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4903 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4904 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4905 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4907 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4908 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4909 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4910 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4911 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4913 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4914 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4915 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4916 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4917 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4919 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4920 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4921 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4922 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4924 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4925 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4926 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4928 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4929 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4930 session to resolve them.
4932 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4933 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4934 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4937 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4938 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4939 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4940 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4941 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4942 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4945 ** Changes in Font Lock
4947 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4948 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4949 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4950 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4951 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4953 ** Frame name display changes
4955 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4956 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4957 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4958 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4960 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4961 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4964 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4966 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4967 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4968 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4970 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4972 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4973 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4974 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4976 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4977 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4980 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4981 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4982 previously sent input.
4984 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4985 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4986 as the search string.
4988 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4989 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4993 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4994 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4995 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4998 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4999 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5000 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5001 style is still the default however.
5003 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5005 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5006 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5007 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5009 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5010 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5012 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5013 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5015 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5016 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5018 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5019 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5021 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5022 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5023 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5024 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5026 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5028 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5029 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5030 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5032 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5033 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5034 expanding dynamically.
5036 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5037 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5039 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5040 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5041 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5042 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5044 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5046 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5048 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5049 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5050 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5051 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5052 against the first word in the title.
5054 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5055 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5056 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5057 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5058 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5059 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5061 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5062 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5063 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5064 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5066 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5068 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5069 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5070 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5071 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5072 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5073 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5075 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5076 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5078 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5079 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5080 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
5082 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5083 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5087 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5088 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5089 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5091 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5092 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5093 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5094 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5097 o URLs are automatically skipped
5098 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5100 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5102 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5104 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5105 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5106 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5107 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5109 *** New recursive parser.
5111 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5112 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5113 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5115 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5117 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5118 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5119 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5121 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5123 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5125 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5127 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5129 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5131 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5132 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5134 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5136 *** References to external documents.
5138 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5139 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5140 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5141 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5142 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5143 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5144 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5146 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5148 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5149 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5151 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5152 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5154 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5156 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5157 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5159 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5161 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5162 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5163 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5164 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5165 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5166 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5169 *** Support for the varioref package
5171 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5175 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5176 and citations are created. These hooks are
5177 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5178 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5180 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5182 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5183 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5185 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5187 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5188 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5191 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5193 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5194 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5195 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5196 directories that contain the same file name.
5198 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5199 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5200 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5201 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5202 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5203 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5204 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5207 ** New modes and packages
5209 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5210 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5211 it, but some do not.
5213 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5216 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5217 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5220 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5222 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5223 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5224 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5225 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5227 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5228 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5229 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5231 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5232 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5233 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5234 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5235 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5238 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5239 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5241 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5242 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5243 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5244 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5246 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5248 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5249 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5250 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5251 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5252 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5253 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5254 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5255 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5256 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5257 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5258 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5260 Platform-specific modes:
5262 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5263 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5264 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5265 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5266 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5267 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5268 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5269 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5270 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5272 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5274 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5275 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5276 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5277 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5279 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5280 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5281 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5283 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5284 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5285 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5286 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5288 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5289 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5290 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5293 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5294 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5295 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5296 current input method for reading this one event.
5298 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5299 now control whether to output certain characters as
5300 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5301 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5302 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5303 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5305 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5307 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5308 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5310 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5311 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5312 always increases point by 1.
5314 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5315 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5317 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5319 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5320 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5321 default value changed. For example,
5323 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5328 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5331 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5332 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5333 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5334 `:version' in the top level group.
5336 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5338 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5339 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5341 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5342 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5343 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5346 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5347 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5350 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5351 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5352 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5354 ** Frame-local variables.
5356 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5357 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5358 local bindings for that variable.
5360 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5361 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5362 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5365 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5366 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5367 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5368 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5370 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5371 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5372 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5373 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5375 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5376 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5377 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5378 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5379 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5381 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5382 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5383 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5384 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5386 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5387 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5389 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5390 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5391 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5393 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5394 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5395 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5396 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5398 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5399 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5402 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5403 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5404 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5405 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5406 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5408 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5409 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5410 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5411 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5413 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5414 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5415 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5416 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5417 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5419 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5420 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5421 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5422 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5424 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5425 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5426 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5428 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5429 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5430 was directed to display this buffer.
5432 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5433 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5434 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5435 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5436 set-window-configuration.
5438 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5439 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5440 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5441 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5443 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5444 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5445 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5447 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5448 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5449 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5451 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5452 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5454 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5455 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5457 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5458 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5459 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5461 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5462 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5463 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5464 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5468 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5469 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5472 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5473 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5474 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5475 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5476 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5478 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5480 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5481 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5482 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5483 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5486 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5487 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5488 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5489 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5490 The supported properties include
5492 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5494 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5495 item should appear in the menu.
5497 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5498 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5499 It should return a binding to use instead.
5501 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5502 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5503 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5504 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5505 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5508 This means that the command normally has no
5509 keyboard equivalent.
5510 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5511 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5512 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5513 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5514 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5516 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5517 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5519 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5523 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5524 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5525 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5526 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5528 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5530 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5531 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5532 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5533 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5534 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5535 forward, away from the user.
5537 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5539 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5540 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5541 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5542 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5543 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5545 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5547 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5548 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5549 that were dragged and dropped.
5551 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5553 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5555 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5556 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5557 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5559 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5560 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5561 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5563 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5564 in Emacs 19 and before.
5566 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5567 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5569 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5570 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5571 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5572 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5574 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5575 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5576 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5577 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5578 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5580 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5581 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5582 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5583 consistent with the new representation.
5585 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5586 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5587 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5588 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5590 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5591 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5592 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5594 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5595 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5596 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5598 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5599 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5600 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5602 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5603 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5605 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5606 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5608 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5609 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5610 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5611 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5613 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5614 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5616 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5617 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5618 buffer or string being searched.
5620 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5621 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5622 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5623 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5624 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5625 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5626 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5628 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5630 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5631 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5632 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5633 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5634 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5635 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5636 define-coding-system-alias.
5638 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5639 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5640 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5641 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5642 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5643 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5644 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5647 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5648 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5649 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5650 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5652 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5653 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5654 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5655 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5657 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5658 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5659 This function requires a user interaction.
5661 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5662 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5663 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5664 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5665 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5666 select-safe-coding-system.
5668 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5669 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5670 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5673 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5674 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5675 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5677 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5678 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5679 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5680 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5682 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5683 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5684 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5687 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5688 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5690 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5691 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5692 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5693 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5694 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5695 range of characters.
5697 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5698 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5700 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5701 in the current buffer at position POS.
5703 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5704 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5705 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5706 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5707 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5708 binding input-method-function to nil.
5710 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5711 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5712 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5713 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5714 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5716 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5717 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5719 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5720 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5722 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5723 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5724 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5725 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5726 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5728 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5730 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5731 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5732 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5735 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5736 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5738 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5739 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5740 in your .emacs file.)
5742 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5743 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5745 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5746 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5748 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5749 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5752 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5753 delete the character before point, as usual.
5755 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5756 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5757 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5759 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5760 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5761 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5762 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5763 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5766 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5767 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5768 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5769 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5770 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5772 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5773 and is an alias for it.
5775 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5776 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5778 ** Scrolling changes
5780 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5781 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5783 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5784 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5787 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5788 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5789 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5790 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5792 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5793 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5794 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5795 recenters the window.
5797 ** International character set support (MULE)
5799 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5800 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5801 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5802 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5803 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5804 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5806 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5807 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5808 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5809 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5810 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5812 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5813 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5814 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5815 language, to make it possible to type them.
5817 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5818 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5820 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5821 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5823 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5825 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5827 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5828 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5829 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5830 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5831 characters for their work until they want to change.
5835 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5836 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5837 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5838 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5839 support several input methods.
5841 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5842 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5845 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5846 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5847 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5848 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5849 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5852 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5853 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5854 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5855 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5856 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5858 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5859 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5860 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5861 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5863 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5864 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5865 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5866 the first guess is wrong.
5868 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5869 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5871 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5872 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5873 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5874 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5876 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5877 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5878 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5879 translate automatically to and from either one.
5881 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5883 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5884 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5885 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5888 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5889 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5890 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5891 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5893 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5894 character conversion as well.
5896 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5898 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5899 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5900 requires using many fonts.
5902 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5903 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5905 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5906 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5907 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5908 you would use a font.
5910 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5911 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5912 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5914 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5915 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5916 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5917 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5918 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5920 *** Defining fontsets.
5922 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5923 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5924 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5926 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5927 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5928 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5929 standard fontset are created automatically.
5931 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5932 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5933 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5934 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5935 name is `fontset-startup'.
5937 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5938 The resource value should have this form:
5939 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5940 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5941 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5942 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5943 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5944 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5945 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5946 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5947 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5949 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5950 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5951 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5953 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5954 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5956 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5957 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5958 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5959 Here is the substitution rule:
5960 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5961 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5962 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5963 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5964 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5966 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5967 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5968 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5970 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5971 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5972 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5973 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5976 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5977 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5979 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5980 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5981 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5982 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5983 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5984 system for new files that you create.
5986 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5987 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5988 whole Emacs session.
5990 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5991 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5992 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5994 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5995 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5996 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5997 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5998 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6000 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6001 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6002 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6003 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6004 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6006 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6007 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6009 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6010 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6012 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6013 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6015 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6016 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6017 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6018 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6021 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6022 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6023 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6024 translated into that character code.
6026 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6027 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6029 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6031 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6032 the coding system for keyboard input.
6034 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6035 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6036 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6038 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6040 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6041 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6042 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6043 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6044 designed to work with terminals.
6046 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6047 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6048 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6049 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6050 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6051 in the corresponding buffer.
6053 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6055 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6056 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6057 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6059 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6060 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6061 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6064 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6065 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6067 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6068 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6069 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6070 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6072 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6073 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6074 related information.
6076 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6077 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6080 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6081 information about the support for a particular language.
6082 You specify the language as an argument.
6084 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6085 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6088 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6089 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6090 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6091 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6093 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6095 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6096 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6097 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6098 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6099 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6100 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6101 K euc-korea (Korean)
6104 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6107 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6108 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6109 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6113 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6114 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6115 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6116 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6118 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6119 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6121 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6122 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6123 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6124 Rmail files themselves.
6126 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6127 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6129 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6132 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6133 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6134 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6135 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6136 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6138 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6139 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6140 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6143 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6144 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6145 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6146 without any conversion.
6148 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6149 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6150 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6151 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6153 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6154 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6156 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6157 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6159 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6160 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6162 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6163 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6164 in the buffer before point.
6166 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6167 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6170 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6171 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6173 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6175 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6176 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6178 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6179 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6180 can become a bottleneck.
6182 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6183 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6184 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6185 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6186 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6187 so useful that the change is worth while.
6189 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6190 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6191 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6192 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6194 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6195 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6198 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6199 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6200 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6202 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6203 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6204 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6206 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6207 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6208 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6210 ** Changes in View mode.
6212 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6213 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6215 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6216 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6218 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6221 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6222 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6224 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6225 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6226 not just the selected window.
6228 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6229 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6230 turns View mode on or off.
6232 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6233 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6234 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6236 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6237 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6239 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6240 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6241 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6242 which version to compare with.
6244 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6245 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6247 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6248 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6249 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6250 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6252 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6253 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6254 blocks, all of them or none.
6256 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6257 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6260 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6261 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6262 However, the mode will not be changed if
6263 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6264 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6265 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6266 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6268 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6270 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6271 these commands do not change the major mode.
6273 ** M-x occur changes.
6275 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6276 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6278 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6279 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6280 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6282 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6283 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6284 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6285 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6286 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6288 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6289 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6290 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6291 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6293 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6294 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6295 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6297 ** Outline mode changes.
6299 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6301 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6303 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6304 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6305 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6308 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6309 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6312 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6313 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6315 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6317 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6318 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6319 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6320 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6322 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6323 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6324 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6326 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6327 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6330 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6331 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6332 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6333 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6335 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6336 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6337 can be. The default value is 30.
6339 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6341 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6342 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6343 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6344 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6345 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6348 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6349 compose-mail-other-frame.
6351 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6352 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6353 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6354 buffer that shows the original message.
6356 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6357 with separator lines around the contents.
6359 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6360 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6361 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6362 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6364 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6366 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6367 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6368 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6369 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6371 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6372 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6375 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6376 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6379 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6380 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6381 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6382 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6384 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6385 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6386 be taken to be magic.
6388 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6389 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6390 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6392 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6393 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6395 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6396 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6398 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6400 new key dired.el binding old key
6401 ------- ---------------- -------
6402 * c dired-change-marks c
6404 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6405 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6406 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6408 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6409 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6410 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6411 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6412 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6413 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6417 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6418 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6419 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6420 each time you run it.
6422 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6423 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6425 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6426 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6427 means to move in the opposite direction.
6429 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6430 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6432 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6433 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6434 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6435 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6440 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6442 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6445 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6446 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6448 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6451 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6453 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6455 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6457 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6458 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6459 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6461 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6463 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6465 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6466 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6468 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6469 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6470 used to pick articles.
6472 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6473 another have been added.
6475 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6477 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6478 generating lines in buffers.
6480 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6483 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6485 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6487 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6489 *** Scores can be decayed.
6491 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6493 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6494 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6496 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6499 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6501 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6502 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6504 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6506 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6507 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6509 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6510 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6512 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6515 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6516 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6518 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6520 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6522 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6524 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6526 Use the `Y c' command.
6528 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6530 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6532 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6534 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6535 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6537 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6539 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6541 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6542 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6544 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6546 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6547 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6548 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6549 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6552 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6553 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6554 particular news group. This can be done by:
6556 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6558 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6559 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6560 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6561 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6562 for reading and posting).
6564 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6565 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6566 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6567 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6570 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6571 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6573 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6574 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6575 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6576 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6577 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6579 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6580 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6584 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6585 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6586 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6587 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6588 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6591 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6592 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6593 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6594 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6595 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6596 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6598 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6599 of the current buffer.
6601 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6602 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6603 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6605 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6606 style that the Python developers like.
6608 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6609 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6610 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6614 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6615 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6616 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6618 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6619 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6622 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6623 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6625 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6626 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6627 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6628 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6630 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6631 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6633 ** Calendar changes.
6635 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6636 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6637 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6641 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6643 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6645 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6646 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6647 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6648 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6649 It defaults to `letter'.
6650 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6652 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6653 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6654 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6656 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6657 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6660 *** Horizontal layout
6662 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6663 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6664 All are measured in points.
6668 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6669 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6670 All are measured in points.
6674 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6675 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6676 margin above the text.
6678 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6679 framing box is printed around the header.
6681 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6682 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6684 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6685 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6686 `ps-header-font-size'.
6690 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6691 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6692 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6693 elements to this alist.
6695 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6696 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6698 ** hideshow changes.
6700 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6703 *** Support for java-mode added.
6705 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6706 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6708 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6709 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6710 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6712 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6713 robust and a lot faster.
6715 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6717 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6718 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6719 documentation for more details.
6721 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6723 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6724 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6725 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6726 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6727 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6729 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6730 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6731 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6732 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6738 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6739 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6740 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6741 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6742 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6743 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6745 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6747 *** Maximum decoration
6749 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6750 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6751 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6752 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6753 to get the old behavior.
6757 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6759 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6760 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6762 *** Configurable support
6764 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6765 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6766 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6767 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6768 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6769 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6770 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6772 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6773 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6774 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6776 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6778 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6779 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6782 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6784 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6790 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6791 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6792 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6793 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6795 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6797 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6798 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6799 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6801 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6803 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6804 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6805 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6806 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6807 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6808 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6809 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6811 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6812 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6813 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6814 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6815 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6816 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6818 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6820 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6821 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6822 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6823 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6825 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6828 ** Ada mode changes.
6830 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6831 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6832 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6833 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6836 *** There are two new commands:
6837 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6838 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6840 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6841 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6842 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6844 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6845 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6846 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6848 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6849 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6850 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6851 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6853 ** Scheme mode changes.
6855 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6856 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6857 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6858 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6861 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6862 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6863 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6864 variables as buffer-local variables.
6866 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6869 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6871 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6872 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6873 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6874 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6876 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6877 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6880 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6881 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6882 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6883 option takes precedence.
6885 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6886 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6887 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6889 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6890 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6893 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6894 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6896 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6897 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6900 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6901 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6902 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6903 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6904 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6905 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6907 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6908 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6909 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6910 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6912 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6913 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6914 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6915 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6916 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6918 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6919 since it applies only to the current frame.
6921 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6922 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6923 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6925 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6926 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6927 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6928 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6929 instead of just the file you are editing.
6933 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6934 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6935 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6936 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6937 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6940 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6941 knows which kind of label is needed.
6943 C-c ) reftex-reference
6944 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6945 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6947 C-c [ reftex-citation
6948 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6949 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6951 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6952 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6955 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6956 can quickly jump to every section.
6958 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6959 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6960 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6961 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6962 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6964 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6966 *** Info documentation is now available.
6968 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6969 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6971 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6972 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6974 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6975 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6977 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6978 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6979 appropriate functions.
6981 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6982 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6984 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6987 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6988 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6990 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6993 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6994 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6995 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6997 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6998 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6999 prefixed with `ALT'.
7001 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
7002 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
7003 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
7006 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
7007 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
7008 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
7010 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
7011 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
7013 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
7014 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
7015 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
7017 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
7019 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
7021 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
7024 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
7025 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
7028 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
7031 *** Added support for imenu.
7033 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
7034 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
7035 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
7036 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
7038 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
7039 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
7041 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
7043 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
7045 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
7046 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
7047 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
7050 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
7051 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
7053 ** browse-url changes
7055 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
7056 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
7057 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
7058 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
7059 customization variables.
7061 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
7063 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
7064 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
7065 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
7069 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
7070 pops up the Info file for this command.
7072 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
7073 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
7074 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
7077 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
7078 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
7079 files in the same directory.
7081 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
7082 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
7083 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
7087 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
7088 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
7090 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
7091 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
7092 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
7093 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
7094 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
7095 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
7096 color when Viper is in insert state.
7097 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
7098 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
7099 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
7103 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
7104 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
7105 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
7106 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
7107 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
7109 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
7111 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
7112 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
7114 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
7115 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
7116 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
7118 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
7119 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
7120 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
7121 methods and protocols.
7123 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
7124 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
7125 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
7128 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
7129 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
7130 at least M times and as many as N times.
7132 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
7133 in files has changed slightly.
7135 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
7136 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
7137 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
7138 with old time-stamp-format values.
7140 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7141 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7142 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7145 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7146 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7147 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7148 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7149 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7150 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7152 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7153 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7154 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7156 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7157 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7158 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7159 recommended now will continue to work then.
7161 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7164 ** There are some additional major modes:
7166 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7167 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7168 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7170 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7171 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7174 ** New Lisp packages include:
7176 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7178 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7179 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7181 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7183 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7186 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7187 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7190 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7191 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7192 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7193 strings or comments.
7195 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7196 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7197 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7198 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7201 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7202 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7204 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7205 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7207 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7209 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7210 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7212 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7214 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7216 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7218 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7219 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7221 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7222 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7223 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7224 original place after inserting the copy.
7226 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7229 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7230 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7231 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7233 Enable mouse-drag with:
7234 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7236 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7238 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7239 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7241 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7242 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7246 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7247 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7248 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7249 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7250 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7251 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7252 instance) and vice versa.
7254 To use this package load it using
7255 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7256 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7257 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7258 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7259 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7260 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7262 *** Interface to ph.
7264 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7266 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7267 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7270 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7272 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7273 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7274 while the real cursor does not move.
7276 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7277 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7279 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7280 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7284 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7285 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7286 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7287 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7289 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7291 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7293 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7295 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7296 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7297 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7298 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7299 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7301 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7302 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7303 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7304 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7305 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7306 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7308 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7310 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7311 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7312 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7313 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7315 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7316 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7318 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7319 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7322 ** Basic Lisp changes
7324 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7325 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7327 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7328 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7331 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7333 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7335 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7336 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7338 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7339 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7342 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7344 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7346 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7348 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7349 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7350 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7353 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7354 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7355 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7357 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7358 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7359 adding one of these suffixes.
7361 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7362 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7363 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7365 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7366 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7368 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7370 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7371 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7373 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7374 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7376 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7378 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7379 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7381 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7382 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7383 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7384 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7386 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7387 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7390 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7391 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7392 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7395 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7396 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7399 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7401 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7402 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7403 Then it returns that string.
7405 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7407 (with-output-to-string
7408 (princ "The buffer is ")
7409 (princ (buffer-name)))
7411 returns "The buffer is foo".
7413 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7416 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7417 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7418 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7420 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7421 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7423 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7424 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7425 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7426 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7427 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7428 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7430 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7431 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7432 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7435 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7436 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7437 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7438 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7439 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7441 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7442 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7443 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7444 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7446 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7447 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7449 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7451 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7452 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7453 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7454 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7457 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7458 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7461 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7463 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7464 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7465 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7466 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7467 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7469 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7471 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7472 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7473 more than the number of characters.
7475 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7476 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7477 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7478 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7479 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7480 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7482 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7483 and returns a string containing those characters.
7485 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7486 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7487 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7488 character, sref signals an error.
7490 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7491 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7492 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7494 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7495 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7496 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7498 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7499 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7500 to a vector of the characters in it.
7502 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7503 of a string. You call it as follows:
7505 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7507 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7508 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7509 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7510 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7511 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7513 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7514 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7516 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7517 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7519 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7520 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7521 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7522 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7524 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7526 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7528 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7529 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7530 are not included in the resulting value.
7532 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7533 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7534 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7535 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7537 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7538 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7539 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7540 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7541 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7542 column START-COLUMN.
7544 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7545 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7546 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7547 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7548 changed text, before the change.
7550 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7551 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7552 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7554 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7556 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7558 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7559 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7561 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7562 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7563 which identify the character within that character set.
7565 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7566 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7567 opposite of split-char.
7569 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7570 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7572 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7573 of all the characters in a string.
7575 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7576 and specifying coding systems.
7578 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7579 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7580 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7581 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7582 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7583 as what to do about code conversion.)
7585 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7586 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7588 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7589 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7590 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7592 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7593 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7594 to match against a file name.
7596 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7597 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7598 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7599 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7600 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7601 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7603 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7604 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7606 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7607 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7609 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7610 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7611 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7614 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7615 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7616 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7617 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7618 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7619 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7621 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7622 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7624 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7625 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7626 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7627 start the subprocess.
7629 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7630 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7631 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7632 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7633 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7635 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7636 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7639 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7640 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7641 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7642 connection permanently or until overridden.
7644 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7645 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7646 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7647 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7648 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7649 system for one operation at a time.
7651 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7652 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7654 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7655 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7656 The value is a cons cell,
7657 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7658 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7659 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7660 input to the subprocess.
7662 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7663 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7665 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7666 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7667 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7669 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7670 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7671 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7672 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7675 Thus, instead of writing
7677 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7678 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7680 you would now write this:
7682 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7683 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7687 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7688 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7689 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7690 for a description of them.
7692 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7693 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7695 (defgroup ispell nil
7696 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7699 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7700 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7701 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7702 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7703 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7705 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7706 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7707 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7708 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7709 first-level subgroups.
7711 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7713 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7714 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7718 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7719 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7720 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7721 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7722 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7723 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7725 ** Text property changes
7727 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7730 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7731 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7732 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7733 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7734 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7736 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7737 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7738 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7739 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7741 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7742 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7743 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7745 ** Changes in invisibility features
7747 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7748 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7749 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7750 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7751 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7752 make the overlay visible.
7754 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7755 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7756 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7757 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7758 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7759 t when it should hide it.
7761 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7763 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7764 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7765 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7766 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7767 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7768 Here is an example of how to do this:
7770 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7771 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7772 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7773 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7776 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7779 ;; When done with the overlays:
7780 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7782 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7784 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7786 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7787 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7788 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7789 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7791 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7792 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7793 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7795 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7796 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7798 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7799 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7801 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7802 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7803 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7805 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7806 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7807 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7808 determine the syntax type of the character.
7810 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7811 of the current buffer.
7813 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7814 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7815 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7817 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7818 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7819 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7820 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7821 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7823 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7826 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7827 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7828 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7830 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7831 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7832 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7833 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7834 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7836 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7837 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7838 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7840 ** Changes in face features
7842 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7843 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7845 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7846 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7848 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7849 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7851 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7852 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7854 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7855 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7856 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7857 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7860 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7861 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7863 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7865 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7866 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7867 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7868 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7870 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7873 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7874 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7876 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7877 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7879 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7880 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7882 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7883 character code conversion as well as other things.
7885 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7886 (formerly it did not).
7888 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7889 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7891 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7892 instead of constant strings.
7894 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7895 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7896 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7898 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7899 in the same way as before.
7901 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7902 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7903 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7905 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7906 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7907 else, and returns nil.
7909 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7910 directory cannot be listed.
7912 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7914 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7915 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7916 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7917 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7920 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7921 It is available through the history command M-n.
7923 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7924 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7925 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7926 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7927 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7929 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7930 argument in this way.
7932 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7933 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7934 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7936 ** Echo area features
7938 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7939 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7940 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7941 after the echo area is cleared.
7943 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7944 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7946 ** Keyboard input features
7948 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7949 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7951 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7952 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7955 ** Frame-related changes
7957 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7958 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7959 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7961 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7962 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7963 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7965 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7966 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7967 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7968 in the selected frame.
7970 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7971 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7972 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7974 ** X Windows features
7976 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7977 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7978 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7980 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7981 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7983 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7984 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7985 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7987 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7988 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7990 ** Subprocess features
7992 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7993 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7996 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7997 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7999 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
8000 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
8002 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
8003 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
8005 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
8006 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
8007 goes after the other menu items.
8009 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
8010 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
8011 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
8014 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
8015 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
8017 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
8018 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
8021 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
8022 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
8023 but its hook is still run.
8025 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
8026 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
8028 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
8029 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
8030 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
8032 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
8033 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
8034 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
8037 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
8038 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
8040 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
8041 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
8042 functions like display-time.
8044 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
8045 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
8047 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
8048 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
8049 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
8051 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
8052 if there is an error in compilation.
8054 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
8055 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
8056 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
8057 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
8059 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
8060 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
8061 the *scratch* buffer.
8063 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
8064 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
8065 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
8066 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
8068 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
8069 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
8070 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
8072 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
8073 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
8074 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
8075 and compose-mail-other-frame.
8077 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
8078 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
8079 full name of the specified user will be returned.
8081 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
8082 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
8083 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
8084 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
8085 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
8088 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
8089 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
8090 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
8091 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
8093 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
8094 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
8095 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
8096 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
8098 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
8100 ** imenu.el changes.
8102 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
8103 item from menu created by imenu.
8105 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
8106 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
8107 select one of those items.
8109 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8111 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
8113 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
8114 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
8116 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
8117 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
8118 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
8120 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
8122 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
8123 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
8125 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8126 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
8127 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
8128 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
8129 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
8132 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
8133 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
8135 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
8136 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
8137 as in previous Emacs versions.
8139 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
8140 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8141 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8144 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8145 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8146 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8147 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8150 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8151 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8152 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8153 line and then executing the macro.
8155 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8157 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8158 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8159 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8164 *** Font Lock support modes
8166 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8167 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8168 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8169 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8170 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8172 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8174 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8180 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8181 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8182 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8183 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8184 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8185 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8186 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8188 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8190 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8192 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8194 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8196 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8199 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8204 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8205 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8206 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8207 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8209 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8210 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8212 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8213 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8216 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8217 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8219 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8221 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8223 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8225 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8228 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8230 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8232 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8234 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8236 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8239 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8241 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8243 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8245 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8247 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8249 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8251 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8253 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8256 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8258 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8261 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8263 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8264 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8266 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8268 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8270 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8272 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8274 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8277 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8279 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8280 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8282 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8283 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8284 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8286 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8287 articles with the `*' command.
8289 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8291 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8293 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8295 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8297 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8298 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8300 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8303 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8305 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8307 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8309 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8311 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8313 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8315 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8317 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8319 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8321 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8322 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8324 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8327 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8329 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8330 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8332 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8334 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8336 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8338 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8341 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8343 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8345 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8346 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8348 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8350 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8352 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8354 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8356 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8358 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8361 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8363 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8364 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8365 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8368 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8371 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8374 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8375 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8378 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8379 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8380 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8381 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8382 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8385 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8387 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8389 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8390 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8391 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8392 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8393 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8395 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8396 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8397 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8399 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8401 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8402 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8403 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8404 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8405 chapter of the manual for details.
8407 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8408 customization variables take effect.
8410 ** Marking with the mouse.
8412 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8413 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8414 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8416 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8418 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8420 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8421 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8423 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8424 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8425 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8426 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8427 applications, these problems are significant.
8429 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8430 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8431 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8432 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8433 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8435 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8436 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8438 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8439 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8440 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8441 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8442 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8443 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8445 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8447 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8448 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8449 minibuffer contains.
8451 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8453 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8454 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8455 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8456 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8458 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8459 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8460 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8461 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8463 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8464 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8466 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8467 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8468 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8470 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8471 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8472 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8473 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8475 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8477 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8478 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8480 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8482 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8483 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8484 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8485 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8486 immediately after the selected one.
8488 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8489 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8491 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8493 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8494 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8495 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8496 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8499 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8500 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8503 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8504 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8505 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8506 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8507 now that the bug is fixed.
8509 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8511 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8512 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8513 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8514 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8516 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8517 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8518 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8519 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8521 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8522 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8523 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8525 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8526 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8527 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8528 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8531 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8532 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8534 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8535 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8536 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8537 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8539 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8540 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8541 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8542 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8543 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8544 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8546 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8547 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8548 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8549 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8551 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8552 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8553 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8555 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8556 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8557 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8558 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8559 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8560 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8561 to a limitation in font-lock).
8563 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8565 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8566 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8567 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8570 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8571 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8573 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8575 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8577 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8579 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8581 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8582 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8583 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8584 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8585 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8586 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8588 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8591 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8592 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8594 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8599 *** Global Font Lock mode
8601 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8602 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8603 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8604 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8605 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8607 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8609 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8613 *** Local Refontification
8615 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8616 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8617 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8618 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8620 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8621 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8622 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8623 above and below point.
8625 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8629 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8630 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8631 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8632 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8633 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8636 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8638 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8639 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8641 ** hide-show changes.
8643 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8644 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8647 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8648 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8650 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8651 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8652 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8656 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8657 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8659 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8660 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8662 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8664 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8665 pressing both mouse buttons.
8667 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8668 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8671 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8674 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8676 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8677 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8679 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8681 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8683 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8685 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8687 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8689 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8691 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8692 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8693 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8694 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8695 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8697 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8699 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8700 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8701 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8704 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8707 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8709 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8710 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8712 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8713 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8715 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8716 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8717 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8719 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8720 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8723 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8725 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8726 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8727 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8729 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8730 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8731 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8733 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8734 up if too much time passes.
8736 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8738 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8739 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8740 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8743 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8744 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8745 call looks like this:
8747 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8749 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8750 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8751 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8754 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8755 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8758 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8759 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8760 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8761 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8763 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8764 idle for SECS seconds.
8766 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8767 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8768 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8771 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8772 there is no answer within a certain time.
8774 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8776 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8777 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8778 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8780 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8781 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8782 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8783 arguments in between are ignored.
8785 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8786 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8788 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8789 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8790 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8791 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8794 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8795 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8796 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8797 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8798 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8799 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8801 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8802 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8803 systems with limited file name syntax.
8805 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8806 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8807 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8810 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8811 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8812 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8814 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8815 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8816 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8817 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8818 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8820 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8821 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8822 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8824 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8825 marker from its buffer position.
8827 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8828 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8829 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8831 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8832 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8833 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8834 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8835 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8836 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8838 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8839 errors that happen often during editing.
8841 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8842 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8843 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8845 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8846 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8848 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8849 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8850 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8851 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8852 and not get-buffer-window.
8854 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8855 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8856 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8858 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8859 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8860 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8861 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8862 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8863 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8864 over and over for the same text.
8866 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8868 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8869 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8871 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8874 in addition to the normal
8878 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8879 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8880 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8884 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8886 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8887 Copyright information:
8889 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8891 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8892 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8893 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8894 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8896 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8897 of this document, or of portions of it,
8898 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8899 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8903 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"