]> code.delx.au - gnu-emacs/blob - etc/NEWS
use-dialog-box <- use-dialogs
[gnu-emacs] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
13 \f
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
15
16 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
17 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
18 .emacs file.
19
20 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
21 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
22
23 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
24 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
25 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
26
27 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
28 is running in batch mode. For example,
29
30 (message "%s" (read t))
31
32 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
33 to standard output.
34
35 ** Faces and frame parameters.
36
37 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
38 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
39 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
40 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
41 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
42 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
43 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
44
45 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
46 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
47 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
48 `default' face and vice versa.
49
50 ** New face `menu'.
51
52 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
53 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
54 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
55
56 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
57
58 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
59 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
60 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
61 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
62
63 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
64 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
65 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
66
67 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
68 `ScreenGamma'.
69
70 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
71
72 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
73 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
74 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
75 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
76 the text.
77
78 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
79
80 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
81 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
82 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
83 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
84 specify a font.
85
86 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
87 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
88 under Lisp changes, below.
89
90 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
91
92 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
93 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
94 it is hollow.
95
96 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
97 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
98 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
99 customizing face `fringe'.
100
101 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
102 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
103
104 ** LessTif support.
105
106 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
107 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
108
109 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
110
111 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
112 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
113 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
114 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
115 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
116 Emacs.
117
118 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
119 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
120 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
121 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
122 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
123 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
124
125 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
126 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
127 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
128 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
129 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
130 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
131
132 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
133 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
134 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
135 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
136 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
137
138 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
139
140 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
141 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
142 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
143
144 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
145
146 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
147 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
148 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
149 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
150 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
151 whitespace.
152
153 ** Busy-cursor.
154
155 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
156 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
157
158 ** Blinking cursor
159
160 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
161 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
162 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
163 the group `cursor'.
164
165 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
166
167 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
168 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
169 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
170 details.
171
172 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
173 have to do anything to activate it.
174
175 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
176
177 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
178 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
179 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
180 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
181
182 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
183
184 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
185
186 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
187
188 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
189 one.
190
191 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
192 Motif.
193
194 ** Hscrolling in C code.
195
196 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
197
198 ** Tool bar support.
199
200 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
201 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
202
203 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
204
205 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
206 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
207 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
208 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
209 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
210
211 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
212
213 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
214 buffers.
215
216 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
217 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
218
219 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
220
221 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
222 toggles the read-only status.
223
224 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
225
226 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
227
228 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
229 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
230 non-nil.
231
232 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
233
234 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
235 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
236 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
237 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
238 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
239 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
240
241 ** Sound support
242
243 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
244 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
245 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
246 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
247 to enable sound support.
248
249 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
250 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
251 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
252 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
253 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
254 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
255
256 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
257
258 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
259
260 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
261 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
262 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
263
264 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
265 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
266
267 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
268 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
269 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
270
271 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
272
273 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
274 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
275 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
276 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
277
278 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
279 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
280 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
281 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
282
283 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
284 notably at the end of lines.
285
286 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
287 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
288
289 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
290 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
291 after each match to get the replacement text.
292
293 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
294
295 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
296 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
297 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
298 by setting the following variable:
299
300 - User option: max-mini-window-height
301
302 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
303 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
304 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
305
306 Default is 0.25.
307
308 ** Comint (subshell) changes
309
310 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
311 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
312
313 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
314 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
315 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
316
317 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
318 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
319 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
320
321 ** Changes to TeX mode
322
323 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
324 `latex-mode'.
325
326 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
327
328 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
329 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
330 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
331 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
332 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
333 can be edited from that buffer.
334
335 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
336 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
337 `A' to use all marked entries).
338
339 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
340 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
341
342 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
343 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
344 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
345 been cited.
346
347 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
348 has the following new features:
349
350 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
351 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
352 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
353 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
354
355 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
356 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
357 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
358 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
359 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
360 defaults to 1.
361
362 ** Tooltips.
363
364 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
365 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
366 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
367
368 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
369 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
370 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
371 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
372
373 ** Customize changes
374
375 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
376 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
377 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
378
379 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
380 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
381 default).
382
383 ** New features in evaluation commands
384
385 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
386 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
387 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
388 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
389 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
390
391 ** Dired changes
392
393 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
394 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
395 is, delete only empty directories.
396
397 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
398 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
399 copy directories recursively.
400
401 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
402 use the -f option when sending mail.
403
404 ** Isearch changes
405
406 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
407 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
408
409 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
410
411 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
412 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
413 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
414 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
415 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
416 `secondary-selection'.
417
418 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
419 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
420 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
421 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
422 usual snappy response.
423
424 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
425 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
426 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
427 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
428
429
430 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
431 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
432 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
433
434 ** Shell script mode changes.
435
436 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
437 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
438 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
439
440 ** Etags changes.
441
442 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
443
444 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
445 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
446 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
447 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
448 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
449
450 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
451 declarations when given the --declarations option.
452
453 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
454 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
455
456 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
457 types.
458
459 *** In Fortran, procedure is no more tagged.
460
461 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
462
463 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
464 are now tagged.
465
466 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
467 variables are tagged.
468
469 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
470
471 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
472 for PSWrap.
473
474 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
475 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
476 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
477
478 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
479 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
480 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
481 currently no specific input method support for them.
482
483 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sqeuence-nos' to
484 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
485 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
486
487 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
488
489 ** New modes and packages
490
491 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
492
493 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
494
495 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
496
497 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
498 Pascal) language.
499
500 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
501 the text at point.
502
503 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
504
505 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
506
507 *** whitespace.el ???
508
509 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
510 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
511 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
512 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
513 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
514 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
515 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
516
517 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
518
519 Here is an example of columns:
520
521 horse apple bus
522 dog pineapple car EXTRA
523 porcupine strawberry airplane
524
525 Doing the following settings:
526
527 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
528 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
529 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
530 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
531
532
533 Selecting the lines above and typing:
534
535 M-x delimit-columns-region
536
537 It results:
538
539 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
540 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
541 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
542
543 delim-col has the following options:
544
545 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
546 before all columns.
547
548 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
549 between each column.
550
551 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
552 after all columns.
553
554 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
555 each column.
556
557 delim-col has the following commands:
558
559 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
560 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
561
562 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
563 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
564 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
565
566 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
567
568 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
569
570 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
571 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
572
573 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
574 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
575
576 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
577 text.
578
579 ** Withdrawn packages
580
581 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
582 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
583
584 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
585 \f
586 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
587
588 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
589 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
590 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
591 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
592
593 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
594 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
595 specified table.
596
597 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
598
599 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
600 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
601 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
602 what BODY returns.
603
604 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
605 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
606
607 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
608 instead of being optional.
609
610 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
611 modify read-only text.
612
613 ** New functions and variables for locales.
614
615 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
616 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
617 time functions like strftime. The new variables
618 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
619 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
620
621 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
622 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
623 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
624 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
625 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
626 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
627 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
628
629 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
630 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
631 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
632 start sequences.
633
634 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
635 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
636
637 ** New function `propertize'
638
639 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
640 strings with text properties.
641
642 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
643
644 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
645 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
646 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
647 specified value of that property. Example:
648
649 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
650
651 +++
652 ** push and pop macros.
653
654 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
655 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
656 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
657
658 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
659 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
660 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
661
662 +++
663 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
664 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
665
666 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
667 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
668 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
669 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
670 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
671 space, and DEL.
672 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
673 and DEL.
674 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
675 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
676 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
677 [:alpha:] matches letters.
678 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
679 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
680 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
681 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
682 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
683 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
684 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
685 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
686 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
687 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
688 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
689
690 +++
691 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
692
693 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
694
695 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
696
697 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
698 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
699
700 :test TEST
701
702 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
703 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
704 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
705
706 :size SIZE
707
708 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
709 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
710
711 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
712
713 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
714 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
715 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
716 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
717 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
718
719 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
720
721 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
722 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
723 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
724
725 :weakness WEAK
726
727 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
728 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
729 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
730 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
731
732 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
733
734 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
735
736 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
737
738 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
739
740 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
741
742 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
743 values are shared.
744
745 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
746
747 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
748
749 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
750
751 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
752
753 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
754
755 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
756
757 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
758
759 Returns the size of TABLE.
760
761 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
762
763 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
764
765 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
766
767 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
768
769 - Function: clrhash TABLE
770
771 Clear TABLE.
772
773 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
774
775 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
776 not found.
777
778 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
779
780 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
781 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
782
783 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
784
785 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
786
787 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
788
789 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
790 arguments KEY and VALUE.
791
792 - Function: sxhash OBJ
793
794 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
795
796 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
797
798 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
799 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
800 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
801 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
802 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
803
804 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
805
806 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
807 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
808 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
809
810 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
811 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
812
813 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
814 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
815
816 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
817 (sxhash (upcase a)))
818
819 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
820 'case-fold-string-hash))
821
822 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
823
824 +++
825 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
826
827 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
828 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
829 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
830
831 +++
832 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
833
834 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
835 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
836
837 +++
838 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
839 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
840 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
841 is too short to reach that column.
842
843 +++
844 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
845 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
846 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
847 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
848
849 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
850 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
851 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
852
853 +++
854 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
855 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
856
857 +++
858 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
859 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
860
861 +++
862 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
863 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
864 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
865 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
866 temporary-file-directory instead.
867
868 +++
869 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
870 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
871 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
872 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
873
874 +++
875 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
876 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
877
878 +++
879 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
880
881 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
882 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
883 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
884
885 +++
886 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
887
888 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
889 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
890 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
891 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
892 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
893 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
894
895 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
896 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
897 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
898 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
899
900 +++
901 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
902
903 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
904 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
905 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
906 result string.
907
908 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
909 string where arguments appear in the result string.
910
911 Example:
912
913 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
914 (s2 "world"))
915 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
916 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
917 (format s1 s2))
918
919 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
920
921 +++
922 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
923
924 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
925 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
926 argument in it.
927
928 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
929 (arg "world"))
930 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
931 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
932 (message msg arg))
933
934 +++
935 ** Sound support
936
937 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
938 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
939
940 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
941 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
942 to enable sound support.
943
944 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
945 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
946 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
947 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
948 sound to play, before playing the sound.
949
950 The following sound properties are supported:
951
952 - `:file FILE'
953
954 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
955 searched relative to `data-directory'.
956
957 - `:volume VOLUME'
958
959 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
960 0..1. This property is optional.
961
962 Other properties are ignored.
963
964 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
965 \f
966 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
967
968 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
969 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
970 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
971 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
972
973 ** New face implementation.
974
975 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
976 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
977
978 +++
979 *** New faces.
980
981 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
982
983 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
984
985 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
986 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
987
988 3. Font height in 1/10pt
989
990 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
991
992 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
993
994 6. Foreground color.
995
996 7. Background color.
997
998 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
999
1000 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
1001
1002 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
1003
1004 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
1005
1006 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
1007 color.
1008
1009 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
1010 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
1011
1012 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
1013 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
1014 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
1015 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
1016 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
1017 attributes mentioned above.
1018
1019 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
1020 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
1021 created frames.
1022
1023 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
1024 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
1025 `fully-specified'.
1026
1027 +++
1028 *** Face merging.
1029
1030 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
1031 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
1032 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
1033 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
1034 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
1035 results in a fully-specified face.
1036
1037 +++
1038 *** Face realization.
1039
1040 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
1041 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
1042 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
1043 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
1044 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
1045 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
1046
1047 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
1048 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
1049 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
1050 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
1051
1052 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
1053 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
1054 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
1055 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
1056 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
1057
1058 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
1059 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
1060 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
1061 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
1062 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
1063 Emacs.
1064
1065 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
1066 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
1067 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
1068 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
1069
1070 ++++
1071 **** Clearing face caches.
1072
1073 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
1074 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
1075 unused fonts.
1076
1077 +++
1078 *** Font selection.
1079
1080 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
1081 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
1082 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
1083
1084 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
1085 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
1086 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
1087 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
1088 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
1089
1090 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
1091 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
1092 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
1093
1094 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
1095
1096 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
1097 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
1098 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
1099 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
1100 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
1101 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
1102 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
1103
1104 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
1105 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
1106 face doesn't exist.
1107
1108 +++
1109 **** Scalable fonts
1110
1111 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
1112 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1113 servers.
1114
1115 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1116 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1117 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1118 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1119 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1120 that list. Example:
1121
1122 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1123
1124 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1125
1126 +++
1127 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1128
1129 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1130
1131 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1132 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1133 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1134
1135 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1136 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1137 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1138 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1139 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1140 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1141 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1142 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1143 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1144 of the face font sort order.
1145
1146 - Function: x-font-family-list
1147
1148 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1149 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1150 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1151 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1152
1153 - Variable: font-list-limit
1154
1155 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1156 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1157 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1158
1159 +++
1160 *** Setting face attributes.
1161
1162 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1163 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1164 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1165 `face-attribute'.
1166
1167 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1168 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1169
1170 The following attributes are recognized:
1171
1172 `:family'
1173
1174 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1175 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1176 and `?' are allowed.
1177
1178 `:width'
1179
1180 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1181 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1182 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1183 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1184
1185 `:height'
1186
1187 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1188 1/10 pt.
1189
1190 `:weight'
1191
1192 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1193 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1194 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1195
1196 `:slant'
1197
1198 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1199 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1200 `reverse-oblique'.
1201
1202 `:foreground', `:background'
1203
1204 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1205
1206 `:underline'
1207
1208 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1209 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1210 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1211 don't underline.
1212
1213 `:overline'
1214
1215 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1216 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1217 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1218 overline.
1219
1220 `:strike-through'
1221
1222 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1223 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1224 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1225 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1226
1227 `:box'
1228
1229 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1230 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1231 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1232 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1233 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1234 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1235 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1236 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1237 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1238 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1239 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1240 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1241 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1242 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1243 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1244 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1245 box.
1246
1247 `:inverse-video'
1248
1249 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1250 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1251
1252 `:stipple'
1253
1254 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1255 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1256 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1257 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1258 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1259 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1260
1261 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1262 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1263
1264 `:font'
1265
1266 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1267 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1268 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1269 versions of Emacs.
1270
1271 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1272 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1273 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1274
1275 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1276 `defface'.
1277
1278 *** Face attributes and X resources
1279
1280 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1281 from X resources:
1282
1283 Face attribute X resource class
1284 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1285 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1286 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1287 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1288 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1289 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1290 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1291 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1292 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1293 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1294 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1295 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1296 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1297 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1298 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1299 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1300 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1301 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1302 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1303 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1304
1305 +++
1306 *** Text property `face'.
1307
1308 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1309 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1310 specification can be
1311
1312 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1313
1314 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1315 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1316 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1317 for face attribute names.
1318
1319 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1320 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1321 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1322
1323 +++
1324 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1325
1326 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1327 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1328 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1329 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1330 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1331 used to clear the mapping table.
1332
1333 +++
1334 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1335
1336 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1337
1338 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1339 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1340 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1341
1342 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1343
1344 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1345 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1346 text-property.
1347
1348 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1349 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1350 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1351 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1352 commands continue into the next field if repeated.
1353
1354 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1355 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
1356 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1357
1358 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
1359
1360 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
1361
1362 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
1363 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1364 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
1365 constrained position if that is is different.
1366
1367 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
1368 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
1369 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
1370 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
1371 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1372 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
1373 fields.
1374
1375 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
1376 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
1377 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
1378 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
1379 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
1380
1381 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
1382
1383 Erases the field surrounding POS.
1384 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1385 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1386
1387 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1388
1389 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
1390 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1391 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1392 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
1393 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
1394
1395 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
1396
1397 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
1398 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1399 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1400 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
1401 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
1402
1403 - Function: field-string &optional POS
1404
1405 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
1406 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1407 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1408
1409 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
1410
1411 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
1412 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
1413 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
1414
1415 +++
1416 ** Image support.
1417
1418 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1419 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1420 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1421 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1422
1423 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1424 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1425 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1426 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1427 area.
1428
1429 IMAGE is an image specification.
1430
1431 *** Image specifications
1432
1433 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1434 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1435 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1436 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
1437 described below are ignored.
1438
1439 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1440
1441 `:ascent ASCENT'
1442
1443 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1444 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1445
1446 `:margin MARGIN'
1447
1448 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1449 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1450
1451 `:relief RELIEF'
1452
1453 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1454 around an image.
1455
1456 `:algorithm ALGO'
1457
1458 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1459 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1460 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1461 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1462
1463 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1464
1465 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1466 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1467 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1468 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1469 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1470 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1471 background of the image.
1472
1473 `:file FILE'
1474
1475 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1476 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1477 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1478 may be present in the image specification.
1479
1480 *** Supported image types
1481
1482 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1483
1484 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1485 properties supported are
1486
1487 `:foreground FG'
1488
1489 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1490 is the frame's foreground.
1491
1492 `:background FG'
1493
1494 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1495 the frame's background color.
1496
1497 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1498 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1499 instead of a `:file' property.
1500
1501 `:width WIDTH'
1502
1503 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1504
1505 `:height HEIGHT'
1506
1507 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1508
1509 `:data DATA'
1510
1511 DATA must be either
1512
1513 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1514 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1515
1516 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1517
1518 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1519 bitmap.
1520
1521 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1522
1523 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1524 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1525 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1526 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1527
1528 Additional image properties supported are:
1529
1530 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1531
1532 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1533 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1534 name.
1535
1536 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1537 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1538
1539 `:data DATA'
1540
1541 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1542 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1543
1544 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1545 to display compressed images.
1546
1547 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1548
1549 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1550 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1551 defined.
1552
1553 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1554
1555 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1556 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1557 properties defined.
1558
1559 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1560
1561 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1562 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1563 properties defined.
1564
1565 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1566
1567 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1568 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1569
1570 Additional image properties supported are:
1571
1572 `:index INDEX'
1573
1574 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1575 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1576
1577 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1578 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1579 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1580 every 0.1 seconds.
1581
1582 (defun show-anim (file max)
1583 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1584 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1585
1586 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1587 (when (= idx max)
1588 (setq idx 0))
1589 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1590 (save-excursion
1591 (set-buffer buffer)
1592 (goto-char (point-min))
1593 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1594 (insert-image img "x"))
1595 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1596
1597 **** PNG, image type `png'
1598
1599 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1600 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1601 properties defined.
1602
1603 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1604
1605 Additional image properties supported are:
1606
1607 `:pt-width WIDTH'
1608
1609 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1610 integer. This is a required property.
1611
1612 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
1613
1614 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1615 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1616
1617 `:bounding-box BOX'
1618
1619 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1620 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1621 files. This is an required property.
1622
1623 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1624 lisp/gs.el.
1625
1626 *** Lisp interface.
1627
1628 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1629 which are supported in the current configuration.
1630
1631 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1632 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1633 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1634 manually.
1635
1636 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1637
1638 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1639 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1640 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1641 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1642 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1643 buffer.
1644
1645 +++
1646 ** Display margins.
1647
1648 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1649 and images.
1650
1651 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1652 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1653 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1654 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1655 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1656 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1657 of the display margins.
1658
1659 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1660 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1661 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1662 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1663 in this file).
1664
1665 +++
1666 ** Help display
1667
1668 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1669 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1670 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1671 that have a `help-echo' property.
1672
1673 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1674 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1675 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1676 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1677 tool-bar item is used.
1678
1679 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1680 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1681 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1682
1683 +++
1684 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1685
1686 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1687 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1688
1689 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1690 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1691 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1692 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1693 used.
1694
1695 (global-set-key [A-down]
1696 #'(lambda ()
1697 (interactive)
1698 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1699 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1700 (global-set-key [A-up]
1701 #'(lambda ()
1702 (interactive)
1703 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1704 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1705
1706 +++
1707 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1708
1709 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1710 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1711 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1712 is called with one argument, POS.
1713
1714 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1715 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1716 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1717 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1718 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1719
1720 +++
1721 ** Tool bar support.
1722
1723 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1724 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1725 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1726 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1727 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1728 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1729
1730 *** Tool bar item definitions
1731
1732 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1733 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1734 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1735
1736 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1737 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1738 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1739 property (see below).
1740
1741 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1742 binding are currently ignored.
1743
1744 The following properties are recognized:
1745
1746 `:enable FORM'.
1747
1748 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1749 or disabled.
1750
1751 `:visible FORM'
1752
1753 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1754
1755 `:filter FUNCTION'
1756
1757 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1758 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1759 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1760
1761 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1762
1763 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1764 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1765
1766 `:image IMAGES'
1767
1768 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1769 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1770 meaning of each of the four elements:
1771
1772 Index Use when item is
1773 ----------------------------------------
1774 0 enabled and selected
1775 1 enabled and deselected
1776 2 disabled and selected
1777 3 disabled and deselected
1778
1779 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1780
1781 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1782 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1783
1784 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1785
1786 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1787 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1788 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1789
1790 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1791 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1792
1793 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1794 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1795 pixels. Default is 1.
1796
1797 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1798 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1799
1800 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1801
1802 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1803 a tool bar item. If
1804
1805 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1806 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1807 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1808
1809 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1810
1811 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1812
1813 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1814 item.
1815
1816 ** Mode line changes.
1817
1818 +++
1819 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1820
1821 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1822 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1823 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1824
1825 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1826 a `local-map' text property.
1827
1828 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1829 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1830
1831 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1832 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1833 `local-map' property.
1834
1835 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1836 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1837 example.
1838
1839 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
1840 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
1841
1842 +++
1843 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1844 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1845
1846 +++
1847 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1848
1849 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1850 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1851 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1852 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1853 line.
1854
1855 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1856 `header-line'.
1857
1858 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1859 position in the header-line.
1860
1861 +++
1862 ** Text property `display'
1863
1864 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1865 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1866 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1867 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1868
1869 *** Variable width and height spaces
1870
1871 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1872 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1873 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1874 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1875 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1876 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1877 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1878
1879 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1880 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1881 properties described below.
1882
1883 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1884 characters having the `display' property.
1885
1886 - :width WIDTH
1887
1888 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1889 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1890
1891 - :relative-width FACTOR
1892
1893 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1894 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1895 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1896 width of that character by FACTOR.
1897
1898 - :align-to HPOS
1899
1900 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1901 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1902
1903 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1904
1905 - :height HEIGHT
1906
1907 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1908 normal line height.
1909
1910 - :relative-height FACTOR
1911
1912 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1913 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1914
1915 - :ascent ASCENT
1916
1917 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1918 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1919 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1920 equal to 100.
1921
1922 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1923
1924 *** Images
1925
1926 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1927 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1928 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1929 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1930 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1931 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1932 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1933 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1934 as display specification.
1935
1936 *** Other display properties
1937
1938 - :space-width FACTOR
1939
1940 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1941 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1942 integer or float.
1943
1944 - :height HEIGHT
1945
1946 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1947
1948 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1949 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1950 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1951 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1952 a font is available counts as a step.
1953
1954 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1955 as tall as the frame's default font.
1956
1957 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
1958 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
1959
1960 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
1961 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
1962
1963 - :raise FACTOR
1964
1965 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
1966 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
1967 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
1968 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
1969 `:height' subproperty.
1970
1971 *** Conditional display properties
1972
1973 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
1974 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
1975 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
1976 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
1977 the text having the `display' property.
1978
1979 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
1980 `(:when t SPEC)'.
1981
1982 +++
1983 ** New menu separator types.
1984
1985 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
1986 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
1987 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
1988 to specify other menu separator types.
1989
1990 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
1991
1992 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
1993 separator occurs.
1994
1995 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
1996
1997 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
1998
1999 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
2000
2001 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
2002
2003 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
2004
2005 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2006
2007 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
2008
2009 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
2010
2011 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
2012
2013 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
2014 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
2015
2016 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
2017
2018 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
2019
2020 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
2021
2022 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
2023
2024 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
2025
2026 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
2027
2028 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
2029
2030 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2031
2032 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
2033
2034 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
2035
2036 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
2037
2038 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
2039
2040 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
2041
2042 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
2043
2044 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
2045 the corresponding single-line separators.
2046
2047 +++
2048 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
2049
2050 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
2051 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
2052 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
2053 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
2054 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
2055 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
2056 default foreground is black.
2057
2058 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
2059 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
2060 `ScrollBarBackground').
2061
2062 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
2063 settings for scroll bar colors.
2064
2065 +++
2066 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
2067 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
2068
2069 ---
2070 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
2071 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
2072 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
2073 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
2074 the original window start.
2075
2076 ---
2077 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
2078 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
2079 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
2080
2081 +++
2082 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
2083
2084 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
2085 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
2086 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
2087 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
2088
2089 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
2090 fixed-width and fixed-height.
2091
2092 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
2093
2094 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
2095 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
2096 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
2097 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
2098 temporarily to nil, for example
2099
2100 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
2101 (enlarge-window 10))
2102
2103 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
2104 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
2105 ^L
2106 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
2107
2108 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
2109 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
2110 \f
2111 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
2112
2113 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
2114
2115 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
2116 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
2117 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
2118
2119 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
2120 is the one that is used.
2121
2122 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
2123 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
2124 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
2125 separate from the command's regular output.
2126 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
2127 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
2128 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
2129 the buffer name.
2130
2131 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
2132 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
2133 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
2134 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
2135
2136 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
2137 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
2138 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
2139 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
2140
2141 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
2142 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
2143 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
2144 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
2145
2146 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
2147 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
2148 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
2149 they never ignore case.
2150
2151 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
2152 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
2153 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
2154 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
2155 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
2156 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
2157 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
2158
2159 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
2160 the same format that was used in the file before.
2161
2162 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
2163 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
2164
2165 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
2166 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
2167 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
2168
2169 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
2170 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
2171 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
2172 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
2173 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
2174 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2175 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2176
2177 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2178 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2179 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2180 format. You can now customize these variables.
2181
2182 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2183 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2184 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2185 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2186
2187 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2188 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2189 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2190
2191 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2192 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2193 doesn't have any effect.
2194
2195 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2196 not one per buffer.
2197
2198 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2199 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2200 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2201
2202 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2203 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2204 `auto-show-mode' command.
2205
2206 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2207 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2208 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2209 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2210 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2211
2212 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2213 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2214
2215 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2216 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2217 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2218
2219 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2220 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2221 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2222 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2223
2224 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2225
2226 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2227 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2228 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2229 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2230 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2231
2232 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2233 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2234
2235 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2236 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2237 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2238 `?' on other systems.
2239
2240 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2241 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2242 Unix.
2243
2244 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2245 current codepage when it starts.
2246
2247 ** Mail changes
2248
2249 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2250 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2251 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2252 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2253 buffer-file-coding-system.
2254
2255 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2256 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2257 mail.
2258
2259 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2260 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2261 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2262 list of possible coding systems.
2263
2264 ** CC Mode changes
2265
2266 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2267 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2268 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2269 docstring for details.
2270
2271 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2272 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2273 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2274 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2275 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2276
2277 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2278 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2279
2280 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2281 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2282
2283 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2284 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2285 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2286 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2287 anonymous classes.
2288
2289 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2290 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2291
2292 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2293 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2294 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2295 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2296
2297 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2298 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2299 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2300 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2301 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2302
2303 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2304
2305 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2306
2307 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2308 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2309
2310 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2311
2312 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2313 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2314 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2315 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2316 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2317
2318 ** Gnus changes.
2319
2320 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2321 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2322 Gnus manual for the full story.
2323
2324 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2325 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2326 group, which is created automatically.
2327
2328 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2329 values.
2330
2331 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2332
2333 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2334 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2335
2336 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2337 `C-u C-c C-c'.
2338
2339 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2340
2341 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2342 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2343
2344 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2345
2346 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2347 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2348
2349 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2350 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2351
2352 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2353 control over simplification.
2354
2355 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2356
2357 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2358 limit.
2359
2360 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2361
2362 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2363
2364 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2365 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2366 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2367
2368 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2369 `a' forces normal posting method.
2370
2371 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2372 -- `W d'.
2373
2374 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2375 to a non-nil value.
2376
2377 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2378 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2379
2380 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2381 has been added.
2382
2383 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2384
2385 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2386
2387 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2388 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2389
2390 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2391 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2392
2393 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2394
2395 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2396 been added.
2397
2398 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2399 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2400
2401 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2402 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2403
2404 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2405
2406 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2407
2408 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2409
2410 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2411
2412 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2413 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2414 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2415
2416 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2417 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2418 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2419 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2420 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2421
2422 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2423 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2424 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2425 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2426
2427 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2428 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2429 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2430 mismatch.
2431
2432 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2433
2434 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2435 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2436
2437 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2438 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2439 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2440 removed from the label.
2441
2442 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2443 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2444
2445 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2446 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2447
2448 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2449 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2450 expressions.
2451
2452 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2453
2454 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2455
2456 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2457 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2458
2459 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2460 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2461 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2462
2463 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2464 changes with a special face.
2465
2466 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2467 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2468 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2469 \f
2470 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2471
2472 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2473 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2474 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2475 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2476 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2477
2478 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2479 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2480 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2481
2482 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2483 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2484 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2485 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2486 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2487 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2488 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2489 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2490 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2491
2492 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2493 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2494 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2495 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2496 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2497 program.
2498
2499 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2500 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2501 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2502 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2503 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2504 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2505
2506 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2507 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2508 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2509 was not documented clearly before.
2510
2511 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2512 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2513 \f
2514 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2515
2516 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2517 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2518 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2519 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2520
2521 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2522 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2523 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2524
2525 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2526
2527 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2528 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2529
2530 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2531 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2532 integers.
2533
2534 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2535 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2536 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2537 file names and attributes are returned.
2538
2539 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2540 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2541 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2542 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2543 returns the result.
2544
2545 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2546 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2547
2548 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2549
2550 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2551 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2552 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2553 optionally.
2554
2555 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2556 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2557
2558 **
2559 The new function process-running-child-p
2560 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2561 terminal to its own child process.
2562
2563 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2564 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2565 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2566 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2567
2568 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2569 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2570
2571 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2572 :included is an alias for :visible.
2573
2574 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2575 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2576 to move or copy menu entries.
2577
2578 ** Multibyte editing changes
2579
2580 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2581 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2582 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2583 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2584 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2585 (setq char (sref str idx)
2586 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2587 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2588
2589 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2590 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2591 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2592
2593 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2594 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2595 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2596
2597 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2598
2599 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2600 across the boundary.
2601
2602 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2603 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2604 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2605 contains 8-bit characters.
2606 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2607 contains invalid characters.
2608
2609 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2610 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2611 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2612 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2613 way.
2614
2615 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2616 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2617 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2618 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2619
2620 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2621 compose Thai characters in a string.
2622
2623 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2624 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2625 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2626 menus should always use the third argument.
2627
2628 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2629 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2630 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2631 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2632
2633 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2634 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2635 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2636 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2637
2638 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2639 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2640 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2641 echo area contents.
2642
2643 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2644
2645 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2646 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2647 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2648
2649 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2650 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2651 means to clear out that attribute.
2652
2653 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2654 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2655
2656 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2657 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2658 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2659 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2660
2661 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2662 the gap of the current buffer.
2663
2664 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2665 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2666 current buffer.
2667
2668 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2669 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2670 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2671 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2672 \f
2673 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2674
2675 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2676 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2677 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2678 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2679 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2680
2681 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2682 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2683 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2684 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2685 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2686
2687 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2688 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2689 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2690
2691 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2692 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2693 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2694 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2695 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2696 results.
2697
2698 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2699 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2700 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2701 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2702 \f
2703 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2704
2705 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2706 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2707 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2708 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2709
2710 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2711 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2712 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2713 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2714 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2715 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2716 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2717 region.
2718
2719 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2720 selective undo.
2721
2722 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2723 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2724 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2725 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2726 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2727
2728 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2729 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2730 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2731 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2732
2733 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2734 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2735 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2736 something that most users not do.
2737
2738 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2739 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2740 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2741 applications.
2742
2743 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2744 pasting operations.
2745
2746 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2747 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2748 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2749 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2750 `ps-printer-name'.
2751
2752 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2753 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2754 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2755 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2756 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2757 hits a new word.
2758
2759 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2760 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2761 to be confused by TeX commands.
2762
2763 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2764 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2765 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2766 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2767
2768 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2769 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2770 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2771 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2772 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2773
2774 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2775 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2776
2777 ** Changes in input method usage.
2778
2779 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2780 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2781 respectively.
2782
2783 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2784
2785 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2786 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2787
2788 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2789 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2790
2791 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2792
2793 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2794
2795 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2796 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2797
2798 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2799 given in the following case:
2800 o When you are using a complex input method.
2801 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2802
2803 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2804 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2805 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2806 setting it to t is helpful.
2807
2808 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2809
2810 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2811 keys:
2812 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2813 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2814 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2815 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2816 environment.
2817
2818 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2819 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2820 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2821 get
2822
2823 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2824
2825 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2826
2827 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2828 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2829
2830 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2831 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2832 its owner and group.
2833
2834 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2835 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2836
2837 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2838 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2839
2840 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2841 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2842 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2843 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2844
2845 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2846 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2847 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2848 for writing keyboard macros.
2849
2850 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2851 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2852 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2853 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2854 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2855 info.
2856
2857 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2858
2859 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2860 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2861 contents only.
2862
2863 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2864 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2865 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2866 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2867
2868 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2869 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2870 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2871
2872 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2873 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2874 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2875 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2876
2877 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2878 failure if the command produces no output.
2879
2880 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2881 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2882 the mouse.
2883
2884 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2885 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2886 function and variable names.
2887
2888 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2889 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2890 file-coding-system-alist.
2891
2892 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2893 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2894 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2895 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2896 according to the current fontset.
2897
2898 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2899
2900 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2901 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2902 nonascii-insert-offset.
2903
2904 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2905 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2906 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2907 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2908
2909 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2910 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2911
2912 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2913 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2914
2915 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2916 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2917 command keys.
2918
2919 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2920 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2921
2922 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2923 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2924 all variables that have documentation.
2925
2926 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2927 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2928 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2929 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2930 it should show; the default is 20.
2931
2932 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2933 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2934 of your input.
2935
2936 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2937 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2938 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2939 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2940 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2941 Newly added options are included as well.
2942
2943 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2944 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2945 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2946
2947 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2948 Customize menu.
2949
2950 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2951 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2952
2953 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2954 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2955 invoked.
2956
2957 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
2958 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
2959 The default is 1.
2960
2961 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
2962 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
2963 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
2964 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
2965 sensibly.
2966
2967 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
2968
2969 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
2970 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
2971 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
2972
2973 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
2974 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
2975 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
2976 every night.
2977
2978 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
2979 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
2980
2981 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
2982 read and post multi-lingual articles.
2983
2984 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
2985 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
2986 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
2987 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
2988 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
2989 made invisible again.
2990
2991 ** Mail reading and sending changes
2992
2993 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
2994 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
2995 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
2996 toggle.
2997
2998 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
2999 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
3000 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
3001 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
3002 rmail-default-body-file.
3003
3004 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
3005 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
3006 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
3007
3008 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
3009 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
3010 is evaluated to insert the signature.
3011
3012 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
3013 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
3014 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
3015 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
3016 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
3017 especially interested in trying feedmail.
3018
3019 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
3020 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
3021 provided by feedmail are:
3022
3023 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
3024 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
3025 there is also a queue for draft messages
3026
3027 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
3028 be prompted for confirmation
3029
3030 **** does smart filling of address headers
3031
3032 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
3033 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
3034 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
3035
3036 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
3037 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
3038 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
3039 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
3040
3041 ** Dired changes
3042
3043 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
3044 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
3045
3046 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
3047 run Dired on the directory name at point.
3048
3049 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
3050 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
3051 for a specified regexp.
3052
3053 ** VC Changes
3054
3055 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
3056 conveniently.
3057
3058 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
3059 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
3060 Dired.
3061
3062 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
3063 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
3064 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
3065 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
3066
3067 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
3068 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
3069 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
3070 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
3071 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
3072
3073 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
3074 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
3075 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
3076 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
3077 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
3078
3079 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
3080 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
3081 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
3082 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
3083
3084 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
3085 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
3086 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
3087
3088 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
3089 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
3090 session to resolve them.
3091
3092 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
3093 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
3094 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
3095 uses as well).
3096
3097 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
3098 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
3099 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
3100 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
3101 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
3102 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
3103 using ediff.
3104
3105 ** Changes in Font Lock
3106
3107 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
3108 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
3109 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
3110 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
3111 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
3112
3113 ** Frame name display changes
3114
3115 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
3116 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
3117 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
3118 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
3119
3120 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
3121 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
3122 menu.
3123
3124 ** Comint (subshell) changes
3125
3126 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
3127 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
3128 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
3129
3130 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
3131
3132 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
3133 that is, the line after the last line you got.
3134 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
3135
3136 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
3137 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
3138 the following line.
3139
3140 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
3141 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
3142 previously sent input.
3143
3144 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
3145 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
3146 as the search string.
3147
3148 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
3149 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
3150
3151 ** C mode changes
3152
3153 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
3154 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
3155 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
3156 definition.
3157
3158 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
3159 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
3160 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
3161 style is still the default however.
3162
3163 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
3164
3165 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
3166 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
3167 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
3168
3169 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
3170 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
3171
3172 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
3173 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3174
3175 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3176 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3177
3178 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3179 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3180
3181 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3182 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3183 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3184 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3185
3186 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3187
3188 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3189 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3190 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3191
3192 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3193 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3194 expanding dynamically.
3195
3196 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3197 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3198
3199 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3200 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3201 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3202 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3203
3204 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3205
3206 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3207
3208 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3209 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3210 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3211 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3212 against the first word in the title.
3213
3214 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3215 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3216 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3217 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3218 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3219 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3220
3221 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3222 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3223 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3224 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3225
3226 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3227
3228 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3229 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3230 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3231 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3232 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3233 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3234
3235 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3236 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3237
3238 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3239 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3240 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3241
3242 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3243 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3244
3245 ** Ispell changes.
3246
3247 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3248 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3249 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3250
3251 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3252 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3253 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3254 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3255 include:
3256
3257 o URLs are automatically skipped
3258 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3259
3260 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3261
3262 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3263
3264 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3265 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3266 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3267 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3268
3269 *** New recursive parser.
3270
3271 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3272 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3273 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3274
3275 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3276
3277 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3278 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3279 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3280
3281 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3282
3283 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3284
3285 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3286
3287 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3288
3289 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3290
3291 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3292 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3293
3294 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3295
3296 *** References to external documents.
3297
3298 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3299 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3300 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3301 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3302 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3303 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3304 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3305
3306 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3307
3308 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3309 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3310
3311 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3312 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3313
3314 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3315
3316 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3317 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3318
3319 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3320
3321 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3322 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3323 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3324 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3325 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3326 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3327 more.
3328
3329 *** Support for the varioref package
3330
3331 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3332
3333 *** New hooks
3334
3335 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3336 and citations are created. These hooks are
3337 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3338 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3339
3340 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3341
3342 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3343 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3344
3345 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3346
3347 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3348 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3349 fontified, use
3350
3351 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3352
3353 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3354 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3355 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3356 directories that contain the same file name.
3357
3358 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3359 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3360 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3361 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3362 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3363 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3364 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3365 directory.
3366
3367 ** New modes and packages
3368
3369 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3370 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3371 it, but some do not.
3372
3373 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3374 code.
3375
3376 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3377 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3378 around in a buffer.
3379
3380 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3381
3382 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3383 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3384 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3385 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3386
3387 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3388 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3389 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3390
3391 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3392 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3393 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3394 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3395 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3396 the like.
3397
3398 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3399 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3400
3401 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3402 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3403 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3404 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3405
3406 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3407
3408 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3409 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3410 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3411 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3412 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3413 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3414 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3415 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3416 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3417 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3418 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3419
3420 Platform-specific modes:
3421
3422 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3423 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3424 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3425 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3426 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3427 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3428 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3429 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3430 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3431 \f
3432 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3433
3434 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3435 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3436 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3437 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3438
3439 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3440 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3441 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3442
3443 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3444 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3445 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3446 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3447
3448 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3449 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3450 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3451 environment.
3452
3453 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3454 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3455 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3456 current input method for reading this one event.
3457
3458 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3459 now control whether to output certain characters as
3460 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3461 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3462 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3463 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3464 \f
3465 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3466
3467 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3468 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3469
3470 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3471 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3472 always increases point by 1.
3473
3474 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3475 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3476
3477 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3478
3479 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3480 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3481 default value changed. For example,
3482
3483 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3484 :type 'integer
3485 :group 'foo
3486 :version "20.3")
3487
3488 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3489 :version "20.3")
3490
3491 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3492 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3493 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3494 `:version' in the top level group.
3495
3496 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3497
3498 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3499 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3500
3501 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3502 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3503 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3504 to themselves.
3505
3506 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3507 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3508 values whatever.
3509
3510 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3511 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3512 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3513
3514 ** Frame-local variables.
3515
3516 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3517 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3518 local bindings for that variable.
3519
3520 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3521 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3522 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3523 parameter name.
3524
3525 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3526 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3527 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3528 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3529
3530 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3531 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3532 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3533 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3534
3535 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3536 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3537 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3538 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3539 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3540
3541 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3542 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3543 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3544 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3545
3546 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3547 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3548
3549 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3550 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3551 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3552
3553 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3554 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3555 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3556 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3557
3558 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3559 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3560 empty input.
3561
3562 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3563 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3564 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3565 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3566 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3567
3568 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3569 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3570 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3571 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3572
3573 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3574 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3575 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3576 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3577 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3578
3579 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3580 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3581 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3582 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3583
3584 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3585 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3586 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3587
3588 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3589 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3590 was directed to display this buffer.
3591
3592 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3593 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3594 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3595 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3596 set-window-configuration.
3597
3598 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3599 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3600 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3601 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3602
3603 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3604 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3605 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3606
3607 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3608 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3609 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3610
3611 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3612 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3613
3614 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3615 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3616
3617 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3618 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3619 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3620
3621 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3622 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3623 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3624 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3625
3626 ** Menu changes
3627
3628 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3629 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3630 better supported.
3631
3632 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3633 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3634 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3635 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3636 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3637
3638 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3639
3640 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3641 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3642 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3643 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3644
3645 The format is:
3646 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3647 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3648 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3649 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3650 The supported properties include
3651
3652 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3653 item is enabled.
3654 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3655 item should appear in the menu.
3656 :filter FILTER-FN
3657 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3658 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3659 It should return a binding to use instead.
3660 :keys DESCRIPTION
3661 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3662 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3663 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3664 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3665 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3666 keyboard binding.
3667 :key-sequence nil
3668 This means that the command normally has no
3669 keyboard equivalent.
3670 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3671 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3672 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3673 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3674 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3675
3676 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3677 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3678
3679 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3680
3681 ** New event types
3682
3683 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3684 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3685 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3686 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3687
3688 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3689
3690 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3691 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3692 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3693 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3694 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3695 forward, away from the user.
3696
3697 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3698
3699 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3700 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3701 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3702 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3703 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3704
3705 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3706
3707 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3708 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3709 that were dragged and dropped.
3710
3711 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3712
3713 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3714
3715 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3716 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3717 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3718
3719 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3720 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3721 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3722
3723 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3724 in Emacs 19 and before.
3725
3726 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3727 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3728
3729 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3730 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3731 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3732 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3733
3734 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3735 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3736 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3737 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3738 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3739
3740 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3741 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3742 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3743 consistent with the new representation.
3744
3745 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3746 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3747 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3748 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3749
3750 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3751 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3752 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3753
3754 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3755 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3756 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3757
3758 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3759 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3760 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3761
3762 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3763 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3764
3765 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3766 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3767
3768 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3769 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3770 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3771 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3772
3773 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3774 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3775
3776 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3777 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3778 buffer or string being searched.
3779
3780 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3781 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3782 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3783 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3784 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3785 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3786 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3787
3788 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3789
3790 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3791 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3792 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3793 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3794 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3795 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3796 define-coding-system-alias.
3797
3798 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3799 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3800 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3801 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3802 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3803 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3804 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3805 `iso-8859-1'.
3806
3807 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3808 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3809 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3810 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3811
3812 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3813 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3814 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3815 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3816
3817 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3818 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3819 This function requires a user interaction.
3820
3821 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3822 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3823 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3824 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3825 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3826 select-safe-coding-system.
3827
3828 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3829 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3830 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3831 was done.
3832
3833 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3834 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3835 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3836
3837 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3838 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3839 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3840 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3841
3842 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3843 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3844 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3845 converted.
3846
3847 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3848 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3849
3850 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3851 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3852 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3853 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3854 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3855 range of characters.
3856
3857 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3858 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3859
3860 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3861 in the current buffer at position POS.
3862
3863 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3864 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3865 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3866 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3867 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3868 binding input-method-function to nil.
3869
3870 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3871 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3872 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3873 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3874 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3875
3876 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3877 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3878
3879 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3880 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3881
3882 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3883 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3884 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3885 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3886 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3887 \f
3888 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3889
3890 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3891 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3892 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3893 tree structure.
3894
3895 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3896 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3897
3898 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3899 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3900 in your .emacs file.)
3901
3902 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3903 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3904
3905 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3906 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3907
3908 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3909 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3910 kills the region.
3911
3912 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3913 delete the character before point, as usual.
3914
3915 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3916 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3917 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3918
3919 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3920 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3921 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3922 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3923 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3924 past.)
3925
3926 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3927 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3928 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3929 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3930 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3931
3932 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3933 and is an alias for it.
3934
3935 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3936 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3937
3938 ** Scrolling changes
3939
3940 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3941 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3942
3943 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3944 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3945 where it started.
3946
3947 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3948 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3949 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3950 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3951
3952 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3953 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3954 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3955 recenters the window.
3956
3957 ** International character set support (MULE)
3958
3959 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
3960 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
3961 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
3962 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
3963 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
3964 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
3965
3966 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
3967 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
3968 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
3969 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
3970 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
3971
3972 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
3973 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
3974 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
3975 language, to make it possible to type them.
3976
3977 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
3978 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
3979
3980 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
3981 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
3982
3983 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
3984
3985 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
3986
3987 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
3988 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
3989 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
3990 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
3991 characters for their work until they want to change.
3992
3993 *** Input methods
3994
3995 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
3996 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
3997 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
3998 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
3999 support several input methods.
4000
4001 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
4002 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
4003 work.
4004
4005 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
4006 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
4007 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
4008 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
4009 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
4010 letter.
4011
4012 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
4013 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
4014 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
4015 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
4016 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
4017
4018 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
4019 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
4020 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
4021 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
4022
4023 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
4024 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
4025 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
4026 the first guess is wrong.
4027
4028 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
4029 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
4030
4031 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
4032 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
4033 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
4034 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
4035
4036 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
4037 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
4038 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
4039 translate automatically to and from either one.
4040
4041 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
4042
4043 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
4044 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
4045 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
4046 what you want.
4047
4048 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
4049 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
4050 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
4051 multibyte characters in that buffer.
4052
4053 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
4054 character conversion as well.
4055
4056 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
4057
4058 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
4059 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
4060 requires using many fonts.
4061
4062 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
4063 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
4064
4065 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
4066 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
4067 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
4068 you would use a font.
4069
4070 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
4071 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
4072 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
4073
4074 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
4075 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
4076 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
4077 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
4078 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
4079
4080 *** Defining fontsets.
4081
4082 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
4083 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
4084 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
4085
4086 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
4087 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
4088 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
4089 standard fontset are created automatically.
4090
4091 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
4092 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
4093 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
4094 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
4095 name is `fontset-startup'.
4096
4097 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
4098 The resource value should have this form:
4099 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
4100 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
4101 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
4102 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
4103 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
4104 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
4105 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
4106 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
4107 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
4108
4109 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
4110 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
4111 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
4112
4113 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
4114 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
4115 following resource,
4116 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
4117 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
4118 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
4119 Here is the substitution rule:
4120 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
4121 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
4122 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
4123 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
4124 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
4125
4126 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
4127 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
4128 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
4129
4130 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
4131 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
4132 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
4133 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
4134 fontsets.
4135
4136 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
4137 defaults for a particular choice of language.
4138
4139 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
4140 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
4141 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
4142 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
4143 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
4144 system for new files that you create.
4145
4146 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
4147 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
4148 whole Emacs session.
4149
4150 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
4151 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
4152 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
4153
4154 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
4155 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
4156 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
4157 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
4158 coding systems that Emacs supports.
4159
4160 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
4161 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
4162 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
4163 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
4164 is used for *the immediately following command*.
4165
4166 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
4167 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
4168
4169 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
4170 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
4171
4172 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
4173 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4174
4175 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4176 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4177 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4178 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4179 of the file.
4180
4181 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4182 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4183 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4184 translated into that character code.
4185
4186 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4187 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4188
4189 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4190
4191 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4192 the coding system for keyboard input.
4193
4194 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4195 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4196 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4197
4198 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4199
4200 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4201 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4202 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4203 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4204 designed to work with terminals.
4205
4206 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4207 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4208 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4209 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4210 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4211 in the corresponding buffer.
4212
4213 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4214
4215 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4216 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4217 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4218
4219 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4220 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4221 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4222 want to use.
4223
4224 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4225 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4226
4227 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4228 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4229 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4230 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4231
4232 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4233 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4234 related information.
4235
4236 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4237 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4238 scripts.
4239
4240 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4241 information about the support for a particular language.
4242 You specify the language as an argument.
4243
4244 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4245 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4246 first dash.
4247
4248 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4249 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4250 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4251 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4252
4253 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4254 B big5 (Chinese)
4255 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4256 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4257 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4258 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4259 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4260 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4261 K euc-korea (Korean)
4262 R koi8 (Russian)
4263 Q tibetan
4264 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4265 T lao
4266 T tis620 (Thai)
4267 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4268 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4269 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4270 v viqr (Vietnamese)
4271 z hz (Chinese)
4272
4273 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4274 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4275 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4276 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4277
4278 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4279 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4280
4281 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4282 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4283 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4284 Rmail files themselves.
4285
4286 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4287 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4288
4289 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4290 for sending mail:
4291
4292 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4293 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4294 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4295 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4296 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4297
4298 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4299 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4300 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4301 translations.
4302
4303 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4304 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4305 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4306 without any conversion.
4307
4308 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4309 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4310 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4311 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4312
4313 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4314 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4315
4316 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4317 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4318
4319 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4320 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4321
4322 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4323 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4324 in the buffer before point.
4325
4326 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4327 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4328 you are using.
4329
4330 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4331 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4332
4333 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4334
4335 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4336 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4337
4338 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4339 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4340 can become a bottleneck.
4341
4342 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4343 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4344 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4345 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4346 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4347 so useful that the change is worth while.
4348
4349 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4350 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4351 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4352 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4353
4354 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4355 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4356 show-paren-mode.
4357
4358 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4359 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4360 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4361
4362 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4363 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4364 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4365
4366 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4367 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4368 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4369
4370 ** Changes in View mode.
4371
4372 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4373 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4374
4375 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4376 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4377
4378 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4379 previous state.
4380
4381 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4382 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4383
4384 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4385 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4386 not just the selected window.
4387
4388 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4389 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4390 turns View mode on or off.
4391
4392 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4393 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4394 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4395
4396 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4397 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4398
4399 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4400 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4401 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4402 which version to compare with.
4403
4404 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4405 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4406
4407 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4408 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4409 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4410 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4411
4412 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4413 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4414 blocks, all of them or none.
4415
4416 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4417 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4418 confirmation first.
4419
4420 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4421 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4422 However, the mode will not be changed if
4423 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4424 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4425 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4426 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4427
4428 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4429
4430 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4431 these commands do not change the major mode.
4432
4433 ** M-x occur changes.
4434
4435 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4436 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4437
4438 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4439 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4440 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4441
4442 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4443 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4444 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4445 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4446 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4447
4448 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4449 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4450 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4451 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4452
4453 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4454 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4455 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4456
4457 ** Outline mode changes.
4458
4459 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4460
4461 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4462
4463 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4464 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4465 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4466 was already active.
4467
4468 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4469 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4470 get confused by it.
4471
4472 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4473 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4474
4475 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4476
4477 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4478 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4479 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4480 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4481
4482 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4483 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4484 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4485
4486 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4487 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4488 values.
4489
4490 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4491 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4492 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4493 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4494
4495 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4496 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4497 can be. The default value is 30.
4498
4499 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4500
4501 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4502 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4503 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4504 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4505 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4506 behavior.
4507
4508 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4509 compose-mail-other-frame.
4510
4511 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4512 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4513 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4514 buffer that shows the original message.
4515
4516 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4517 with separator lines around the contents.
4518
4519 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4520 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4521 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4522 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4523
4524 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4525
4526 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4527 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4528 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4529 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4530
4531 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4532 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4533 /etc/passwd.
4534
4535 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4536 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4537 /etc/passwd.
4538
4539 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4540 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4541 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4542 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4543
4544 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4545 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4546 be taken to be magic.
4547
4548 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4549 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4550 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4551
4552 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4553 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4554
4555 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4556 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4557
4558 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4559
4560 new key dired.el binding old key
4561 ------- ---------------- -------
4562 * c dired-change-marks c
4563 * m dired-mark m
4564 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4565 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4566 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4567 * u dired-unmark u
4568 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4569 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4570 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4571 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4572 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4573 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4574
4575 ** Rmail changes.
4576
4577 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4578 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4579 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4580 each time you run it.
4581
4582 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4583 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4584
4585 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4586 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4587 means to move in the opposite direction.
4588
4589 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4590 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4591
4592 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4593 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4594 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4595 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4596 for output.
4597
4598 ** Gnus changes.
4599
4600 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4601
4602 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4603 Gnus.
4604
4605 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4606 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4607
4608 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4609 article mode line.
4610
4611 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4612
4613 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4614
4615 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4616
4617 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4618 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4619 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4620
4621 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4622
4623 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4624
4625 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4626 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4627
4628 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4629 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4630 used to pick articles.
4631
4632 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4633 another have been added.
4634
4635 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4636
4637 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4638 generating lines in buffers.
4639
4640 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4641 `M-C-_'.
4642
4643 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4644
4645 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4646
4647 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4648
4649 *** Scores can be decayed.
4650
4651 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4652
4653 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4654 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4655
4656 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4657 the native server.
4658
4659 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4660
4661 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4662 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4663
4664 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4665
4666 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4667 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4668
4669 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4670 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4671
4672 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4673 a group.
4674
4675 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4676 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4677
4678 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4679
4680 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4681
4682 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4683
4684 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4685
4686 Use the `Y c' command.
4687
4688 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4689
4690 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4691
4692 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4693
4694 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4695 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4696
4697 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4698
4699 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4700
4701 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4702 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4703
4704 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4705
4706 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4707 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4708 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4709 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4710 this issue.)
4711
4712 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4713 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4714 particular news group. This can be done by:
4715
4716 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4717
4718 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4719 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4720 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4721 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4722 for reading and posting).
4723
4724 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4725 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4726 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4727 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4728 there.
4729
4730 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4731 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4732
4733 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4734 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4735 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4736 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4737 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4738
4739 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4740 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4741
4742 ** CC mode changes.
4743
4744 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4745 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4746 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4747 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4748 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4749 loaded.
4750
4751 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4752 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4753 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4754 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4755 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4756 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4757
4758 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4759 of the current buffer.
4760
4761 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4762 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4763 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4764
4765 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4766 style that the Python developers like.
4767
4768 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4769 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4770 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4771
4772 ** VC Changes [new]
4773
4774 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4775 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4776 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4777
4778 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4779 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4780 developers.
4781
4782 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4783 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4784
4785 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4786 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4787 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4788 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4789
4790 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4791 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4792
4793 ** Calendar changes.
4794
4795 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4796 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4797 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4798
4799 ** ps-print changes
4800
4801 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4802
4803 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4804
4805 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4806 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4807 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4808 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4809 It defaults to `letter'.
4810 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4811
4812 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4813 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4814 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4815
4816 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4817 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4818 It defaults to 1.
4819
4820 *** Horizontal layout
4821
4822 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4823 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4824 All are measured in points.
4825
4826 *** Vertical layout
4827
4828 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4829 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4830 All are measured in points.
4831
4832 *** Headers
4833
4834 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4835 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4836 margin above the text.
4837
4838 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4839 framing box is printed around the header.
4840
4841 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4842 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4843
4844 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4845 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4846 `ps-header-font-size'.
4847
4848 *** Font managing
4849
4850 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4851 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4852 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4853 elements to this alist.
4854
4855 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4856 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4857
4858 ** hideshow changes.
4859
4860 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4861 C++, ; for lisp).
4862
4863 *** Support for java-mode added.
4864
4865 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4866 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4867
4868 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4869 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4870 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4871
4872 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4873 robust and a lot faster.
4874
4875 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4876
4877 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4878 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4879 documentation for more details.
4880
4881 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4882
4883 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4884 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4885 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4886 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4887 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4888
4889 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4890 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4891 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4892 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4893
4894 ** Font Lock mode
4895
4896 *** Custom support
4897
4898 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4899 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4900 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4901 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4902 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4903 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4904
4905 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4906
4907 *** Maximum decoration
4908
4909 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4910 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4911 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4912 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4913 to get the old behavior.
4914
4915 *** New support
4916
4917 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4918
4919 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4920 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4921
4922 *** Configurable support
4923
4924 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4925 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4926 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4927 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4928 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4929 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4930 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4931
4932 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4933 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4934 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4935
4936 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4937
4938 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4939 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4940 for any mode.
4941
4942 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4943
4944 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4945
4946 in your ~/.emacs.
4947
4948 *** New faces
4949
4950 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4951 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4952 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4953 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4954
4955 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4956
4957 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
4958 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
4959 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
4960
4961 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
4962
4963 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
4964 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
4965 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
4966 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
4967 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
4968 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
4969 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
4970
4971 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
4972 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
4973 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
4974 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
4975 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
4976 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
4977
4978 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
4979
4980 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
4981 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
4982 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
4983 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
4984
4985 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
4986 settings.
4987
4988 ** Ada mode changes.
4989
4990 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
4991 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
4992 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
4993 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
4994 stubs.
4995
4996 *** There are two new commands:
4997 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
4998 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
4999
5000 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
5001 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
5002 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
5003
5004 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
5005 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
5006 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
5007
5008 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
5009 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
5010 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
5011 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
5012
5013 ** Scheme mode changes.
5014
5015 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
5016 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
5017 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
5018 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
5019 have any effect.
5020
5021 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
5022 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
5023 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
5024 variables as buffer-local variables.
5025
5026 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
5027 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
5028
5029 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
5030 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
5031 buffer in Emacs.
5032
5033 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
5034 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
5035 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
5036
5037 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
5038 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
5039 the current defun.
5040
5041 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
5042 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
5043
5044 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
5045 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
5046 necessary).
5047
5048 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
5049 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
5050 these register values no longer become completely useless.
5051 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
5052 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
5053 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
5054
5055 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
5056 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
5057 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
5058 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
5059
5060 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
5061 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
5062 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
5063 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
5064 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
5065
5066 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
5067 since it applies only to the current frame.
5068
5069 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
5070 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
5071 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
5072
5073 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
5074 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
5075 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
5076 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
5077 instead of just the file you are editing.
5078
5079 ** RefTeX mode
5080
5081 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
5082 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
5083 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
5084 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
5085 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
5086
5087 C-c ( reftex-label
5088 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
5089 knows which kind of label is needed.
5090
5091 C-c ) reftex-reference
5092 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
5093 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
5094
5095 C-c [ reftex-citation
5096 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
5097 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
5098
5099 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
5100 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
5101
5102 C-c = reftex-toc
5103 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
5104 can quickly jump to every section.
5105
5106 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
5107 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
5108 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
5109 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
5110 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
5111
5112 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5113
5114 *** Info documentation is now available.
5115
5116 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
5117 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
5118
5119 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
5120 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
5121
5122 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
5123 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
5124
5125 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
5126 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
5127 appropriate functions.
5128
5129 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
5130 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
5131
5132 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
5133 been cleaned.
5134
5135 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
5136 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
5137
5138 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
5139 shall be delimited.
5140
5141 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
5142 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
5143 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
5144
5145 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
5146 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
5147 prefixed with `ALT'.
5148
5149 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
5150 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
5151 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
5152 documentation).
5153
5154 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
5155 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
5156 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
5157
5158 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
5159 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
5160
5161 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
5162 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
5163 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
5164
5165 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
5166
5167 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
5168
5169 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
5170 from alien sources.
5171
5172 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
5173 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5174 crossref entries.
5175
5176 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5177 region.
5178
5179 *** Added support for imenu.
5180
5181 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5182 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5183 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5184 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5185
5186 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5187 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5188
5189 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5190
5191 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5192 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5193 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5194 as an argument.
5195
5196 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5197 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5198
5199 ** browse-url changes
5200
5201 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5202 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5203 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5204 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5205 customization variables.
5206
5207 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5208
5209 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5210 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5211 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5212
5213 ** Changes in Ediff
5214
5215 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5216 pops up the Info file for this command.
5217
5218 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5219 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5220 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5221 directories).
5222
5223 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5224 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5225 files in the same directory.
5226
5227 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5228 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5229 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5230
5231 ** Changes in Viper
5232
5233 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5234 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5235 instead of vip-.
5236 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5237 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5238 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5239 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5240 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5241 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5242 color when Viper is in insert state.
5243 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5244 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5245 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5246
5247 ** Etags changes.
5248
5249 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5250 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5251 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5252 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5253 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5254
5255 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5256
5257 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5258 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5259
5260 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5261 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5262 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5263
5264 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5265 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5266 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5267 methods and protocols.
5268
5269 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5270 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5271 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5272 paragraph name.
5273
5274 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5275 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5276 at least M times and as many as N times.
5277
5278 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5279 in files has changed slightly.
5280
5281 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5282 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5283 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5284 with old time-stamp-format values.
5285
5286 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5287 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5288 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5289 reasons.
5290
5291 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5292 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5293 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5294 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5295 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5296 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5297
5298 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5299 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5300 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5301
5302 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5303 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5304 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5305 recommended now will continue to work then.
5306
5307 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5308 details.
5309
5310 ** There are some additional major modes:
5311
5312 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5313 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5314 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5315
5316 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5317 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5318 into Emacs.
5319
5320 ** New Lisp packages include:
5321
5322 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5323
5324 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5325 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5326
5327 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5328
5329 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5330 in shell buffers.
5331
5332 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5333 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5334 and `elint-defun'.
5335
5336 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5337 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5338 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5339 strings or comments.
5340
5341 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5342 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5343 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5344 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5345 at these points.
5346
5347 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5348 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5349
5350 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5351 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5352
5353 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5354
5355 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5356 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5357
5358 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5359
5360 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5361
5362 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5363
5364 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5365 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5366
5367 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5368 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5369 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5370 original place after inserting the copy.
5371
5372 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5373 on the buffer.
5374
5375 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5376 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5377 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5378
5379 Enable mouse-drag with:
5380 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5381 -or-
5382 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5383
5384 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5385 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5386
5387 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5388 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5389
5390 *** ogonek
5391
5392 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5393 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5394 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5395 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5396 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5397 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5398 instance) and vice versa.
5399
5400 To use this package load it using
5401 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5402 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5403 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5404 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5405 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5406 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5407
5408 *** Interface to ph.
5409
5410 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5411
5412 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5413 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5414 these servers.
5415
5416 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5417
5418 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5419 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5420 while the real cursor does not move.
5421
5422 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5423 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5424
5425 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5426 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5427
5428 ** movemail change
5429
5430 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5431 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5432 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5433 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5434
5435 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5436 \f
5437 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5438
5439 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5440
5441 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5442 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5443 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5444 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5445 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5446
5447 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5448 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5449 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5450 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5451 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5452 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5453 \f
5454 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5455
5456 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5457 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5458 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5459 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5460
5461 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5462 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5463
5464 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5465 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5466 "win".
5467
5468 ** Basic Lisp changes
5469
5470 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5471 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5472
5473 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5474 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5475 or by the user.
5476
5477 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5478
5479 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5480
5481 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5482 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5483
5484 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5485 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5486 its argument.
5487
5488 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5489
5490 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5491
5492 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5493
5494 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5495 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5496 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5497 `format' function.
5498
5499 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5500 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5501 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5502
5503 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5504 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5505 adding one of these suffixes.
5506
5507 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5508 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5509 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5510
5511 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5512 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5513
5514 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5515
5516 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5517 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5518
5519 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5520 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5521
5522 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5523
5524 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5525 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5526
5527 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5528 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5529 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5530 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5531
5532 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5533 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5534 of the last form.
5535
5536 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5537 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5538 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5539 as the last form.
5540
5541 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5542 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5543 matches.
5544
5545 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5546
5547 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5548 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5549 Then it returns that string.
5550
5551 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5552
5553 (with-output-to-string
5554 (princ "The buffer is ")
5555 (princ (buffer-name)))
5556
5557 returns "The buffer is foo".
5558
5559 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5560 is non-nil.
5561
5562 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5563 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5564 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5565
5566 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5567 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5568
5569 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5570 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5571 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5572 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5573 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5574 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5575
5576 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5577 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5578 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5579 characters".
5580
5581 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5582 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5583 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5584 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5585 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5586
5587 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5588 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5589 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5590 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5591
5592 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5593 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5594
5595 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5596
5597 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5598 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5599 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5600 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5601 guaranteed.
5602
5603 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5604 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5605 character).
5606
5607 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5608
5609 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5610 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5611 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5612 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5613 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5614
5615 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5616
5617 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5618 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5619 more than the number of characters.
5620
5621 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5622 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5623 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5624 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5625 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5626 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5627
5628 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5629 and returns a string containing those characters.
5630
5631 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5632 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5633 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5634 character, sref signals an error.
5635
5636 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5637 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5638 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5639
5640 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5641 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5642 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5643
5644 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5645 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5646 to a vector of the characters in it.
5647
5648 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5649 of a string. You call it as follows:
5650
5651 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5652
5653 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5654 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5655 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5656 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5657 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5658
5659 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5660 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5661
5662 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5663 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5664
5665 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5666 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5667 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5668 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5669
5670 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5671
5672 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5673
5674 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5675 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5676 are not included in the resulting value.
5677
5678 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5679 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5680 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5681 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5682
5683 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5684 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5685 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5686 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5687 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5688 column START-COLUMN.
5689
5690 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5691 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5692 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5693 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5694 changed text, before the change.
5695
5696 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5697 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5698 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5699
5700 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5701
5702 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5703
5704 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5705 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5706
5707 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5708 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5709 which identify the character within that character set.
5710
5711 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5712 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5713 opposite of split-char.
5714
5715 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5716 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5717
5718 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5719 of all the characters in a string.
5720
5721 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5722 and specifying coding systems.
5723
5724 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5725 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5726 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5727 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5728 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5729 as what to do about code conversion.)
5730
5731 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5732 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5733
5734 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5735 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5736 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5737
5738 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5739 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5740 to match against a file name.
5741
5742 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5743 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5744 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5745 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5746 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5747 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5748
5749 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5750 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5751
5752 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5753 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5754
5755 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5756 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5757 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5758 service names.
5759
5760 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5761 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5762 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5763 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5764 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5765 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5766
5767 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5768 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5769
5770 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5771 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5772 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5773 start the subprocess.
5774
5775 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5776 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5777 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5778 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5779 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5780
5781 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5782 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5783 subprocess.
5784
5785 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5786 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5787 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5788 connection permanently or until overridden.
5789
5790 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5791 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5792 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5793 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5794 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5795 system for one operation at a time.
5796
5797 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5798 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5799
5800 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5801 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5802 The value is a cons cell,
5803 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5804 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5805 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5806 input to the subprocess.
5807
5808 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5809 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5810
5811 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5812 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5813 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5814
5815 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5816 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5817 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5818 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5819 customization.
5820
5821 Thus, instead of writing
5822
5823 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5824 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5825
5826 you would now write this:
5827
5828 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5829 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5830 :type 'boolean
5831 :group foo)
5832
5833 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5834 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5835 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5836 for a description of them.
5837
5838 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5839 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5840
5841 (defgroup ispell nil
5842 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5843 :group 'processes)
5844
5845 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5846 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5847 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5848 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5849 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5850
5851 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5852 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5853 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5854 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5855 first-level subgroups.
5856
5857 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5858
5859 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5860 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5861
5862 ** easy-mmode
5863
5864 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5865 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5866 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5867 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5868 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5869 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5870
5871 ** Text property changes
5872
5873 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5874 text property.
5875
5876 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5877 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5878 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5879 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5880 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5881
5882 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5883 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5884 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5885 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5886
5887 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5888 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5889 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5890
5891 ** Changes in invisibility features
5892
5893 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5894 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5895 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5896 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5897 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5898 make the overlay visible.
5899
5900 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5901 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5902 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5903 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5904 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5905 t when it should hide it.
5906
5907 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5908
5909 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5910 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5911 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5912 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5913 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5914 Here is an example of how to do this:
5915
5916 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5917 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5918 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5919 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5920
5921 ...
5922 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5923
5924 ...
5925 ;; When done with the overlays:
5926 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5927 ;; Or respectively:
5928 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5929
5930 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5931
5932 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5933 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5934 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5935 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5936
5937 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5938 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5939 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5940
5941 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5942 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5943
5944 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5945 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5946
5947 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5948 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5949 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5950
5951 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5952 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5953 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5954 determine the syntax type of the character.
5955
5956 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5957 of the current buffer.
5958
5959 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
5960 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
5961 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
5962
5963 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
5964 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
5965 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
5966 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
5967 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
5968
5969 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
5970 text property.
5971
5972 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
5973 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
5974 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
5975
5976 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
5977 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
5978 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
5979 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
5980 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
5981
5982 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
5983 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
5984 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
5985
5986 ** Changes in face features
5987
5988 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
5989 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
5990
5991 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
5992 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
5993
5994 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
5995 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
5996
5997 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
5998 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
5999
6000 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
6001 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
6002 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
6003 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
6004 overlay property).
6005
6006 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
6007 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
6008
6009 ** Changes in file-handling functions
6010
6011 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
6012 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
6013 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
6014 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
6015
6016 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
6017 begins with ~.
6018
6019 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
6020 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
6021
6022 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6023 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
6024
6025 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
6026 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
6027
6028 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
6029 character code conversion as well as other things.
6030
6031 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
6032 (formerly it did not).
6033
6034 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
6035 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
6036
6037 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
6038 instead of constant strings.
6039
6040 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
6041 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
6042 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
6043
6044 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
6045 in the same way as before.
6046
6047 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
6048 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
6049 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
6050
6051 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
6052 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
6053 else, and returns nil.
6054
6055 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
6056 directory cannot be listed.
6057
6058 ** Changes in minibuffer input
6059
6060 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
6061 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
6062 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
6063 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
6064 ways:
6065
6066 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
6067 It is available through the history command M-n.
6068
6069 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
6070 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
6071 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
6072 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
6073 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
6074
6075 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
6076 argument in this way.
6077
6078 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
6079 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
6080 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
6081
6082 ** Echo area features
6083
6084 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
6085 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
6086 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
6087 after the echo area is cleared.
6088
6089 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
6090 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
6091
6092 ** Keyboard input features
6093
6094 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
6095 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
6096
6097 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
6098 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
6099 by keyboard macros.
6100
6101 ** Frame-related changes
6102
6103 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
6104 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
6105 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
6106
6107 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
6108 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
6109 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
6110
6111 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6112 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
6113 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
6114 in the selected frame.
6115
6116 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
6117 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
6118 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
6119
6120 ** X Windows features
6121
6122 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
6123 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
6124 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
6125
6126 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
6127 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
6128
6129 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
6130 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
6131 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
6132
6133 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
6134 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
6135
6136 ** Subprocess features
6137
6138 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
6139 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
6140 automatically.
6141
6142 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
6143 and returns the output from the command as a string.
6144
6145 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
6146 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
6147
6148 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
6149 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
6150
6151 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
6152 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
6153 goes after the other menu items.
6154
6155 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
6156 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
6157 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
6158 are in use.
6159
6160 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
6161 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
6162
6163 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
6164 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
6165 form.
6166
6167 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
6168 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
6169 but its hook is still run.
6170
6171 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
6172 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
6173
6174 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6175 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6176 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6177
6178 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6179 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6180 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6181 warned.
6182
6183 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6184 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6185
6186 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6187 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6188 functions like display-time.
6189
6190 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6191 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6192
6193 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6194 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6195 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6196
6197 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6198 if there is an error in compilation.
6199
6200 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6201 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6202 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6203 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6204
6205 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6206 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6207 the *scratch* buffer.
6208
6209 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6210 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6211 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6212 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6213
6214 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6215 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6216 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6217
6218 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6219 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6220 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6221 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6222
6223 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6224 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6225 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6226
6227 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6228 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6229 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6230 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6231 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6232 files at all.
6233
6234 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6235 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6236 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6237 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6238
6239 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6240 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6241 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6242 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6243
6244 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6245
6246 ** imenu.el changes.
6247
6248 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6249 item from menu created by imenu.
6250
6251 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6252 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6253 select one of those items.
6254 \f
6255 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6256 \f
6257 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6258
6259 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6260 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6261
6262 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6263 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6264 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6265 \f
6266 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6267
6268 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6269 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6270
6271 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6272 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6273 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6274 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6275 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6276 all caps.
6277
6278 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6279 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6280
6281 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6282 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6283 as in previous Emacs versions.
6284
6285 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6286 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6287 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6288 frames.
6289
6290 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6291 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6292 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6293 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6294 accident.
6295
6296 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6297 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6298 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6299 line and then executing the macro.
6300
6301 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6302
6303 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6304 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6305 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6306 characters.
6307
6308 ** Font Lock mode
6309
6310 *** Font Lock support modes
6311
6312 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6313 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6314 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6315 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6316 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6317
6318 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6319
6320 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6321
6322 in your ~/.emacs.
6323
6324 *** lazy-lock
6325
6326 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6327 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6328 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6329 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6330 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6331 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6332 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6333
6334 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6335
6336 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6337
6338 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6339
6340 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6341
6342 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6343 paren and key.
6344
6345 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6346 supported.
6347
6348 ** Gnus changes.
6349
6350 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6351 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6352 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6353 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6354
6355 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6356 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6357
6358 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6359 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6360 obsolete.
6361
6362 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6363 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6364
6365 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6366
6367 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6368
6369 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6370
6371 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6372 referred.
6373
6374 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6375
6376 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6377
6378 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6379
6380 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6381
6382 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6383 buffers.
6384
6385 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6386
6387 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6388
6389 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6390
6391 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6392
6393 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6394
6395 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6396
6397 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6398
6399 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6400 is possible.
6401
6402 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6403
6404 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6405 groups of groups.
6406
6407 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6408
6409 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6410 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6411
6412 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6413
6414 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6415
6416 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6417
6418 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6419
6420 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6421 expiration times.
6422
6423 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6424
6425 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6426 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6427
6428 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6429 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6430 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6431
6432 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6433 articles with the `*' command.
6434
6435 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6436
6437 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6438
6439 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6440
6441 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6442
6443 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6444 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6445
6446 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6447 buffer.
6448
6449 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6450
6451 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6452
6453 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6454
6455 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6456
6457 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6458
6459 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6460
6461 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6462
6463 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6464
6465 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6466
6467 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6468 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6469
6470 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6471 refetching.
6472
6473 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6474
6475 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6476 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6477
6478 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6479
6480 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6481
6482 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6483
6484 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6485 articles.
6486
6487 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6488
6489 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6490
6491 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6492 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6493
6494 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6495
6496 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6497
6498 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6499
6500 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6501
6502 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6503
6504 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6505 in greater detail.
6506 \f
6507 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6508
6509 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6510 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6511 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6512 exists.
6513
6514 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6515 as well as lists.
6516
6517 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6518 of a given keymap.
6519
6520 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6521 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6522 keymap or nil.
6523
6524 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6525 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6526 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6527 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6528 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6529 alias.
6530 \f
6531 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6532
6533 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6534
6535 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6536 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6537 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6538 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6539 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6540
6541 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6542 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6543 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6544
6545 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6546
6547 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6548 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6549 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6550 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6551 chapter of the manual for details.
6552
6553 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6554 customization variables take effect.
6555
6556 ** Marking with the mouse.
6557
6558 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6559 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6560 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6561
6562 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6563
6564 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6565
6566 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6567 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6568
6569 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6570 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6571 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6572 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6573 applications, these problems are significant.
6574
6575 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6576 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6577 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6578 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6579 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6580
6581 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6582 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6583
6584 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6585 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6586 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6587 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6588 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6589 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6590
6591 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6592
6593 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6594 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6595 minibuffer contains.
6596
6597 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6598
6599 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6600 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6601 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6602 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6603
6604 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6605 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6606 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6607 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6608
6609 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6610 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6611
6612 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6613 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6614 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6615
6616 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6617 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6618 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6619 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6620
6621 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6622
6623 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6624 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6625
6626 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6627
6628 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6629 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6630 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6631 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6632 immediately after the selected one.
6633
6634 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6635 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6636
6637 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6638
6639 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6640 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6641 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6642 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6643 recover-session.
6644
6645 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6646 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6647 will not work.
6648
6649 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6650 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6651 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6652 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6653 now that the bug is fixed.
6654
6655 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6656
6657 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6658 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6659 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6660 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6661
6662 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6663 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6664 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6665 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6666
6667 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6668 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6669 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6670
6671 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6672 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6673 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6674 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6675 remain normal.
6676
6677 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6678 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6679
6680 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6681 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6682 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6683 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6684
6685 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6686 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6687 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6688 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6689 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6690 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6691
6692 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6693 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6694 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6695 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6696
6697 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6698 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6699 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6700
6701 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6702 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6703 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6704 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6705 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6706 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6707 to a limitation in font-lock).
6708
6709 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6710
6711 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6712 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6713 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6714 this example:
6715
6716 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6717 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6718
6719 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6720
6721 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6722
6723 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6724
6725 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6726
6727 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6728 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6729 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6730 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6731 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6732 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6733
6734 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6735 does the same job.
6736
6737 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6738 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6739
6740 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6741 text.
6742
6743 ** Font Lock mode
6744
6745 *** Global Font Lock mode
6746
6747 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6748 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6749 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6750 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6751 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6752
6753 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6754
6755 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6756
6757 in your ~/.emacs.
6758
6759 *** Local Refontification
6760
6761 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6762 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6763 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6764 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6765
6766 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6767 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6768 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6769 above and below point.
6770
6771 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6772
6773 ** Follow mode
6774
6775 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6776 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6777 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6778 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6779 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6780 follow-mode.
6781
6782 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6783
6784 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6785 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6786
6787 ** hide-show changes.
6788
6789 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6790 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6791 normal hooks.
6792
6793 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6794 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6795
6796 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6797 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6798 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6799
6800 ** MSDOS Changes
6801
6802 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6803 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6804
6805 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6806 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6807
6808 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6809
6810 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6811 pressing both mouse buttons.
6812
6813 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6814 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6815 are:
6816
6817 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6818 now works.
6819
6820 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6821
6822 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6823 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6824
6825 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6826
6827 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6828
6829 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6830
6831 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6832
6833 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6834 \f
6835 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6836
6837 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6838 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6839 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6840 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6841 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6842
6843 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6844
6845 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6846 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6847 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6848 be different.
6849
6850 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6851 than `system-type'.
6852
6853 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6854
6855 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6856 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6857
6858 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6859 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6860
6861 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6862 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6863 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6864
6865 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6866 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6867 like this:
6868
6869 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6870
6871 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6872 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6873 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6874
6875 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6876 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6877 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6878
6879 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6880 up if too much time passes.
6881
6882 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6883
6884 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6885 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6886 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6887 form in BODY.
6888
6889 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6890 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6891 call looks like this:
6892
6893 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6894
6895 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6896 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6897 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6898 ARGS.
6899
6900 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6901 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6902 command.
6903
6904 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6905 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6906 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6907 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6908
6909 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6910 idle for SECS seconds.
6911
6912 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6913 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6914 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6915 instead.
6916
6917 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6918 there is no answer within a certain time.
6919
6920 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6921
6922 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6923 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6924 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6925
6926 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6927 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6928 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6929 arguments in between are ignored.
6930
6931 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6932 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6933
6934 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6935 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6936 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6937 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6938 version.
6939
6940 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6941 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6942 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6943 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6944 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6945 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6946
6947 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6948 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6949 systems with limited file name syntax.
6950
6951 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6952 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6953 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6954 completions.el:
6955
6956 (defvar save-completions-file-name
6957 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
6958 "*The filename to save completions to.")
6959
6960 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
6961 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
6962 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
6963 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
6964 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
6965
6966 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
6967 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
6968 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
6969
6970 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
6971 marker from its buffer position.
6972
6973 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
6974 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
6975 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
6976
6977 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
6978 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
6979 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
6980 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
6981 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
6982 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
6983
6984 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
6985 errors that happen often during editing.
6986
6987 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
6988 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
6989 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
6990
6991 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
6992 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
6993
6994 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
6995 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
6996 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
6997 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
6998 and not get-buffer-window.
6999
7000 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
7001 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
7002 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
7003
7004 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
7005 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
7006 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
7007 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
7008 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
7009 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
7010 over and over for the same text.
7011
7012 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
7013
7014 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
7015 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
7016
7017 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
7018 ;; $HEADER: text $
7019
7020 in addition to the normal
7021
7022 ;; HEADER: text
7023
7024 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
7025 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
7026 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
7027 \f
7028 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7029
7030 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
7031 Copyright information:
7032
7033 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
7034
7035 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
7036 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
7037 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
7038 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
7039
7040 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
7041 of this document, or of portions of it,
7042 under the above conditions, provided also that they
7043 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
7044 \f
7045 Local variables:
7046 mode: outline
7047 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
7048 end: