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.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
14 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
16 ** Faces and frame parameters.
18 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
19 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
20 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
21 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
22 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
23 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
24 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
26 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
27 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
28 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
29 `default' face and vice versa.
33 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
34 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
35 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
37 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
39 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
40 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
41 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
42 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
44 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
45 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
46 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
48 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
51 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
53 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
54 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
55 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
56 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
59 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
61 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
62 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
63 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
64 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
67 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
68 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
69 under Lisp changes, below.
71 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
73 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
74 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
77 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
78 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
79 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
80 customizing face `fringe'.
82 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
83 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
87 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
88 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
90 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
92 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
93 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
94 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
95 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
96 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
99 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
100 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
101 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
102 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
103 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
104 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
106 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
107 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
108 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
109 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
110 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
111 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
113 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
114 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
115 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
116 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
117 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
119 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
121 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
122 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
123 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
125 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
127 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
128 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
129 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
130 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
131 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
136 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
137 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
141 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
142 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
143 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
146 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
148 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
149 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
150 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
153 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
154 have to do anything to activate it.
156 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
158 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
159 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
160 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
161 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
163 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
165 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
167 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
169 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
172 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
175 ** Hscrolling in C code.
177 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
181 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
182 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
184 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
186 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
187 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
188 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
189 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
190 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
192 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
194 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
197 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
198 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
200 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
202 - Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
203 toggles the read-only status.
205 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
207 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
209 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
210 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialogs' is
213 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
215 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
216 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
217 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
218 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
219 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
220 attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
224 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
225 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
226 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
227 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
228 to enable sound support.
230 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
231 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
232 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
233 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
234 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
235 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
237 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
239 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
241 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
242 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
243 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
245 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
246 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
248 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
249 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
250 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
252 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
254 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
255 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
256 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
257 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
259 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
260 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
261 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
262 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
264 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
265 notably at the end of lines.
267 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
268 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
270 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
271 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
272 after each match to get the replacement text.
274 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
276 If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
277 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
278 on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
279 by setting the following variable:
281 - User option: max-mini-window-height
283 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
284 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
285 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
289 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
291 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
292 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
293 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
294 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
295 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
296 can be edited from that buffer.
298 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
299 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
300 `A' to use all marked entries).
302 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
303 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
305 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
306 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
307 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
310 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
311 has the following new features:
313 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
314 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
315 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
316 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
318 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
319 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
320 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
321 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
322 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
327 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
328 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
329 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
331 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
332 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
333 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
334 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
338 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
339 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
340 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
342 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
343 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
346 ** New features in evaluation commands
348 The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
349 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
350 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
351 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
352 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
356 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
357 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
358 is, delete only empty directories.
360 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
361 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
362 copy directories recursively.
364 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
365 use the -f option when sending mail.
367 ** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
368 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
370 ** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
371 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
372 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
374 ** Shell script mode changes.
376 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
377 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
378 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
380 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
381 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
382 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
384 ** New language environments `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
385 These correspond respectively to the ISO character sets 8859-14
386 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign). There is
387 currently no specific input method support for them.
389 ** New modes and packages
391 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
393 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
395 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
397 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
400 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
403 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
405 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
407 *** whitespace.el ???
409 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
410 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
411 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
412 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
413 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
414 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
415 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
417 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
419 Here is an example of columns:
422 dog pineapple car EXTRA
423 porcupine strawberry airplane
425 Doing the following settings:
427 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
428 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
429 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
430 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
433 Selecting the lines above and typing:
435 M-x delimit-columns-region
439 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
440 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
441 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
443 delim-col has the following options:
445 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
448 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
451 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
454 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
457 delim-col has the following commands:
459 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
460 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
462 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
463 were operated on recently. When enabled, a new "Open Recent" submenu
464 is displayed in the "Files" menu.
466 The recent files list is automatically saved across Emacs sessions.
468 To enable/disable recentf use M-x recentf-mode.
470 To enable recentf at Emacs startup use
471 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET.
473 To change the number of recent files displayed and others options use
474 M-x customize-group RET recentf RET.
476 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
479 ** Withdrawn packages
481 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
482 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
484 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el.
486 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
487 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
490 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
492 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
493 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
494 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
495 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
497 ** New functions and variables for locales.
499 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
500 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
501 time functions like strftime. The new variables `messages-locale' and
502 `time-locale' give the system locales to be used during the next
503 invocations of these two types of functions; the new variables
504 `previous-messages-locale' and `previous-time-locale' give the locales
507 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
508 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
509 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
510 environment variables. It is normally invoked during startup. It
511 uses the new variables `locale-language-names',
512 `locale-charset-language-names', and `locale-preferred-coding-systems'
513 to make its decisions.
515 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
516 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
517 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
520 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
521 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
523 ** New function `propertize'
525 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
526 strings with text properties.
528 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
530 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
531 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
532 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
533 specified value of that property. Example:
535 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
538 ** push and pop macros.
540 A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
541 is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
542 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
544 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
545 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
546 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
549 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
550 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
552 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
553 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
554 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
555 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
556 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
558 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
560 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
561 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
562 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
563 [:alpha:] matches letters.
564 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
565 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
566 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
567 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
568 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
569 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
570 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
571 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
572 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
573 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
574 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
577 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
579 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
581 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
583 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
584 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
588 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
589 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
590 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
594 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
595 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
597 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
599 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
600 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
601 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
602 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
603 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
605 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
607 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
608 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
609 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
613 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
614 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
615 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
616 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
618 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
620 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
622 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
624 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
626 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
628 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
631 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
633 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
635 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
637 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
639 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
641 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
643 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
645 Returns the size of TABLE.
647 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
649 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
651 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
653 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
655 - Function: clrhash TABLE
659 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
661 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
664 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
666 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
667 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
669 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
671 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
673 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
675 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
676 arguments KEY and VALUE.
678 - Function: sxhash OBJ
680 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
682 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
684 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
685 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
686 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
687 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
688 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
690 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
692 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
693 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
694 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
696 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
697 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
699 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
700 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
702 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
705 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
706 'case-fold-string-hash))
708 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
711 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
713 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
714 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
715 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
718 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
720 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
721 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
724 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
725 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
726 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
727 is too short to reach that column.
730 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
731 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
732 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
733 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
735 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
736 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
737 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
740 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
741 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
744 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
745 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
748 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
749 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
750 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
751 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
752 temporary-file-directory instead.
755 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
756 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
757 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
758 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
761 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
762 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
765 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
767 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
768 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
769 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
772 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
774 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
775 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
776 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
777 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
778 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
779 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
781 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
782 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
783 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
784 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
787 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
789 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
790 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
791 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
794 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
795 string where arguments appear in the result string.
799 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
801 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
802 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
805 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
808 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
810 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
811 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
814 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
816 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
817 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
823 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
824 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
826 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
827 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
828 to enable sound support.
830 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
831 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
832 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
833 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
834 sound to play, before playing the sound.
836 The following sound properties are supported:
840 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
841 searched relative to `data-directory'.
845 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
846 0..1. This property is optional.
848 Other properties are ignored.
850 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
852 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
854 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
855 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
856 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
857 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
859 ** New face implementation.
861 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
862 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
867 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
869 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
871 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
872 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
874 3. Font height in 1/10pt
876 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
878 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
884 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
886 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
888 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
890 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
892 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
895 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
896 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
898 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
899 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
900 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
901 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
902 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
903 attributes mentioned above.
905 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
906 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
909 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
910 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
916 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
917 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
918 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
919 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
920 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
921 results in a fully-specified face.
924 *** Face realization.
926 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
927 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
928 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
929 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
930 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
931 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
933 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
934 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
935 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
936 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
938 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
939 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
940 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
941 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
942 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
944 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
945 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
946 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
947 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
948 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
951 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
952 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
953 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
954 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
957 **** Clearing face caches.
959 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
960 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
966 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
967 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
968 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
970 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
971 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
972 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
973 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
974 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
976 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
977 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
978 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
980 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
982 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
983 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
984 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
985 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
986 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
987 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
988 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
990 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
991 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
997 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
998 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
1001 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
1002 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
1003 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
1004 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
1005 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
1008 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
1010 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
1013 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
1015 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
1017 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
1018 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
1019 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
1021 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
1022 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
1023 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
1024 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
1025 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
1026 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
1027 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
1028 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
1029 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
1030 of the face font sort order.
1032 - Function: x-font-family-list
1034 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
1035 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
1036 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
1037 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
1039 - Variable: font-list-limit
1041 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
1042 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
1043 matching font. The default is currently 100.
1046 *** Setting face attributes.
1048 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1049 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1050 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1053 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1054 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1056 The following attributes are recognized:
1060 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1061 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1062 and `?' are allowed.
1066 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1067 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1068 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1069 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1073 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
1078 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1079 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1080 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1084 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1085 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1088 `:foreground', `:background'
1090 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1094 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1095 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1096 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1101 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1102 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1103 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1108 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1109 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1110 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1111 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1115 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1116 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1117 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1118 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1119 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1120 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1121 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1122 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1123 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1124 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1125 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1126 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1127 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1128 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1129 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1130 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1135 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1136 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1140 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1141 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1142 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1143 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1144 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1145 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1147 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1148 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1152 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1153 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1154 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1157 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1158 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1159 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1161 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1164 *** Face attributes and X resources
1166 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1169 Face attribute X resource class
1170 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
1171 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1172 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1173 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1174 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1175 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1176 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1177 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1178 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1179 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1180 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1181 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1182 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1183 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1184 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1185 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1186 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1187 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1188 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1189 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1192 *** Text property `face'.
1194 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1195 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1196 specification can be
1198 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1200 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1201 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1202 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1203 for face attribute names.
1205 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1206 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1207 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1210 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1212 The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1213 for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1214 terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1215 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1216 `tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1217 used to clear the mapping table.
1220 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1222 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1224 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1225 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1226 Otherwise, it returns zero.
1228 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
1230 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
1231 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
1234 Certain functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1235 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
1236 to the boundary between fields (beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
1237 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
1238 commands continue into the next field if repeated).
1240 The new function constrain-to-field may be used to achieve similar
1241 behavior; other new field functions include field-beginning, field-end,
1242 erase-field, and field-string.
1244 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
1245 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that many
1246 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
1251 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1252 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1253 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1254 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1256 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1257 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1258 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1259 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1262 IMAGE is an image specification.
1264 *** Image specifications
1266 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1267 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1268 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1269 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'.
1271 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1275 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1276 of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1280 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1281 margin around the image. Default is 0.
1285 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1290 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1291 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1292 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1293 which is intended to display images "disabled."
1295 `:heuristic-mask BG'
1297 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1298 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1299 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1300 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1301 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1302 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1303 background of the image.
1307 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1308 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1309 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1310 may be present in the image specification.
1313 *** Supported image types
1315 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
1317 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1318 properties supported are
1322 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1323 is the frame's foreground.
1327 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1328 the frame's background color.
1330 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1331 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1332 instead of a `:file' property.
1336 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1340 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1346 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1347 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1349 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1351 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1354 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
1356 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1357 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1358 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1359 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1361 Additional image properties supported are:
1363 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1365 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1366 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1369 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1370 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1374 DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1375 string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1377 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1378 to display compressed images.
1380 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
1382 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1383 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1386 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1388 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1389 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1392 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1394 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1395 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1398 **** GIF, image type `gif'
1400 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1401 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1403 Additional image properties supported are:
1407 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1408 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1410 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1411 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1412 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1415 (defun show-anim (file max)
1416 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1417 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1419 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1422 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1425 (goto-char (point-min))
1426 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1427 (insert-image img "x"))
1428 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1430 **** PNG, image type `png'
1432 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1433 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1436 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1438 Additional image properties supported are:
1442 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1443 integer. This is a required property.
1447 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1448 must be a integer. This is an required property.
1452 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1453 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1454 files. This is an required property.
1456 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1461 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1462 which are supported in the current configuration.
1464 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1465 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1466 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1469 *** Simplified image API, image.el
1471 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1472 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1473 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1474 define an image based on available image types. The functions
1475 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1481 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1484 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1485 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1486 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1487 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1488 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1489 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1490 of the display margins.
1492 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1493 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1494 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1495 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1501 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1502 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1503 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1504 that have a `help-echo' property.
1506 The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1507 items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1508 If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1509 evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1510 tool-bar item is used.
1512 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1513 help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1514 help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1517 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1519 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1520 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1522 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1523 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1524 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1525 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1528 (global-set-key [A-down]
1531 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1532 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1533 (global-set-key [A-up]
1536 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1537 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1540 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1542 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1543 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1544 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1545 is called with one argument, POS.
1547 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1548 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1549 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1550 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1551 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1554 ** Tool bar support.
1556 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1557 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1558 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1559 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1560 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1561 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1563 *** Tool bar item definitions
1565 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1566 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1567 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1569 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1570 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1571 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1572 property (see below).
1574 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1575 binding are currently ignored.
1577 The following properties are recognized:
1581 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1586 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1590 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1591 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1592 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1594 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1596 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1597 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1601 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1602 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1603 meaning of each of the four elements:
1605 Index Use when item is
1606 ----------------------------------------
1607 0 enabled and selected
1608 1 enabled and deselected
1609 2 disabled and selected
1610 3 disabled and deselected
1612 `:help HELP-STRING'.
1614 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1615 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1617 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
1619 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1620 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1621 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1623 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1624 raised when the mouse moves over them.
1626 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1627 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1628 pixels. Default is 1.
1630 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1631 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1633 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1635 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1638 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1639 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1640 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1642 is the original tool bar item definition, then
1644 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1646 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1649 ** Mode line changes.
1652 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1654 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1655 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1656 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1658 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1659 a `local-map' text property.
1661 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1662 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1664 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1665 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1666 `local-map' property.
1668 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1669 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1673 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1674 variable mode-line-format to nil.
1677 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1679 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1680 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1681 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1682 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1685 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1688 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1689 position in the header-line.
1692 ** Text property `display'
1694 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1695 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1696 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
1697 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1699 *** Variable width and height spaces
1701 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1702 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1703 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1704 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1705 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1706 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1707 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1709 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1710 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1711 properties described below.
1713 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1714 characters having the `display' property.
1718 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1719 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1721 - :relative-width FACTOR
1723 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1724 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1725 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1726 width of that character by FACTOR.
1730 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1731 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1733 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1737 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1740 - :relative-height FACTOR
1742 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1743 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1747 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1748 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1749 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1752 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1756 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1757 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1758 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1759 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1760 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1761 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1762 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1763 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1764 as display specification.
1766 *** Other display properties
1768 - :space-width FACTOR
1770 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1771 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1776 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1778 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1779 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1780 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1781 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1782 a font is available counts as a step.
1784 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1785 as tall as the frame's default font.
1787 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
1788 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
1790 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
1791 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
1795 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
1796 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
1797 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
1798 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
1799 `:height' subproperty.
1801 *** Conditional display properties
1803 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
1804 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
1805 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
1806 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
1807 the text having the `display' property.
1809 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
1813 ** New menu separator types.
1815 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
1816 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
1817 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
1818 to specify other menu separator types.
1820 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
1822 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
1825 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
1827 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
1829 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
1831 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
1833 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
1835 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1837 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
1839 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1841 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
1843 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
1844 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
1846 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
1848 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
1850 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
1852 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
1854 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
1856 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
1858 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
1860 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1862 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
1864 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
1866 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
1868 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1870 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
1872 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
1874 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
1875 the corresponding single-line separators.
1878 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
1880 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
1881 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
1882 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
1883 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
1884 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
1885 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
1886 default foreground is black.
1888 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
1889 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
1890 `ScrollBarBackground').
1892 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
1893 settings for scroll bar colors.
1896 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
1897 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
1900 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
1901 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
1902 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
1903 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
1904 the original window start.
1907 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
1908 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
1909 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
1912 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
1914 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
1915 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
1916 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
1917 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
1919 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
1920 fixed-width and fixed-height.
1922 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
1924 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
1925 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
1926 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
1927 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
1928 temporarily to nil, for example
1930 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
1931 (enlarge-window 10))
1933 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
1934 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
1936 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
1938 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
1940 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
1941 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
1942 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
1944 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
1945 is the one that is used.
1947 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
1948 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
1949 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
1950 separate from the command's regular output.
1951 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
1952 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
1953 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
1956 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
1957 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
1958 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
1959 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
1961 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
1962 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
1963 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
1964 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
1966 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
1967 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
1968 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
1969 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
1971 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
1972 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
1973 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
1974 they never ignore case.
1976 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
1977 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
1978 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
1979 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
1980 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
1981 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
1982 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
1984 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
1985 the same format that was used in the file before.
1987 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
1988 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
1990 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
1991 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
1992 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
1994 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
1995 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
1996 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
1997 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
1998 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
1999 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
2000 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
2002 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
2003 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
2004 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
2005 format. You can now customize these variables.
2007 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
2008 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
2009 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
2010 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
2012 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
2013 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
2014 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
2016 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
2017 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
2018 doesn't have any effect.
2020 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
2023 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
2024 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
2025 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
2027 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
2028 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
2029 `auto-show-mode' command.
2031 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
2032 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
2033 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
2034 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
2035 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
2037 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
2038 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
2040 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
2041 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
2042 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
2044 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
2045 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
2046 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
2047 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
2049 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
2051 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
2052 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
2053 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
2054 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
2055 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
2057 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
2058 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2060 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2061 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2062 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2063 `?' on other systems.
2065 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2066 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2069 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2070 current codepage when it starts.
2074 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2075 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2076 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2077 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2078 buffer-file-coding-system.
2080 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2081 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2084 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2085 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2086 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2087 list of possible coding systems.
2091 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2092 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2093 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2094 docstring for details.
2096 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2097 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2098 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2099 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2100 lineup functions use this feature currently.
2102 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2103 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2105 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2106 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2108 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2109 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2110 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2111 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2114 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2115 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2117 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2118 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2119 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2120 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2122 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2123 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2124 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2125 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2126 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2128 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2130 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2132 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2133 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2135 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2137 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2138 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2139 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2140 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2141 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2145 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2146 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2147 Gnus manual for the full story.
2149 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2150 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2151 group, which is created automatically.
2153 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2156 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2158 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2159 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2161 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2164 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2166 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2167 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2169 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2171 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2172 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2174 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2175 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2177 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2178 control over simplification.
2180 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2182 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2185 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2187 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2189 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2190 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2191 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2193 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2194 `a' forces normal posting method.
2196 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2199 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2202 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2203 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2205 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2208 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2210 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2212 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2213 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2215 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2216 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2218 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2220 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2223 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2224 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2226 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2227 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2229 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2231 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2233 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2235 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2237 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2238 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2239 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2241 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2242 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2243 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2244 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2245 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2247 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2248 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2249 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2250 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2252 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2253 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2254 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2257 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2259 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2260 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2262 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2263 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2264 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2265 removed from the label.
2267 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2268 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2270 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2271 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2273 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2274 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2277 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2279 ** New/deleted modes and packages
2281 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2282 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2284 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2285 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2286 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2288 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2289 changes with a special face.
2291 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2292 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2293 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2295 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2297 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2298 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2299 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2300 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2301 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2303 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2304 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2305 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2307 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2308 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2309 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2310 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2311 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2312 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2313 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2314 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2315 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2317 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2318 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2319 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2320 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2321 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2324 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2325 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2326 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2327 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2328 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2329 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2331 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2332 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2333 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2334 was not documented clearly before.
2336 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2337 This includes Tetris and Snake.
2339 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2341 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2342 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2343 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2344 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2346 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2347 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2348 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2350 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2352 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2353 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2355 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2356 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2359 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2360 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2361 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2362 file names and attributes are returned.
2364 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2365 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2366 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2367 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2370 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2371 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2373 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
2375 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2376 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2377 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2380 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2381 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2384 The new function process-running-child-p
2385 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2386 terminal to its own child process.
2388 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2389 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2390 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2391 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2393 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2394 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2396 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2397 :included is an alias for :visible.
2399 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2400 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2401 to move or copy menu entries.
2403 ** Multibyte editing changes
2405 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2406 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2407 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2408 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2409 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2410 (setq char (sref str idx)
2411 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2412 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2414 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2415 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2416 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2418 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2419 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2420 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2422 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2424 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2425 across the boundary.
2427 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2428 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2429 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2430 contains 8-bit characters.
2431 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2432 contains invalid characters.
2434 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2435 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2436 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2437 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2440 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2441 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2442 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2443 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2445 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2446 compose Thai characters in a string.
2448 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2449 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2450 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2451 menus should always use the third argument.
2453 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2454 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2455 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2456 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2458 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2459 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2460 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2461 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2463 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2464 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2465 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2468 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2470 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2471 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2472 requested feature cannot be loaded.
2474 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2475 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2476 means to clear out that attribute.
2478 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2479 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2481 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2482 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2483 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2484 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2486 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2487 the gap of the current buffer.
2489 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2490 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2493 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2494 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2495 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2496 it back in after any modifications have been made.
2498 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2500 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2501 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2502 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2503 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2504 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2506 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2507 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2508 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2509 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2510 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2512 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2513 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2514 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2516 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2517 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2518 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2519 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2520 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2523 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2524 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2525 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2526 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2528 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
2530 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2531 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2532 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2533 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2535 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2536 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2537 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2538 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2539 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2540 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2541 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2544 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2547 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2548 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2549 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2550 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2551 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2553 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2554 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2555 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2556 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2558 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2559 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2560 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2561 something that most users not do.
2563 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2564 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2565 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2568 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2571 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2572 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2573 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2574 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2577 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2578 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2579 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2580 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2581 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2584 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2585 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2586 to be confused by TeX commands.
2588 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2589 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2590 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2591 of various alternative replacements and actions.
2593 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2594 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2595 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2596 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2597 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2599 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2600 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2602 ** Changes in input method usage.
2604 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2605 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2608 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2610 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2611 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2613 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2614 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2616 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2618 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2620 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2621 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2623 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2624 given in the following case:
2625 o When you are using a complex input method.
2626 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2628 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2629 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2630 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2631 setting it to t is helpful.
2633 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2635 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2637 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2638 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2639 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2640 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2643 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2644 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2645 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2648 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2650 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2652 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2653 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2655 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2656 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2657 its owner and group.
2659 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2660 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2662 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2663 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2665 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2666 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2667 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2668 by the left edge of the rectangle.
2670 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2671 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2672 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2673 for writing keyboard macros.
2675 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2676 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2677 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2678 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2679 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2682 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2684 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2685 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2688 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2689 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2690 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2691 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2693 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2694 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2695 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2697 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2698 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2699 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2700 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2702 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2703 failure if the command produces no output.
2705 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2706 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2709 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2710 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2711 function and variable names.
2713 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2714 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2715 file-coding-system-alist.
2717 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2718 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2719 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2720 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2721 according to the current fontset.
2723 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2725 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2726 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2727 nonascii-insert-offset.
2729 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2730 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2731 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2732 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2734 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2735 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2737 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2738 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2740 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2741 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2744 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2745 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2747 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2748 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2749 all variables that have documentation.
2751 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2752 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2753 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2754 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2755 it should show; the default is 20.
2757 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2758 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2761 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2762 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2763 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2764 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2765 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2766 Newly added options are included as well.
2768 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2769 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2770 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2772 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2775 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2776 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2778 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2779 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2782 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
2783 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
2786 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
2787 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
2788 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
2789 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
2792 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
2794 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
2795 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
2796 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
2798 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
2799 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
2800 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
2803 ** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
2804 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
2806 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
2807 read and post multi-lingual articles.
2809 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
2810 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
2811 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
2812 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
2813 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
2814 made invisible again.
2816 ** Mail reading and sending changes
2818 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
2819 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
2820 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
2823 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
2824 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
2825 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
2826 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
2827 rmail-default-body-file.
2829 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
2830 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
2831 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
2833 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
2834 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
2835 is evaluated to insert the signature.
2837 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
2838 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
2839 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
2840 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
2841 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
2842 especially interested in trying feedmail.
2844 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
2845 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
2846 provided by feedmail are:
2848 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
2849 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
2850 there is also a queue for draft messages
2852 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
2853 be prompted for confirmation
2855 **** does smart filling of address headers
2857 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
2858 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
2859 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
2861 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
2862 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
2863 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
2864 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
2868 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
2869 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
2871 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
2872 run Dired on the directory name at point.
2874 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
2875 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
2876 for a specified regexp.
2880 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
2883 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
2884 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
2887 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
2888 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
2889 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
2890 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
2892 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
2893 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
2894 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
2895 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
2896 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
2898 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
2899 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
2900 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
2901 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
2902 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
2904 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
2905 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
2906 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
2907 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
2909 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
2910 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
2911 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
2913 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
2914 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
2915 session to resolve them.
2917 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
2918 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
2919 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
2922 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
2923 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
2924 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
2925 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
2926 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
2927 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
2930 ** Changes in Font Lock
2932 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
2933 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
2934 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
2935 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
2936 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
2938 ** Frame name display changes
2940 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
2941 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
2942 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
2943 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
2945 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
2946 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
2949 ** Comint (subshell) changes
2951 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
2952 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
2953 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
2955 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
2957 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
2958 that is, the line after the last line you got.
2959 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
2961 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
2962 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
2965 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
2966 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
2967 previously sent input.
2969 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
2970 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
2971 as the search string.
2973 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
2974 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
2978 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
2979 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
2980 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
2983 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
2984 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
2985 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
2986 style is still the default however.
2988 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
2990 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
2991 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
2992 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
2994 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
2995 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
2997 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
2998 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
3000 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
3001 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
3003 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
3004 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
3006 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
3007 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
3008 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
3009 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
3011 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
3013 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
3014 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
3015 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
3017 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
3018 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
3019 expanding dynamically.
3021 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
3022 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
3024 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
3025 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
3026 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
3027 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
3029 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
3031 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
3033 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
3034 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
3035 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
3036 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
3037 against the first word in the title.
3039 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
3040 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
3041 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
3042 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
3043 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
3044 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
3046 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
3047 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
3048 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
3049 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
3051 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
3053 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
3054 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
3055 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
3056 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
3057 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
3058 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3060 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3061 Editing group once the package is loaded.
3063 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3064 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3065 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3067 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3068 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3072 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3073 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3074 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3076 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
3077 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3078 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3079 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3082 o URLs are automatically skipped
3083 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3085 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3087 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3089 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3090 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3091 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3092 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3094 *** New recursive parser.
3096 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3097 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3098 recursive parser scans the individual files.
3100 *** Parsing only part of a document.
3102 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3103 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3104 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3106 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3108 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
3110 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3112 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3114 *** Using multiple selection buffers
3116 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3117 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3119 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3121 *** References to external documents.
3123 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3124 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3125 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3126 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3127 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3128 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3129 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3131 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3133 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3134 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3136 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3137 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3139 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3141 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3142 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3144 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3146 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3147 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3148 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3149 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3150 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3151 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3154 *** Support for the varioref package
3156 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3160 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3161 and citations are created. These hooks are
3162 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3163 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
3165 *** Citations outside LaTeX
3167 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3168 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3170 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
3172 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3173 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3176 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3178 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3179 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3180 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3181 directories that contain the same file name.
3183 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3184 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3185 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3186 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3187 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3188 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3189 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3192 ** New modes and packages
3194 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3195 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3196 it, but some do not.
3198 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3201 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3202 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3205 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3207 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3208 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3209 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3210 established system of notation similar to Chess.
3212 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3213 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3214 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3216 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3217 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3218 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3219 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3220 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3223 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3224 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3226 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3227 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3228 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3229 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3231 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3233 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3234 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3235 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3236 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3237 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3238 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3239 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3240 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3241 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3242 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3243 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3245 Platform-specific modes:
3247 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3248 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3249 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3250 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3251 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3252 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3253 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3254 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3255 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3257 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3259 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3260 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3261 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3262 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3264 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3265 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3266 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3268 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3269 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3270 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3271 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3273 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3274 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3275 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3278 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3279 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3280 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3281 current input method for reading this one event.
3283 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3284 now control whether to output certain characters as
3285 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3286 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3287 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3288 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3290 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3292 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3293 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3295 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3296 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3297 always increases point by 1.
3299 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3300 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3302 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3304 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3305 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3306 default value changed. For example,
3308 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3313 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3316 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3317 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3318 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3319 `:version' in the top level group.
3321 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3323 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3324 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3326 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3327 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3328 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3331 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3332 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3335 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
3336 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3337 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3339 ** Frame-local variables.
3341 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3342 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3343 local bindings for that variable.
3345 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3346 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3347 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3350 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3351 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3352 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3353 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3355 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3356 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3357 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3358 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3360 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3361 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3362 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3363 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3364 See the documentation in sregex.el.
3366 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3367 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3368 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3369 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3371 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3372 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3374 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3375 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3376 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3378 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3379 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3380 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3381 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3383 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3384 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3387 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3388 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3389 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3390 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3391 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3393 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3394 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3395 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3396 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3398 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3399 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3400 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3401 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3402 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3404 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3405 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3406 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3407 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3409 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3410 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3411 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3413 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3414 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3415 was directed to display this buffer.
3417 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3418 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3419 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3420 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3421 set-window-configuration.
3423 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3424 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3425 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3426 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3428 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3429 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3430 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3432 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3433 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3434 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3436 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3437 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3439 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3440 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3442 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3443 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3444 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3446 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3447 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3448 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3449 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3453 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3454 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3457 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3458 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3459 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3460 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3461 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3463 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
3465 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3466 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3467 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3468 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3471 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3472 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3473 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3474 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3475 The supported properties include
3477 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3479 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3480 item should appear in the menu.
3482 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3483 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3484 It should return a binding to use instead.
3486 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3487 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3488 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3489 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3490 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3493 This means that the command normally has no
3494 keyboard equivalent.
3495 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3496 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3497 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3498 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3499 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3501 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3502 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3504 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3508 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3509 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3510 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3511 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3513 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3515 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3516 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3517 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3518 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3519 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3520 forward, away from the user.
3522 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3524 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3525 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3526 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3527 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3528 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3530 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3532 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3533 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3534 that were dragged and dropped.
3536 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3538 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3540 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3541 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3542 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3544 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3545 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3546 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3548 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3549 in Emacs 19 and before.
3551 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3552 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3554 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3555 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3556 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3557 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3559 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3560 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3561 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3562 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3563 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3565 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3566 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3567 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3568 consistent with the new representation.
3570 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3571 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3572 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3573 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3575 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3576 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3577 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3579 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3580 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3581 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3583 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3584 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3585 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3587 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3588 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3590 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3591 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3593 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3594 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3595 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3596 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3598 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3599 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3601 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3602 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3603 buffer or string being searched.
3605 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3606 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3607 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3608 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3609 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3610 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3611 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3613 *** Structure of coding system changed.
3615 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3616 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3617 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3618 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3619 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3620 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3621 define-coding-system-alias.
3623 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3624 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3625 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3626 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3627 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3628 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3629 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3632 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3633 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3634 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3635 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3637 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3638 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3639 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3640 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3642 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3643 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3644 This function requires a user interaction.
3646 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3647 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3648 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3649 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3650 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3651 select-safe-coding-system.
3653 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3654 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3655 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3658 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3659 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3660 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3662 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3663 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3664 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3665 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3667 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3668 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3669 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3672 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3673 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3675 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3676 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3677 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3678 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3679 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3680 range of characters.
3682 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3683 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3685 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3686 in the current buffer at position POS.
3688 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3689 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3690 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3691 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3692 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3693 binding input-method-function to nil.
3695 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3696 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3697 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3698 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3699 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3701 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3702 subsequent events of a key sequence.
3704 *** You can customize any language environment by using
3705 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3707 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3708 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3709 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3710 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3711 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3713 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
3715 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3716 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3717 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3720 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3721 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3723 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3724 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3725 in your .emacs file.)
3727 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3728 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3730 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3731 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3733 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3734 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3737 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3738 delete the character before point, as usual.
3740 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3741 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3742 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3744 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3745 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3746 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3747 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3748 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3751 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3752 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3753 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3754 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3755 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3757 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3758 and is an alias for it.
3760 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3761 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3763 ** Scrolling changes
3765 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3766 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3768 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3769 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3772 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3773 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3774 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3775 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3777 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3778 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3779 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3780 recenters the window.
3782 ** International character set support (MULE)
3784 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
3785 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
3786 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
3787 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
3788 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
3789 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
3791 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
3792 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
3793 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
3794 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
3795 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
3797 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
3798 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
3799 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
3800 language, to make it possible to type them.
3802 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
3803 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
3805 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
3806 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
3808 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
3810 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
3812 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
3813 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
3814 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
3815 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
3816 characters for their work until they want to change.
3820 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
3821 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
3822 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
3823 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
3824 support several input methods.
3826 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
3827 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
3830 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
3831 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
3832 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
3833 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
3834 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
3837 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
3838 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
3839 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
3840 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
3841 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
3843 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
3844 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
3845 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
3846 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
3848 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
3849 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
3850 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
3851 the first guess is wrong.
3853 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
3854 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
3856 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
3857 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
3858 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
3859 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
3861 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
3862 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
3863 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
3864 translate automatically to and from either one.
3866 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
3868 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
3869 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
3870 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
3873 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
3874 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
3875 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
3876 multibyte characters in that buffer.
3878 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
3879 character conversion as well.
3881 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
3883 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
3884 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
3885 requires using many fonts.
3887 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
3888 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
3890 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
3891 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
3892 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
3893 you would use a font.
3895 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
3896 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
3897 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
3899 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
3900 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
3901 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
3902 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
3903 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
3905 *** Defining fontsets.
3907 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
3908 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
3909 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
3911 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
3912 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
3913 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
3914 standard fontset are created automatically.
3916 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
3917 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
3918 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
3919 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
3920 name is `fontset-startup'.
3922 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
3923 The resource value should have this form:
3924 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
3925 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
3926 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
3927 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
3928 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
3929 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
3930 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
3931 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
3932 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
3934 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
3935 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
3936 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
3938 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
3939 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
3941 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
3942 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
3943 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
3944 Here is the substitution rule:
3945 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
3946 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
3947 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
3948 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
3949 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
3951 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
3952 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
3953 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
3955 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
3956 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
3957 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
3958 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
3961 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
3962 defaults for a particular choice of language.
3964 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
3965 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
3966 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
3967 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
3968 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
3969 system for new files that you create.
3971 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
3972 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
3973 whole Emacs session.
3975 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
3976 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
3977 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
3979 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
3980 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
3981 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
3982 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
3983 coding systems that Emacs supports.
3985 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
3986 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
3987 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
3988 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
3989 is used for *the immediately following command*.
3991 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
3992 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
3994 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
3995 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
3997 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
3998 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
4000 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
4001 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
4002 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
4003 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
4006 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
4007 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
4008 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
4009 translated into that character code.
4011 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
4012 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
4014 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
4016 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
4017 the coding system for keyboard input.
4019 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
4020 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
4021 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
4023 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
4025 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
4026 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
4027 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
4028 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
4029 designed to work with terminals.
4031 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
4032 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
4033 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
4034 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
4035 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
4036 in the corresponding buffer.
4038 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
4040 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
4041 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
4042 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
4044 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
4045 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
4046 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
4049 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
4050 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
4052 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
4053 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
4054 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
4055 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
4057 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
4058 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4059 related information.
4061 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4062 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4065 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4066 information about the support for a particular language.
4067 You specify the language as an argument.
4069 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4070 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4073 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4074 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4075 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
4076 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4078 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4080 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4081 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4082 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4083 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4084 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4085 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4086 K euc-korea (Korean)
4089 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4092 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4093 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4094 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4098 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4099 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4100 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4101 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4103 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4104 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4106 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4107 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4108 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4109 Rmail files themselves.
4111 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4112 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4114 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4117 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4118 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4119 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4120 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4121 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4123 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4124 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4125 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4128 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4129 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4130 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4131 without any conversion.
4133 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4134 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4135 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4136 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4138 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4139 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4141 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4142 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4144 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4145 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4147 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4148 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4149 in the buffer before point.
4151 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4152 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4155 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4156 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4158 ** File locking works with NFS now.
4160 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4161 in the same directory as FILENAME.
4163 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4164 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4165 can become a bottleneck.
4167 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4168 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4169 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4170 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4171 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4172 so useful that the change is worth while.
4174 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4175 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4176 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4177 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4179 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4180 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4183 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4184 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4185 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4187 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4188 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4189 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4191 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4192 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4193 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4195 ** Changes in View mode.
4197 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4198 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4200 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4201 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4203 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4206 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4207 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4209 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4210 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4211 not just the selected window.
4213 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4214 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4215 turns View mode on or off.
4217 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4218 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4219 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4221 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4222 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4224 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4225 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4226 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4227 which version to compare with.
4229 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4230 blocks if a match is inside the block.
4232 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4233 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4234 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4235 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4237 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4238 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4239 blocks, all of them or none.
4241 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4242 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4245 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4246 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4247 However, the mode will not be changed if
4248 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4249 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4250 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4251 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4253 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4255 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4256 these commands do not change the major mode.
4258 ** M-x occur changes.
4260 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4261 it performs a case-sensitive search.
4263 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4264 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4265 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4267 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4268 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4269 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4270 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4271 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4273 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4274 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4275 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4276 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4278 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4279 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4280 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4282 ** Outline mode changes.
4284 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4286 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4288 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4289 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4290 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4293 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4294 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4297 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4298 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4300 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4302 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4303 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4304 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4305 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4307 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4308 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4309 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4311 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4312 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4315 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4316 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4317 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4318 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4320 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4321 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4322 can be. The default value is 30.
4324 ** Changes in Mail mode.
4326 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4327 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4328 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4329 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4330 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4333 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4334 compose-mail-other-frame.
4336 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4337 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4338 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4339 buffer that shows the original message.
4341 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4342 with separator lines around the contents.
4344 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4345 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4346 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4347 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4349 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
4351 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4352 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4353 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4354 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4356 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4357 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4360 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4361 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4364 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4365 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4366 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4367 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4369 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4370 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4371 be taken to be magic.
4373 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4374 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4375 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4377 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4378 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4380 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4381 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4383 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4385 new key dired.el binding old key
4386 ------- ---------------- -------
4387 * c dired-change-marks c
4389 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4390 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4391 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4393 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4394 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4395 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4396 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4397 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4398 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4402 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4403 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4404 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4405 each time you run it.
4407 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4408 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4410 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4411 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4412 means to move in the opposite direction.
4414 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4415 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4417 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4418 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4419 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4420 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4425 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4427 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4430 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4431 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4433 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4436 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4438 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4440 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4442 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4443 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4444 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4446 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4448 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4450 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4451 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4453 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4454 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4455 used to pick articles.
4457 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4458 another have been added.
4460 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4462 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4463 generating lines in buffers.
4465 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4468 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4470 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4472 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4474 *** Scores can be decayed.
4476 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4478 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4479 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4481 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4484 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4486 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
4487 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4489 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4491 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4492 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4494 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4495 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4497 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4500 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4501 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4503 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4505 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4507 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4509 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4511 Use the `Y c' command.
4513 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4515 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4517 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4519 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4520 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4522 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4524 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4526 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4527 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4529 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4531 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4532 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4533 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4534 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4537 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4538 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4539 particular news group. This can be done by:
4541 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4543 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4544 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4545 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4546 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4547 for reading and posting).
4549 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4550 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4551 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4552 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4555 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4556 default. Here are some of these default settings:
4558 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4559 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4560 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4561 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4562 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4564 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4565 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4569 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4570 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4571 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4572 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4573 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4576 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4577 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4578 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4579 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4580 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4581 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4583 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4584 of the current buffer.
4586 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4587 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4588 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4590 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4591 style that the Python developers like.
4593 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4594 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4595 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4599 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4600 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4601 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4603 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4604 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4607 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4608 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4610 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4611 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4612 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4613 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4615 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4616 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4618 ** Calendar changes.
4620 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4621 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4622 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4626 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4628 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4630 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4631 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4632 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4633 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4634 It defaults to `letter'.
4635 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4637 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4638 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4639 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4641 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4642 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4645 *** Horizontal layout
4647 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4648 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4649 All are measured in points.
4653 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4654 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4655 All are measured in points.
4659 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4660 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4661 margin above the text.
4663 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4664 framing box is printed around the header.
4666 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4667 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4669 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4670 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4671 `ps-header-font-size'.
4675 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4676 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4677 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4678 elements to this alist.
4680 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4681 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4683 ** hideshow changes.
4685 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4688 *** Support for java-mode added.
4690 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4691 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4693 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4694 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4695 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4697 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4698 robust and a lot faster.
4700 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4702 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4703 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4704 documentation for more details.
4706 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
4708 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4709 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4710 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4711 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4712 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4714 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4715 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4716 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4717 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4723 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4724 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4725 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4726 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4727 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4728 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4730 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4732 *** Maximum decoration
4734 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4735 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4736 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4737 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4738 to get the old behavior.
4742 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4744 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4745 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4747 *** Configurable support
4749 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4750 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4751 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4752 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4753 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4754 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4755 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4757 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4758 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4759 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4761 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4763 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4764 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4767 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4769 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4775 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4776 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4777 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4778 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4780 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4782 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
4783 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
4784 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
4786 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
4788 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
4789 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
4790 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
4791 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
4792 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
4793 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
4794 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
4796 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
4797 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
4798 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
4799 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
4800 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
4801 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
4803 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
4805 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
4806 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
4807 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
4808 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
4810 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
4813 ** Ada mode changes.
4815 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
4816 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
4817 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
4818 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
4821 *** There are two new commands:
4822 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
4823 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
4825 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
4826 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
4827 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
4829 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
4830 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
4831 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
4833 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
4834 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
4835 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
4836 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
4838 ** Scheme mode changes.
4840 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
4841 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
4842 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
4843 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
4846 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
4847 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
4848 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
4849 variables as buffer-local variables.
4851 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
4854 ** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
4855 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
4858 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
4859 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
4860 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
4862 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
4863 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
4866 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
4867 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
4869 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
4870 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
4873 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
4874 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
4875 these register values no longer become completely useless.
4876 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
4877 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
4878 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
4880 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
4881 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
4882 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
4883 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
4885 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
4886 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
4887 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
4888 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
4889 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
4891 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
4892 since it applies only to the current frame.
4894 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
4895 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
4896 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
4898 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
4899 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
4900 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
4901 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
4902 instead of just the file you are editing.
4906 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
4907 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
4908 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
4909 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
4910 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
4913 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
4914 knows which kind of label is needed.
4916 C-c ) reftex-reference
4917 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
4918 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
4920 C-c [ reftex-citation
4921 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
4922 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
4924 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
4925 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
4928 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
4929 can quickly jump to every section.
4931 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
4932 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
4933 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
4934 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
4935 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
4937 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4939 *** Info documentation is now available.
4941 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
4942 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
4944 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
4945 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
4947 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
4948 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
4950 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
4951 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
4952 appropriate functions.
4954 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
4955 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
4957 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
4960 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
4961 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
4963 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
4966 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
4967 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
4968 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
4970 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
4971 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
4972 prefixed with `ALT'.
4974 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
4975 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
4976 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
4979 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
4980 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
4981 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
4983 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
4984 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
4986 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
4987 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
4988 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
4990 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
4992 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
4994 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
4997 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
4998 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
5001 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
5004 *** Added support for imenu.
5006 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
5007 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
5008 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
5009 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
5011 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
5012 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
5014 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
5016 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
5017 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
5018 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
5021 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
5022 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
5024 ** browse-url changes
5026 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
5027 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
5028 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
5029 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
5030 customization variables.
5032 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
5034 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
5035 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
5036 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
5040 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
5041 pops up the Info file for this command.
5043 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
5044 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
5045 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
5048 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
5049 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
5050 files in the same directory.
5052 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
5053 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
5054 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
5058 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5059 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5061 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5062 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5063 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5064 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5065 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5066 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5067 color when Viper is in insert state.
5068 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5069 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5070 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5074 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5075 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5076 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5077 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5078 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5080 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5082 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5083 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5085 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5086 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5087 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5089 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5090 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5091 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5092 methods and protocols.
5094 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5095 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5096 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5099 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5100 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5101 at least M times and as many as N times.
5103 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5104 in files has changed slightly.
5106 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5107 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5108 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5109 with old time-stamp-format values.
5111 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5112 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5113 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5116 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5117 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5118 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5119 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5120 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5121 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5123 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5124 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5125 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5127 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5128 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5129 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5130 recommended now will continue to work then.
5132 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5135 ** There are some additional major modes:
5137 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5138 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5139 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5141 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5142 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5145 ** New Lisp packages include:
5147 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5149 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5150 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5152 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5154 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5157 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5158 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5161 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5162 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5163 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5164 strings or comments.
5166 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5167 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5168 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5169 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5172 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5173 can visit them by short forms of their names.
5175 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5176 Emacs Lisp function at point.
5178 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5180 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5181 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5183 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5185 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5187 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5189 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5190 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5192 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5193 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5194 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5195 original place after inserting the copy.
5197 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5200 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5201 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5202 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5204 Enable mouse-drag with:
5205 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5207 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5209 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5210 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5212 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5213 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5217 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5218 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5219 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5220 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5221 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5222 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5223 instance) and vice versa.
5225 To use this package load it using
5226 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5227 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5228 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5229 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5230 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5231 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5233 *** Interface to ph.
5235 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5237 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5238 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5241 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5243 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5244 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5245 while the real cursor does not move.
5247 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5248 for visiting your favorite web sites.
5250 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5251 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5255 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5256 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5257 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5258 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5260 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5262 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5264 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5266 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5267 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5268 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5269 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5270 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5272 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5273 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5274 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5275 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5276 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5277 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5279 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5281 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5282 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5283 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5284 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5286 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5287 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5289 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5290 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5293 ** Basic Lisp changes
5295 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5296 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5298 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5299 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5302 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5304 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5306 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5307 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5309 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5310 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5313 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5315 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5317 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5319 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5320 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5321 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5324 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5325 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5326 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5328 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5329 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5330 adding one of these suffixes.
5332 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5333 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5334 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5336 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5337 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5339 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5341 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5342 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5344 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5345 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5347 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5349 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5350 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5352 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5353 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5354 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5355 works using `save-current-buffer'.
5357 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5358 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5361 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5362 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5363 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5366 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5367 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5370 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5372 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5373 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5374 Then it returns that string.
5376 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5378 (with-output-to-string
5379 (princ "The buffer is ")
5380 (princ (buffer-name)))
5382 returns "The buffer is foo".
5384 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5387 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5388 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5389 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5391 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5392 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5394 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5395 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5396 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5397 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5398 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5399 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5401 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5402 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5403 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5406 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5407 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5408 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5409 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5410 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5412 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5413 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5414 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5415 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5417 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5418 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5420 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5422 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5423 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5424 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5425 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5428 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5429 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5432 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5434 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5435 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5436 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5437 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5438 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5440 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5442 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5443 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5444 more than the number of characters.
5446 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5447 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5448 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5449 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5450 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5451 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5453 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5454 and returns a string containing those characters.
5456 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5457 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5458 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5459 character, sref signals an error.
5461 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5462 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5463 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5465 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5466 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5467 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5469 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5470 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5471 to a vector of the characters in it.
5473 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5474 of a string. You call it as follows:
5476 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5478 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5479 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5480 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5481 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5482 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5484 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5485 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5487 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5488 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5490 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5491 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5492 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5493 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5495 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5497 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5499 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5500 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5501 are not included in the resulting value.
5503 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5504 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5505 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5506 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5508 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5509 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5510 character extends across that column), then the padding character
5511 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5512 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5513 column START-COLUMN.
5515 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5516 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5517 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5518 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5519 changed text, before the change.
5521 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5522 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5523 one character set for each script, not for each language.
5525 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5527 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5529 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5530 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5532 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5533 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5534 which identify the character within that character set.
5536 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5537 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5538 opposite of split-char.
5540 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5541 of all the characters between BEG and END.
5543 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5544 of all the characters in a string.
5546 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5547 and specifying coding systems.
5549 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5550 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5551 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5552 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5553 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5554 as what to do about code conversion.)
5556 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5557 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5559 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5560 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5561 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5563 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5564 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5565 to match against a file name.
5567 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5568 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5569 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5570 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5571 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5572 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5574 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5575 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5577 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5578 the coding system to use for network sockets.
5580 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5581 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5582 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5585 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5586 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5587 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5588 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5589 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5590 specifies the coding system for encoding.
5592 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5593 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5595 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5596 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5597 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5598 start the subprocess.
5600 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5601 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5602 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5603 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5604 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5606 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5607 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5610 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5611 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5612 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5613 connection permanently or until overridden.
5615 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5616 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5617 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5618 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5619 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5620 system for one operation at a time.
5622 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5623 files, subprocesses or network connections.
5625 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5626 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5627 The value is a cons cell,
5628 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5629 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5630 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5631 input to the subprocess.
5633 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5634 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5636 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5637 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5638 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5640 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5641 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5642 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5643 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5646 Thus, instead of writing
5648 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5649 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5651 you would now write this:
5653 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5654 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5658 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5659 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5660 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5661 for a description of them.
5663 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5664 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5666 (defgroup ispell nil
5667 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5670 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5671 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5672 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5673 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5674 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5676 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5677 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5678 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5679 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5680 first-level subgroups.
5682 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5684 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5685 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5689 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5690 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5691 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5692 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5693 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5694 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5696 ** Text property changes
5698 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5701 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5702 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5703 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5704 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5705 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5707 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5708 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5709 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5710 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5712 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5713 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5714 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5716 ** Changes in invisibility features
5718 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5719 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5720 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5721 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5722 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5723 make the overlay visible.
5725 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5726 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5727 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5728 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5729 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5730 t when it should hide it.
5732 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5734 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5735 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5736 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5737 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5738 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5739 Here is an example of how to do this:
5741 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5742 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5743 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5744 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5747 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5750 ;; When done with the overlays:
5751 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5753 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5755 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
5757 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5758 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5759 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5760 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5762 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5763 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5764 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5766 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5767 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5769 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5770 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5772 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5773 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5774 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5776 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5777 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5778 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5779 determine the syntax type of the character.
5781 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5782 of the current buffer.
5784 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
5785 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
5786 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
5788 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
5789 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
5790 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
5791 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
5792 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
5794 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
5797 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
5798 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
5799 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
5801 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
5802 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
5803 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
5804 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
5805 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
5807 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
5808 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
5809 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
5811 ** Changes in face features
5813 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
5814 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
5816 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
5817 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
5819 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
5820 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
5822 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
5823 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
5825 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
5826 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
5827 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
5828 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
5831 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
5832 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
5834 ** Changes in file-handling functions
5836 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
5837 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
5838 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
5839 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
5841 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
5844 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
5845 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
5847 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5848 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
5850 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
5851 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
5853 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
5854 character code conversion as well as other things.
5856 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
5857 (formerly it did not).
5859 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
5860 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
5862 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
5863 instead of constant strings.
5865 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
5866 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
5867 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
5869 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
5870 in the same way as before.
5872 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
5873 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
5874 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
5876 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
5877 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
5878 else, and returns nil.
5880 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
5881 directory cannot be listed.
5883 ** Changes in minibuffer input
5885 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
5886 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
5887 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
5888 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
5891 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
5892 It is available through the history command M-n.
5894 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
5895 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
5896 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
5897 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
5898 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
5900 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
5901 argument in this way.
5903 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
5904 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
5905 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
5907 ** Echo area features
5909 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
5910 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
5911 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
5912 after the echo area is cleared.
5914 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
5915 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
5917 ** Keyboard input features
5919 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
5920 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
5922 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
5923 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
5926 ** Frame-related changes
5928 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
5929 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
5930 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
5932 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
5933 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
5934 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
5936 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5937 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
5938 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
5939 in the selected frame.
5941 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
5942 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
5943 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
5945 ** X Windows features
5947 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
5948 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
5949 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
5951 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
5952 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
5954 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
5955 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
5956 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
5958 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
5959 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
5961 ** Subprocess features
5963 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
5964 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
5967 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
5968 and returns the output from the command as a string.
5970 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
5971 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
5973 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
5974 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
5976 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
5977 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
5978 goes after the other menu items.
5980 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
5981 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
5982 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
5985 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
5986 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
5988 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
5989 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
5992 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
5993 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
5994 but its hook is still run.
5996 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
5997 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
5999 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
6000 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
6001 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
6003 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
6004 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
6005 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
6008 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
6009 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
6011 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
6012 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
6013 functions like display-time.
6015 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
6016 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
6018 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
6019 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
6020 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
6022 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
6023 if there is an error in compilation.
6025 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
6026 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
6027 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
6028 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
6030 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
6031 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
6032 the *scratch* buffer.
6034 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
6035 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
6036 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
6037 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
6039 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
6040 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
6041 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
6043 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
6044 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
6045 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
6046 and compose-mail-other-frame.
6048 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
6049 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
6050 full name of the specified user will be returned.
6052 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
6053 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
6054 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
6055 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
6056 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
6059 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6060 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6061 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6062 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6064 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6065 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6066 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6067 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6069 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6071 ** imenu.el changes.
6073 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6074 item from menu created by imenu.
6076 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6077 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6078 select one of those items.
6080 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6082 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6084 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6085 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6087 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6088 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6089 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6091 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6093 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6094 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6096 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6097 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6098 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6099 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6100 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6103 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6104 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6106 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6107 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6108 as in previous Emacs versions.
6110 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6111 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6112 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6115 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6116 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6117 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6118 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6121 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6122 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6123 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6124 line and then executing the macro.
6126 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6128 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6129 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6130 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6135 *** Font Lock support modes
6137 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6138 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6139 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6140 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6141 Font Lock mode is enabled.
6143 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6145 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6151 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6152 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6153 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6154 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6155 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6156 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6157 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6159 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6161 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6163 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6165 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6167 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6170 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6175 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6176 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6177 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6178 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6180 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6181 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6183 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6184 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6187 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6188 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6190 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6192 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6194 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6196 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6199 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6201 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6203 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6205 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6207 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6210 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6212 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6214 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6216 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6218 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6220 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6222 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6224 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6227 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6229 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6232 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6234 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6235 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6237 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6239 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6241 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6243 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6245 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6248 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6250 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6251 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6253 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6254 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6255 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6257 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6258 articles with the `*' command.
6260 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6262 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
6264 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6266 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6268 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6269 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6271 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6274 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6276 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6278 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6280 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6282 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6284 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6286 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6288 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6290 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6292 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6293 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6295 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6298 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6300 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6301 buffer to allow easier treatment.
6303 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6305 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6307 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6309 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6312 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6314 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6316 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6317 cited text to hide is now customizable.
6319 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6321 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
6323 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6325 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6327 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6329 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6332 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6334 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6335 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6336 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6339 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6342 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6345 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6346 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6349 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6350 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6351 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6352 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6353 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6356 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6358 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6360 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6361 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6362 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6363 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6364 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6366 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6367 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6368 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
6370 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6372 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6373 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6374 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6375 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6376 chapter of the manual for details.
6378 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6379 customization variables take effect.
6381 ** Marking with the mouse.
6383 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6384 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6385 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6387 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6389 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6391 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6392 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6394 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6395 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6396 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6397 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6398 applications, these problems are significant.
6400 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6401 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6402 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6403 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6404 other DOS application as a subprocess.
6406 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6407 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6409 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6410 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6411 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6412 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6413 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6414 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6416 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6418 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6419 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6420 minibuffer contains.
6422 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6424 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6425 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6426 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6427 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6429 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6430 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6431 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6432 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6434 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6435 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6437 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6438 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6439 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6441 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6442 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6443 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6444 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6446 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6448 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6449 to replace the characters it "deletes".
6451 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6453 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6454 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6455 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6456 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6457 immediately after the selected one.
6459 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6460 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6462 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6464 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6465 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6466 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6467 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6470 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6471 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6474 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6475 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6476 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6477 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6478 now that the bug is fixed.
6480 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6482 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6483 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6484 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6485 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6487 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6488 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6489 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6490 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6492 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6493 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6494 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6496 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6497 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6498 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6499 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6502 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6503 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6505 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6506 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6507 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6508 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6510 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6511 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6512 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6513 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6514 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6515 `mail-directory-stream'.)
6517 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6518 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6519 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6520 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6522 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6523 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6524 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6526 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6527 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6528 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6529 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6530 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6531 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6532 to a limitation in font-lock).
6534 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6536 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6537 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6538 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6541 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6542 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6544 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6546 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6548 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6550 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6552 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6553 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6554 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6555 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6556 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6557 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6559 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6562 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6563 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6565 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6570 *** Global Font Lock mode
6572 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6573 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6574 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6575 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6576 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6578 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6580 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6584 *** Local Refontification
6586 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6587 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6588 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6589 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6591 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6592 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6593 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6594 above and below point.
6596 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6600 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6601 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6602 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6603 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6604 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6607 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6609 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6610 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6612 ** hide-show changes.
6614 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6615 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6618 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6619 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6621 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6622 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6623 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6627 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6628 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6630 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6631 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6633 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6635 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6636 pressing both mouse buttons.
6638 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6639 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6642 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6645 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6647 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6648 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6650 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6652 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6654 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
6656 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6658 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6660 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6662 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6663 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6664 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6665 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6666 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6668 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6670 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6671 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6672 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6675 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6678 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6680 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6681 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6683 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6684 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6686 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6687 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6688 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6690 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6691 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6694 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6696 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6697 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6698 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6700 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6701 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6702 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6704 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6705 up if too much time passes.
6707 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6709 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6710 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6711 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6714 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6715 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6716 call looks like this:
6718 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6720 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6721 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6722 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6725 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6726 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6729 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6730 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6731 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6732 each time Emacs becomes idle.
6734 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6735 idle for SECS seconds.
6737 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6738 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6739 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6742 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6743 there is no answer within a certain time.
6745 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6747 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6748 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6749 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6751 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6752 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6753 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6754 arguments in between are ignored.
6756 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6757 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6759 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6760 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6761 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6762 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6765 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6766 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6767 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6768 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6769 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6770 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6772 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6773 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6774 systems with limited file name syntax.
6776 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6777 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6778 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6781 (defvar save-completions-file-name
6782 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
6783 "*The filename to save completions to.")
6785 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
6786 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
6787 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
6788 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
6789 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
6791 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
6792 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
6793 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
6795 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
6796 marker from its buffer position.
6798 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
6799 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
6800 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
6802 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
6803 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
6804 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
6805 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
6806 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
6807 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
6809 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
6810 errors that happen often during editing.
6812 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
6813 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
6814 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
6816 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
6817 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
6819 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
6820 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
6821 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
6822 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
6823 and not get-buffer-window.
6825 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
6826 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
6827 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
6829 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
6830 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
6831 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
6832 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
6833 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
6834 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
6835 over and over for the same text.
6837 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
6839 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
6840 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
6842 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
6845 in addition to the normal
6849 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
6850 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
6851 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
6853 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
6855 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
6856 Copyright information:
6858 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6860 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6861 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6862 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6863 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6865 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6866 of this document, or of portions of it,
6867 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6868 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6872 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"