1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 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
7 You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
8 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
11 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
12 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
13 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
14 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
17 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
19 ** Emacs includes now support for loading image libraries on demand.
20 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
21 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
22 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
25 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the following
26 languages: Brasilian, Bulgarian, Chinese (both with simplified and
27 traditional characters), French, and Italian. Type `C-u C-h t' to
28 choose one of them in case your language setup doesn't automatically
31 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
32 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
33 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
36 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
38 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
41 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
42 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
46 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
47 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
48 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
49 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
50 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
51 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
52 in each user's home directory.
55 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
56 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
60 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
62 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
63 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
64 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
65 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
68 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
71 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
72 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
73 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
74 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
76 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
79 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
82 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
85 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
86 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
89 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
92 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
95 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
96 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
99 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
102 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
103 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
107 ** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
108 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
111 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
112 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
114 ** global-whitespace-mode is a new alias for whitespace-global-mode.
117 ** There are now two new regular expression operators, \_< and \_>,
118 for matching the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
119 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
120 specified by the syntax table.
122 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
123 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
124 existing values. For example:
126 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
128 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
129 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
131 ** New features in evaluation commands
134 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
135 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
137 *** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
138 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
139 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
140 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
141 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
143 ** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
146 ** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
147 in the current input method to input a character at point.
149 ** Convenient commands to switch buffers in a cyclic order are C-x <left>
150 (prev-buffer) and C-x <right> (next-buffer).
152 ** Commands winner-redo and winner-undo, from winner.el, are now bound to
153 C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an incompatible change.
155 ** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
156 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
157 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
158 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
161 ** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
162 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
163 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
164 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
165 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
167 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
168 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
170 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
171 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
172 lines, including any prompts.
174 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
175 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
176 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
177 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
178 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
179 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
180 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
182 ** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
183 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
185 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
188 ** New command line option -Q.
190 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
191 the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, the blinking
192 cursor, and the fancy startup screen.
194 ** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
195 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
197 ** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
198 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
199 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
201 ** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
202 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
203 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
204 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
205 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
206 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
207 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
210 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
211 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
212 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
215 ** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
216 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
217 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
218 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
219 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
220 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
221 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
222 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
223 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
225 ** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
226 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
227 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
228 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
229 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
231 ** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
232 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
235 ** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
237 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
238 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
239 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
240 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
242 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
243 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
244 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
246 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
247 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
248 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
249 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
250 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
252 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
254 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
257 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
258 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
259 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
260 subprocesses inherit.
262 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
264 *** There's a new separate package grep.el.
266 *** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
268 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
269 can be saved and automatically revisited with the new Grep mode.
271 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
273 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
274 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
275 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
277 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
278 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
279 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
280 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
281 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
282 source line is highlighted.
284 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
285 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
286 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
287 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
288 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
289 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
292 ** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
293 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
294 in new face `next-error'.
296 ** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
297 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
298 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
299 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
300 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
303 ** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
305 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
306 resync points in both windows.
308 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
309 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
310 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
311 using strokes as an input method.
315 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
316 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
319 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
320 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
325 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, desktop-save-mode. Variable
326 desktop-enable is obsolete. Customize desktop-save-mode to enable desktop
329 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
333 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
334 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
335 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
338 *** New customizable variables:
339 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
341 - desktop-file-name-format.
342 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
343 - desktop-locals-to-save.
344 - desktop-globals-to-clear.
345 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp.
347 *** New command line option --no-desktop
350 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
351 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
354 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
355 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
356 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
357 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
358 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
359 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
362 ** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
364 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
365 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
366 % emacsclient -s foo file1
367 % emacsclient -s bar file2
370 ** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
371 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
372 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
373 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
374 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
376 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' may be set to nil to
377 revert to the old behaviour of continuing such lines.
380 ** The buffer boundaries (i.e. first and last line in the buffer) may
381 now be marked with angle bitmaps in the fringes. In addition, up and
382 down arrow bitmaps may be shown at the top and bottom of the left or
383 right fringe if the window can be scrolled in either direction.
385 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
386 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
387 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
389 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
390 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
392 Value may also be an alist which specifies the presense and position
393 of each bitmap individually.
395 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
396 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
397 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
398 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
400 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
401 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
402 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
403 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
404 keyboard oriented alternative.
406 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
407 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
408 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
409 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
410 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
412 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
413 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
414 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
415 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
418 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
419 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
420 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
421 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
422 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
423 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
424 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
426 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
427 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
430 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
431 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
432 an interactively callable function.
437 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
438 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
439 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
440 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
441 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
443 The following values are supported:
445 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
459 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
462 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
463 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
464 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
466 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
468 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
469 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
470 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
471 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
473 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
474 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
476 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
477 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
478 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
480 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
481 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
482 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
483 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
484 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
487 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
488 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
489 credentials to authenticate the user.
491 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
492 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
493 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
495 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
496 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
498 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
499 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
502 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
503 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
506 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
507 with special modes such as Tar mode.
509 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
511 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
512 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
513 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
516 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
517 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
518 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
519 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
520 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
524 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
525 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
526 the operating system or your X server.
528 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
529 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
530 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
532 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
533 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
535 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
536 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
538 ** A prefix argument of C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-printifies the
539 list starting after point.
543 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
544 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
545 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
547 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
548 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
551 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
552 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
555 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
556 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
557 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
558 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
559 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
560 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
563 *** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
564 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
565 what external viewers to use and when.
567 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
568 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
573 *** Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode. The mode toggling
574 command is bound to M-o. A new command dired-mark-omitted, bound to M-O,
575 marks omitted files. The variable dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the
576 mode toggling function instead.
580 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
581 with the number appended to the *info* buffer name.
583 *** Regexp isearch (C-M-s and C-M-r) can search through multiple nodes.
584 Failed isearch wraps to the top/final node.
586 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
587 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
588 search without prompting for a new search string.
590 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
592 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
593 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
595 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
596 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
599 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
600 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
601 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
603 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
604 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
606 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
607 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
610 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
611 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
612 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
614 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
615 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
616 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
617 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
620 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
623 *** Info-index offers completion.
625 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
629 *** The new command bibtex-url browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
630 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2 on clickable fields).
631 *** The new command bibtex-entry-update (bound to C-c C-u) updates
632 an existing BibTeX entry.
633 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
634 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
635 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
636 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
637 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
638 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
639 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
641 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
642 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
644 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
645 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
647 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
648 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
650 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
651 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
653 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
654 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
656 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
657 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
659 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
660 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
661 at the edges of the window.
663 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
664 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
666 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
667 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
668 or when the frame is resized.
670 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
672 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
673 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
676 ** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
677 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
678 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
680 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
682 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
683 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
685 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
686 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
688 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
690 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
691 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
693 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
694 Emacs prompts her for confirmation.
696 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
698 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
699 and other common debugger commands.
703 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
704 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
707 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
708 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
709 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
710 recent list with different symbolic links.
712 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
713 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
714 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
715 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
716 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
718 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
723 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
724 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
726 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
728 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
729 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
730 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
731 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
732 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
733 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
737 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.82. There have been major changes since
738 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
741 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
742 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
743 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
745 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
748 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
749 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
750 appears between the position information and the major mode.
752 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
753 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
756 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
757 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
758 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
759 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
763 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
764 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
765 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
769 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
770 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
771 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
774 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
775 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
777 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
781 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
783 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
784 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
785 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
788 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
789 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
790 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
792 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
793 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
794 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
795 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
796 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
798 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
799 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
800 t, and the status is shown.
802 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
803 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
806 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
807 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
808 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
811 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
812 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
813 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
814 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
815 automatically according to the locale.)
817 ** Indian support has been updated.
818 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
819 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
820 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
824 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
825 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
826 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
827 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
828 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
832 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
833 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
834 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
837 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
838 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
839 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
840 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
841 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
842 latter is used by GNU locales.
844 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
845 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
846 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
847 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
848 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
849 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
850 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
851 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
852 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
853 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
854 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
855 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
857 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
858 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
859 fontset appropriately.
861 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
865 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
866 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
867 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
868 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
869 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
870 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
871 mule-unicode-... ones.
873 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
874 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
875 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
878 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
879 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
880 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
881 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
882 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
884 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
885 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
886 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
887 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
889 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
890 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
891 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
895 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
896 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
897 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
900 ** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
901 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+ and W32).
904 ** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif pops down when pressing ESC.
907 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
908 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
911 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
912 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
913 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
917 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
918 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
920 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
921 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
922 program files that include other program files.
924 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
925 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
929 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
930 when Emacs visits them.
933 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
935 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
936 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
937 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
939 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
940 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
941 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
942 and use the more appropriately result.
945 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
946 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
947 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
948 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
950 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
951 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
952 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
953 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
954 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
955 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
957 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
958 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
961 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
963 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
964 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
965 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
966 TeX commands to use at startup.
967 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
968 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
970 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
973 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
974 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
975 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
976 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
977 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
978 feature is not enabled.
980 ** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
981 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
982 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
983 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
984 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
988 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
989 description various information about a character, including its
990 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
991 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
992 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
995 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
996 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
997 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
998 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
999 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1001 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1002 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1003 in Indented-Text mode.
1005 ** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
1006 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1007 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1009 ** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
1010 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
1011 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
1012 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
1013 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
1014 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
1015 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
1016 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
1017 can be edited for each replacement.
1020 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1021 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1022 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1023 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1024 also disable mouse highlighting.
1026 ** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1027 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1028 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1031 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
1032 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
1033 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
1034 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
1035 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
1038 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
1039 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
1040 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
1044 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
1045 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
1046 the mode line of the currently selected window.
1048 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
1049 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
1052 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
1053 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
1054 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
1055 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
1056 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
1057 current date and time, current line and column number in the
1061 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
1064 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
1065 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
1066 `display-time-mail-directory'.
1069 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
1072 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
1073 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
1074 argument it toggles the mode.
1076 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
1077 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
1080 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
1081 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
1082 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
1083 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
1084 `inhibit-splash-screen').
1086 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
1089 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1090 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1091 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1092 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1093 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1094 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1095 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1096 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1097 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1100 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1101 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1102 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1103 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1104 all of these colors.
1107 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1108 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1109 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1110 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1114 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1117 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
1119 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
1120 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
1121 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
1122 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
1125 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
1129 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1130 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1131 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1132 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1135 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
1137 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
1139 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
1142 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
1143 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
1145 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
1146 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
1148 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
1150 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
1151 run by the key sequence.
1153 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
1154 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
1157 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
1158 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
1160 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
1161 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
1163 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
1164 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
1166 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
1167 new-kill-line is on C-k
1170 ** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
1171 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
1172 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
1173 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
1177 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
1178 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
1179 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
1180 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
1183 ** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
1184 at the end of a line.
1187 ** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
1188 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
1189 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
1192 ** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
1193 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
1194 search string used as the string to replace.
1197 ** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
1198 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
1199 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
1202 ** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
1203 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
1204 elements are deleted.
1207 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
1208 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
1209 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
1210 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
1213 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
1214 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
1215 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
1216 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
1219 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1220 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1221 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1222 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1223 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1224 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1227 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1228 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1229 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1230 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1231 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1232 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1233 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1236 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1237 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1238 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1239 under the "[State]" button.
1241 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
1242 point (no integers are allowed).
1245 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
1246 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
1249 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
1251 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
1252 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
1253 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
1254 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
1255 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
1257 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
1258 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
1259 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
1262 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
1265 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
1266 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
1267 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
1269 Added Customization Variables
1271 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
1273 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
1274 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
1275 java sources (previous method).
1277 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
1278 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
1283 *** The STARTTLS elisp wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
1284 instead of the OpenSSL based "starttls" tool. For backwards
1285 compatibility, it prefers "starttls", but you can toggle
1286 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
1289 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
1292 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
1293 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
1294 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
1297 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
1298 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
1299 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
1300 is only rarely needed.
1304 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
1306 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
1307 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
1308 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
1309 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
1311 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
1313 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
1314 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
1315 refontification takes place.
1318 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
1319 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
1320 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region extends each time, so
1321 you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC, for example.
1322 This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to
1326 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
1327 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
1328 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
1329 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
1330 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
1333 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
1334 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
1335 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
1338 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
1339 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
1340 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
1344 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
1345 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
1346 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
1349 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1350 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1354 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
1355 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
1356 affects the initial frame.
1359 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
1360 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
1361 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
1365 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1366 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1367 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1368 directory listing into a buffer.
1371 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1372 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1374 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
1375 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
1376 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1377 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1380 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1381 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1382 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1383 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1384 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1385 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1386 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1387 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1390 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
1391 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
1392 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
1393 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
1394 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
1397 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
1398 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
1401 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
1402 of the recognized cursor types.
1405 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
1406 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
1407 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
1410 ** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
1411 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
1414 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
1415 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
1416 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
1417 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
1418 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
1419 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
1420 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
1421 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
1422 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
1425 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
1426 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
1427 count backward from the end of the year.
1430 ** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
1431 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
1432 day of that ISO week.
1435 ** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
1436 arguments, and only report on the specified holiday rather than all.
1437 This makes customization of the variable `christian-holidays' simpler,
1438 but existing customizations may need to be updated.
1440 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
1441 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
1442 and `diary-header-line-format'.
1445 ** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed: use
1446 the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
1447 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
1448 appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
1450 ** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
1451 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
1452 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
1453 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
1459 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
1460 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
1461 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
1462 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
1463 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
1465 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
1467 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
1470 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
1471 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
1472 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
1473 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
1474 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
1477 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
1482 *** When comparing directories.
1483 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
1484 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
1485 from one directory to another.
1488 *** When comparing files or buffers.
1489 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
1490 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
1491 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
1494 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
1495 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
1496 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
1501 *** New regular expressions features
1503 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
1504 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
1505 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
1506 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
1507 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1508 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1509 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1510 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1511 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1512 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1513 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1515 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1516 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1517 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1520 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1521 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1522 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1523 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1525 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1526 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1527 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1529 *** New language parsing features
1531 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1532 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1534 **** The gnucc __attribute__ keyword is now recognised and ignored.
1536 **** New language HTML.
1537 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1538 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1540 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1541 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1542 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1544 **** New language Lua.
1545 All functions are tagged.
1547 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1548 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1549 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1552 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1554 **** New language PHP.
1555 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1556 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are variables also.
1558 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1559 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1562 *** Honour #line directives.
1563 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1564 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1565 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1566 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1567 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1569 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1570 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1571 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1572 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
1578 *** Font lock support.
1579 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1580 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1581 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1582 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1583 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1584 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1586 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1587 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1588 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1589 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1590 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1591 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1592 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1593 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1594 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1596 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1597 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1598 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1599 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1600 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1601 take the better part of a minute.
1603 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1604 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1605 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1606 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1607 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1608 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1610 **** Support for documentation comments.
1611 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1612 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1613 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1614 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1616 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1617 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1618 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1619 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1621 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1622 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1623 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1624 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1627 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1628 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1629 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1630 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1631 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1633 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1634 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1635 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1636 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1637 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1639 *** Support for the AWK language.
1640 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1641 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1642 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1645 **** Indentation Engine
1646 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1648 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1649 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1650 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1651 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1652 definition, or structured statement.
1654 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1655 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1656 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1658 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1659 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1660 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1661 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1664 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1665 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1666 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1667 the AWK language itself.
1669 **** Comment Commands
1670 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1671 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1673 **** Movement Commands
1674 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1675 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1676 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1678 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1679 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1680 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1683 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1684 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1685 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1686 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1688 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1689 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1690 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1691 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1692 composition-close, and incomposition.
1694 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1695 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1696 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1697 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1699 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1700 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1701 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1702 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1703 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1704 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1706 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1707 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1708 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1709 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1710 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1712 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1716 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1718 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1721 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1722 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1723 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1724 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1726 *** API changes for derived modes.
1727 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1728 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1729 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1730 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1731 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1733 **** New language variable system.
1734 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1736 **** New initialization functions.
1737 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1738 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1739 c-init-language-vars.
1741 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1742 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1743 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1744 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1746 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1747 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1748 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1749 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1750 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1752 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1753 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1754 its substatement. E.g:
1760 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1762 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1763 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1764 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1765 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1766 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1769 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1770 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1771 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1772 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1773 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1774 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1775 empty lines within the macro better.
1777 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1778 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1779 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1781 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1782 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1783 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1784 backslashes can be moved.
1786 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1787 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1788 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1789 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1791 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1792 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1793 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1794 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1795 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1796 backslash) in the macro.
1798 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1799 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1800 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1801 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1802 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1803 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1805 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1806 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1808 *** New lineup functions
1810 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1811 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1814 result = prefix + "A message "
1815 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1817 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1818 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1820 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1821 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1822 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1824 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1825 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1828 **** c-lineup-argcont
1829 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1830 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1832 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1833 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1834 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1835 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1836 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1837 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1839 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1840 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1841 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1842 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1845 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1846 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1847 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1848 happen when macros are involved.
1850 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1851 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1852 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1853 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1854 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1855 line is left untouched.
1857 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1858 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1859 syntactic indentation.
1861 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1862 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1865 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1866 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1869 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1870 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1871 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1874 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1875 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1876 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1879 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1880 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1881 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1884 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1885 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1886 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1887 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1888 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1889 from the file name or buffer contents.
1892 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1895 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1898 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1901 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1902 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1903 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1906 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1907 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1909 ** F90 mode now has support for hs-minor-mode (hideshow).
1910 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
1914 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1915 to support use of font-lock.
1918 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1919 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1923 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1924 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1925 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1928 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1929 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1930 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1931 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1932 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1933 candidate is a directory.
1936 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1937 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1938 it remains unchanged.
1940 ** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
1942 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
1943 have in common and where they begin to differ.
1945 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
1946 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
1947 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
1948 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
1949 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
1950 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
1951 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
1952 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
1955 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1956 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1957 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1960 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1963 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1964 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1965 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1968 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1969 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1972 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1973 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1974 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1975 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1976 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1977 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1978 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
1981 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1982 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1983 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1984 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1985 sound support for those formats.
1988 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1989 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1992 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1993 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1994 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1995 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1998 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1999 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
2000 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
2001 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
2002 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
2003 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
2004 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
2005 you wish to use them in other faces.
2008 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
2009 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
2010 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
2011 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
2013 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
2014 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
2017 ** vc-annotate-mode enhancements
2019 In vc-annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2020 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2021 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2023 P: annotates the previous revision
2024 N: annotates the next revision
2025 J: annotates the revision at line
2026 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2027 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2028 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2029 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2032 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2033 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2037 ** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2038 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2039 "checkout", "update" or "commit". That means using cvs diff options
2043 * New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
2045 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
2046 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
2047 to increment the SOA serial.
2049 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
2050 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
2052 ** The library tree-widget.el provides a new widget to display a set
2053 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
2054 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
2056 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
2057 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
2059 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
2060 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
2062 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
2064 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
2067 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
2068 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
2070 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
2073 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2075 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
2076 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
2077 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
2078 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
2081 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2083 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
2084 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
2085 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
2086 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
2087 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
2088 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
2090 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
2091 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
2092 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
2093 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
2095 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
2096 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
2097 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
2098 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
2099 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
2100 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
2101 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
2103 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
2104 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
2105 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
2107 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
2108 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
2110 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
2111 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
2112 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
2113 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
2115 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
2116 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
2117 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
2118 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
2120 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
2121 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
2122 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
2123 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
2125 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
2126 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
2127 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
2128 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
2129 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
2131 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
2132 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
2133 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
2134 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
2135 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
2136 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
2138 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
2139 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
2140 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
2141 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
2142 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
2143 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
2144 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
2145 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
2146 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
2150 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
2151 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
2153 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
2154 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
2155 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
2156 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
2158 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
2161 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
2162 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
2163 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
2164 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
2165 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
2168 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
2169 the keyboard macro ring.
2171 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
2172 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
2174 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
2175 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
2176 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
2177 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
2179 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
2180 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
2181 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
2184 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2185 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2186 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2187 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2189 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2191 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
2192 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
2193 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
2194 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
2195 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
2196 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
2199 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
2201 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
2202 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
2203 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
2204 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
2207 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
2209 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
2210 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
2211 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
2212 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
2213 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
2214 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
2215 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
2216 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
2217 `rsync' to do the copying).
2219 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
2223 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
2224 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
2225 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
2226 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
2227 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
2228 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
2231 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
2232 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
2233 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
2237 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
2238 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
2239 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
2240 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
2242 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
2245 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
2246 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
2248 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
2249 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
2250 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
2251 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
2252 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
2253 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
2256 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
2257 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
2258 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
2259 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
2262 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
2263 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
2264 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
2265 mode-lines in inverse-video.
2268 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
2270 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
2271 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
2273 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the appearance of fringes.
2275 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
2276 configuration files.
2278 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
2281 ** Major mode functions now run the new normal hook
2282 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode hooks.
2285 ** `auto-save-file-format' has been renamed to
2286 `buffer-auto-save-file-format' and made into a permanent local.
2289 ** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
2290 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
2291 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
2293 ** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
2294 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
2295 the usable window height and width is used.
2298 ** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
2299 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
2301 ** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
2302 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
2303 During that following command, the value of transient-mark-mode
2304 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
2308 ** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
2310 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
2311 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
2314 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
2316 ** The sentinel is now called when a network process is deleted with
2317 delete-process. The status message passed to the sentinel for a
2318 deleted network process is "deleted". The message passed to the
2319 sentinel when the connection is closed by the remote peer has been
2320 changed to "connection broken by remote peer".
2322 ** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
2323 undo-outer-limit, garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
2324 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
2327 ** New function quail-find-key returns a list of keys to type in the
2328 current input method to input a character.
2331 ** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y return
2332 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
2333 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
2335 ** skip-chars-forward and skip-chars-backward now handle
2336 character classes such as [:alpha:], along with individual characters
2339 ** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
2340 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
2343 ** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
2346 ** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
2347 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
2350 ** file-remote-p now returns an identifier for the remote system,
2351 if the file is indeed remote. (Before, the return value was t in
2355 ** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
2356 supported on text terminals.
2359 ** Support for displaying image slices
2361 *** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
2362 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
2364 *** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
2365 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
2367 *** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
2368 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
2371 ** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
2373 A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text or overlay
2374 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
2376 If the line-height property value is 0, the newline does not
2377 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
2378 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a line-spacing property on this
2379 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
2380 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
2382 If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
2383 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
2384 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
2386 If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
2387 is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
2390 If the line-height property value is a cons (RATIO . FACE), the
2391 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
2392 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
2394 If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
2395 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
2396 overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
2397 the line-spacing variable.
2399 If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
2400 is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
2402 If the line-spacing value is a cons (total . SPACING) where SPACING is
2403 any of the forms described above, the value of SPACING is used as the
2404 total height of the line, i.e. a varying number of pixels are inserted
2405 after each line to make each line exactly that many pixels high.
2407 ** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
2408 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
2411 ** Enhancements to stretch display properties
2413 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
2414 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
2415 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
2417 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
2418 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
2421 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
2422 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
2423 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
2424 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
2426 POS ::= left | center | right
2427 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
2430 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
2431 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
2432 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
2433 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
2434 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
2435 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
2436 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
2439 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
2440 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
2441 corresponding area of the window.
2443 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
2444 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
2445 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
2446 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
2447 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
2448 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
2449 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
2450 the width of the area.
2452 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
2453 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
2455 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
2456 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
2457 header-line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
2459 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
2460 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
2461 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
2462 height) of the specified image.
2464 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
2465 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
2468 ** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
2469 text property string that may be present at the current window
2470 position. The cursor may now be placed on any character of such
2471 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
2473 ** New macro with-local-quit temporarily sets inhibit-quit to nil for use
2474 around potentially blocking or long-running code in timers
2475 and post-command-hooks.
2478 ** New face attribute `min-colors' can be used to tailor the face color
2479 to the number of colors supported by a display, and define the
2480 foreground and background colors accordingly so that they look best on
2481 a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This is now the
2482 preferred method for defining default faces in a way that makes a good
2483 use of the capabilities of the display.
2486 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
2488 *** New function 'define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
2489 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
2491 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
2492 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
2494 *** New function 'destroy-fringe-bitmap' may be used to destroy a
2495 previously created bitmap, or restore a built-in bitmap.
2497 *** New function 'set-fringe-bitmap-face' can now be used to set a
2498 specific face to be used for a specific fringe bitmap. Normally,
2499 this should be a face derived from the `fringe' face, specifying
2500 the foreground color as the desired color of the bitmap.
2502 *** There are new display properties, left-fringe and right-fringe,
2503 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
2504 bitmap of the display line.
2506 Format is 'display '(left-fringe BITMAP [FACE]), where BITMAP is a
2507 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
2508 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
2509 for displaying the bitmap.
2511 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
2512 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
2514 ** Multiple overlay arrows can now be defined and managed via the new
2515 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'. It contains a list of
2516 varibles which contain overlay arrow position markers, including
2517 the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
2519 Each variable on this list may have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
2520 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
2521 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
2522 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
2523 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
2524 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
2527 ** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns line number of current
2528 line in current buffer, or if optional buffer position is given, line
2529 number of corresponding line in current buffer.
2531 ** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
2532 variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
2533 that end a sentence without following spaces.
2535 ** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
2536 the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
2537 then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
2538 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
2539 `sentence-end-without-space'.
2542 ** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
2543 `format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
2544 implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
2546 ** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
2547 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
2548 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
2549 if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
2552 ** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
2553 from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
2554 the first one is kept.
2557 ** `declare' is now a macro. This change was made mostly for
2558 documentation purposes and should have no real effect on Lisp code.
2560 ** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
2561 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
2562 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
2563 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
2566 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
2567 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
2568 string. The old behavior is available if you call
2569 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
2571 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
2572 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
2573 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
2574 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
2575 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
2579 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
2580 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
2581 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
2582 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
2583 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
2586 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
2587 :pointer image property.
2590 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
2591 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
2594 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
2596 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
2597 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
2598 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
2599 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
2600 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
2601 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
2602 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
2603 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
2605 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
2606 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
2607 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
2608 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
2609 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
2610 for possible pointer shapes.
2612 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
2613 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
2614 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
2616 ** Mouse event enhancements:
2618 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
2619 events, rather than a text area click event.
2621 *** Mouse clicks in the left and right marginal areas now includes a
2622 sensible buffer position corresponding to the first character in the
2623 corresponding text row.
2625 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
2628 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
2631 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
2634 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
2638 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
2641 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
2644 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
2647 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
2648 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
2651 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
2652 (image or character) clicked on.
2655 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', and
2656 'posn-object-width-height' return the image or string object of a mouse
2657 click, the x and y pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner
2658 of that object, and the total width and height of that object.
2660 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
2661 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
2662 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
2663 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
2664 forcing an explicit window update.
2666 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
2667 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
2670 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
2671 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
2672 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
2673 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
2674 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
2677 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
2680 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
2681 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
2682 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
2685 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
2686 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
2690 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
2691 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
2695 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
2696 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
2699 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
2700 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
2701 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
2703 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
2704 does that, this value may not be accurate.
2707 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
2708 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
2709 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
2713 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
2714 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
2717 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
2720 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
2724 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
2725 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
2728 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
2729 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
2730 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
2733 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
2737 ** VC changes for backends:
2738 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
2739 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
2740 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
2741 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
2742 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
2745 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
2746 as a dynamic completion table.
2748 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
2750 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
2751 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
2752 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
2753 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
2754 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
2755 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
2758 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
2759 as a lazy completion table.
2761 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
2763 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
2764 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
2765 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
2766 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
2767 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
2768 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
2771 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
2774 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
2775 for all (existing and future) frames.
2778 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
2781 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
2784 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
2787 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
2788 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
2789 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
2790 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
2791 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
2794 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
2795 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
2796 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
2797 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
2800 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
2801 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
2802 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
2803 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
2806 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
2807 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
2810 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
2811 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
2812 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
2813 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
2816 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
2817 of a string given to a process's filter.
2820 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
2821 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
2824 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
2825 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
2826 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
2827 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
2830 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
2831 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
2832 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
2833 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
2834 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
2837 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
2838 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
2841 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2842 on garbage collection.
2845 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2846 it is read from a file without decoding.
2849 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2852 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2853 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2854 by calling `select-window'.
2857 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2858 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2859 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2860 need to have a name.
2862 ** Byte compiler changes:
2865 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2866 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2867 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2868 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2869 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2873 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2874 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2875 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2876 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2879 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2880 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2882 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2883 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2884 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2885 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2886 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2887 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2890 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2891 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2894 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2895 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2896 be inserted is translated through it.
2899 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2900 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2901 current file redefined it).
2904 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2905 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2906 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2907 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2908 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2909 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2911 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2912 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2913 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2914 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2915 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2917 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2918 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2919 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2920 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2921 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2922 returns differing values.
2925 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2926 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2927 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2930 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2931 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2932 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2933 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2935 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2936 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2939 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2940 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2943 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2944 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2947 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2948 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2949 can start with this line:
2951 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2953 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
2954 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
2955 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
2957 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
2959 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
2960 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
2963 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2964 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2967 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2968 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2971 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2972 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2976 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2977 and `display-warning'.
2980 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2981 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2982 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2986 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2987 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2990 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2991 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2992 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2993 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2996 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2997 of one coding system from another coding system.
3000 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3001 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3002 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3003 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3007 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3008 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3009 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3010 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3011 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3012 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3014 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3015 confirmation as before.
3018 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
3020 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
3021 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
3022 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
3023 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
3025 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
3026 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
3027 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
3028 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
3029 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
3030 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
3032 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
3033 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
3034 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
3035 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
3038 ** Per-window fringes settings
3040 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
3043 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
3044 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
3045 `set-window-fringes'.
3047 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
3048 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
3049 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
3050 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
3052 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
3053 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
3054 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
3055 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
3056 an update of the display margins.
3059 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
3061 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
3062 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
3064 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
3065 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
3066 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
3067 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
3068 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3069 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3070 of the display margins.
3073 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
3074 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
3075 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
3078 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
3079 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
3080 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
3081 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
3082 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
3083 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
3086 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
3087 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
3088 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
3091 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
3092 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
3093 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
3094 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
3095 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
3098 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
3099 to override the internal read-file-name function.
3102 ** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
3103 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
3104 `read-file-name' function.
3107 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
3108 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
3109 will only show directories.
3112 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3113 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3114 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3117 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
3118 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
3119 (require 'cl) when loaded.
3122 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
3123 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
3124 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
3126 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3128 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3129 declaration specifiers supported are:
3132 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3135 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3136 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
3139 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
3141 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
3142 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
3143 binding and lookup functionality.
3145 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
3146 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
3150 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
3151 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
3152 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
3153 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
3156 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
3157 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
3158 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
3159 map using define-key:
3161 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
3162 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
3164 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
3165 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
3167 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
3168 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
3169 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
3171 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
3173 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3174 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
3175 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
3176 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
3178 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
3179 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
3181 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
3182 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
3184 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
3185 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
3186 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
3187 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
3188 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
3189 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
3191 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
3192 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
3193 command was not remapped.
3196 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
3198 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
3199 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
3203 ** Atomic change groups.
3205 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3206 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3207 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3209 (atomic-change-group
3211 (delete-region x y))
3213 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3214 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3215 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3216 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3218 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3219 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3221 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3222 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3223 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3224 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3226 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3227 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3230 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3231 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3232 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3233 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3235 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3236 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3237 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3238 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3239 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3240 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3243 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3244 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3245 returned values, like this:
3247 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3248 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3250 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3251 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3252 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3254 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3255 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3256 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3257 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3261 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
3263 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
3264 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
3265 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
3266 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
3269 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
3271 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
3272 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
3273 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
3274 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
3277 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
3279 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
3280 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
3281 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
3284 ** New function insert-for-yank.
3286 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
3287 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
3288 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
3289 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
3290 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
3293 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
3295 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
3296 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
3299 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
3301 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
3302 text properties from the inserted substring.
3305 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
3306 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
3308 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
3309 elements with the following format:
3310 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3312 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3313 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3314 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
3315 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3317 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3318 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3319 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3320 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3321 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3323 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3324 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3325 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3326 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3327 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3328 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3329 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3330 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3332 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
3333 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
3336 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3337 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
3338 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
3339 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3340 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
3343 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
3344 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
3346 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
3347 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
3348 defined with defface.
3350 ** The function face-differs-from-default-p now truly checks whether the
3351 given face displays differently from the default face or not (previously
3352 it did only a very cursory check).
3355 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
3356 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
3357 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
3360 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
3361 help with handling relative face attributes.
3363 ** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face-list is reversed.
3364 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
3365 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous releases
3366 of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made so that
3367 :inherit face-lists operate identically to face-lists in text `face'
3371 ** Enhancements to process support
3373 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
3374 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
3376 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
3377 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
3378 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
3380 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
3381 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
3383 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
3384 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
3386 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
3387 and modify elements on this property list.
3389 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
3390 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
3392 *** Function accept-process-output now has an optional fourth arg
3393 `just-this-one'. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
3394 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
3395 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
3396 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
3399 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
3401 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
3402 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
3403 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
3404 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
3405 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
3406 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
3407 emacs tries to read it.
3410 ** Enhanced networking support.
3412 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
3413 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
3414 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
3416 - A server is started using :server t arg.
3417 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
3418 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
3419 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
3420 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
3421 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
3422 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
3423 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
3425 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
3426 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
3428 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
3430 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
3432 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
3433 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
3434 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
3435 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
3436 matching "open" or "failed".
3438 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
3440 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
3441 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
3442 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
3443 is called for the new process.
3445 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
3447 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
3448 and set the current address of the remote partner.
3450 *** New function format-network-address.
3452 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
3453 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
3454 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
3455 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
3456 string for other formatting options.
3458 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
3459 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
3460 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
3462 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
3463 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
3464 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
3465 the fifth is the port number.
3467 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
3468 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
3469 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
3470 no input is received in the stopped state.
3472 *** New function network-interface-list.
3474 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
3475 current network addresses.
3477 *** New function network-interface-info.
3479 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
3480 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
3483 ** New function copy-tree.
3486 ** New function substring-no-properties.
3489 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
3492 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
3495 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
3496 are now always lower case. If you specify the
3497 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
3498 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
3500 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
3501 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
3504 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
3505 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
3506 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
3507 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
3510 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
3511 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
3513 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
3514 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
3515 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
3518 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
3519 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
3522 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
3523 (function (lambda ()
3525 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3526 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
3527 (function (lambda ()
3528 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
3531 ** File local variables.
3533 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3534 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3537 ** New function window-body-height.
3539 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
3543 ** New function format-mode-line.
3545 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
3546 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
3549 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3551 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
3552 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3555 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
3557 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
3558 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
3559 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
3560 you specify the map to use as an argument.
3563 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3565 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3566 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3567 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3570 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
3572 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
3573 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
3574 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
3575 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
3576 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
3579 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
3580 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
3581 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
3582 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
3585 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
3586 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
3589 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3590 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3591 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3594 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
3595 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
3599 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
3600 cl-indent package. The new user options
3601 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
3602 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
3603 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
3606 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
3607 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3610 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
3612 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
3613 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
3614 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
3617 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
3619 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
3620 the time it takes to convert the format.
3622 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
3626 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
3627 over minor mode keymaps.
3630 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
3631 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
3634 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
3635 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
3636 image or composition property.
3638 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
3639 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
3640 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
3641 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
3642 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
3645 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
3649 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
3650 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
3651 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
3652 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
3656 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3659 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
3662 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
3663 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
3664 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
3665 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
3666 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
3667 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3670 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
3671 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
3672 bindings of the parent keymap.
3675 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
3676 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
3677 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
3678 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
3679 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
3680 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
3688 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
3689 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
3690 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
3691 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
3694 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
3695 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
3697 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
3698 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
3701 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
3702 it receives a request from emacsclient.
3705 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
3706 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
3707 than 3 levels of nesting.
3710 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
3711 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
3715 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3716 properties from surrounding text.
3719 ** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3720 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3721 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3724 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
3726 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
3727 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
3728 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
3731 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3732 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3736 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
3737 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
3738 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
3739 other properties than `face'.
3740 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
3741 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
3744 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
3745 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
3746 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
3747 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
3748 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
3751 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
3752 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
3753 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
3756 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
3757 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
3760 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
3761 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
3764 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
3765 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
3766 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
3769 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3770 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3771 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3774 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
3775 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
3776 accepts a float as UID parameter.
3779 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
3782 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
3785 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
3786 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
3787 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
3788 the output of other GNU tools.
3791 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
3794 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
3797 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3798 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
3801 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
3803 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3805 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3806 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3807 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3808 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3810 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3811 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3813 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
3815 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3816 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3817 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3819 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3820 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3823 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
3824 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
3827 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
3828 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
3831 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
3832 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3835 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
3836 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
3837 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
3839 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
3840 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3841 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3843 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
3846 ** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
3847 all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
3851 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
3852 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
3853 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
3854 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
3855 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
3856 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
3858 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
3860 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
3861 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
3863 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
3864 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
3867 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
3868 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
3870 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
3871 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
3872 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
3873 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
3874 as help and apropos buffers.
3877 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
3879 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3883 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3885 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3888 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3891 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3894 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3895 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3896 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3897 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3898 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3899 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3900 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3901 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3902 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3903 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3905 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3906 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3908 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3909 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3910 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3911 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3912 contrary to the compound text specification.
3915 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3917 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3919 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3922 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3924 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3926 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3927 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3928 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3929 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3930 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3932 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3935 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3936 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3938 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3939 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3940 instead of using default-major-mode.
3942 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3943 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3944 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3945 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3946 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3947 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3948 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3950 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3954 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3956 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3957 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3958 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3960 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3961 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3964 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3966 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3967 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3968 charsets in this release.
3970 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3972 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3974 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3975 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3978 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3979 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3980 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3981 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3982 necessary changes to unexec.
3984 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3985 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3987 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3988 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3990 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3991 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3993 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3994 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3995 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3996 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3997 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3999 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
4000 new display features described below.
4003 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
4005 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
4007 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
4008 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
4009 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
4010 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
4013 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
4015 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
4016 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
4017 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
4018 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
4021 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
4022 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
4023 under Lisp changes, below.
4025 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
4027 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
4028 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
4029 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
4030 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
4031 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
4032 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
4035 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
4036 supported on character terminals.
4038 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
4039 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
4040 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
4041 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
4043 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
4047 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
4048 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
4049 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
4050 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
4053 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
4055 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
4056 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
4057 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
4058 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
4060 - User option: max-mini-window-height
4062 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
4063 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
4064 specifies a number of lines.
4068 - User option: resize-mini-windows
4070 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
4071 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
4072 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
4075 Default is `grow-only'.
4079 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
4080 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
4082 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
4084 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
4085 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
4088 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
4090 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
4091 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
4092 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
4094 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
4096 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
4097 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
4098 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
4099 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
4100 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
4103 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
4104 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
4105 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
4106 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
4107 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
4108 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
4110 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
4111 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
4112 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
4113 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
4114 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
4115 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
4117 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
4118 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
4119 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
4120 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
4121 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
4123 ** Tool bar support.
4125 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
4126 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
4127 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
4128 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
4129 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
4132 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
4133 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
4137 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
4138 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
4139 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
4141 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
4142 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
4143 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
4144 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
4146 ** Automatic Hscrolling
4148 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
4149 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
4152 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
4153 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
4154 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
4155 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
4156 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
4158 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
4159 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
4160 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
4161 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
4162 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
4163 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
4165 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
4166 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
4167 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
4168 customizing face `fringe'.
4170 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
4171 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
4172 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
4173 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
4174 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
4175 the window to be partially obscured.)
4177 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
4178 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
4179 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
4180 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
4182 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4184 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
4185 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
4186 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
4187 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
4188 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
4191 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
4193 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
4195 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
4197 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
4198 `*') toggles the status.
4200 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
4202 ** Hourglass pointer
4204 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
4205 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
4209 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
4210 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
4211 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
4214 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
4216 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
4217 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
4218 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
4221 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
4222 have to do anything to activate it.
4224 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
4226 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
4227 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
4229 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
4230 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
4231 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
4232 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
4233 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
4234 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
4235 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
4236 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
4238 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
4239 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
4240 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
4241 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
4242 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
4243 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
4245 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
4246 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
4248 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
4249 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
4252 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
4253 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
4254 beginning and end of the buffer.
4256 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
4257 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
4260 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
4261 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
4263 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
4264 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
4267 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
4268 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
4271 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
4273 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
4274 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
4275 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
4277 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
4278 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
4279 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
4281 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
4284 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
4286 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
4287 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
4288 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
4289 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
4290 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
4293 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
4294 all frames except the selected one.
4296 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
4297 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
4299 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
4300 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
4301 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
4302 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
4303 `Info-use-header-line'.
4305 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
4306 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
4307 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
4309 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
4311 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
4312 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
4315 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
4316 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
4317 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
4318 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
4320 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
4322 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
4323 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
4324 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
4325 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
4327 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
4328 point in a pop-up window.
4330 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
4331 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
4332 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
4334 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
4335 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
4337 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
4338 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
4339 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
4340 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
4342 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
4344 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
4345 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
4347 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
4348 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
4349 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
4351 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
4352 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
4355 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
4356 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
4357 file that is already visited under a different name.
4359 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
4360 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
4362 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
4363 and displays information about that.
4365 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
4366 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
4368 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
4369 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
4370 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
4371 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
4372 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
4373 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
4375 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
4376 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
4378 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
4379 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
4380 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
4381 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
4382 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
4383 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
4384 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
4386 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
4387 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
4389 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
4390 system for keyboard input.
4392 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
4393 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
4394 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
4395 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
4396 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
4397 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
4398 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
4399 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
4400 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
4402 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
4403 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
4405 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
4406 displays all characters in that character set.
4408 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
4409 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
4411 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
4412 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
4413 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
4415 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
4416 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
4417 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
4418 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
4419 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
4420 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
4423 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
4424 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
4427 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
4428 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
4429 Lisp Coding Convention".
4431 new command old-binding
4432 --- ------- -----------
4433 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
4434 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
4435 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
4437 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
4438 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
4439 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
4441 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
4442 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
4443 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
4444 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
4445 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
4446 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
4448 ** There are new Leim input methods.
4449 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
4450 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
4453 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
4454 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
4455 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
4456 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
4457 "`", you must type "=q".
4459 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
4460 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
4461 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
4462 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
4463 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
4466 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
4467 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
4468 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
4469 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
4471 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
4472 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
4473 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
4474 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
4476 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
4477 on the display using several methods
4479 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
4480 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
4481 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
4483 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
4484 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
4486 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
4488 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
4489 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
4491 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
4492 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
4493 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
4494 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
4496 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
4497 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
4498 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
4500 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
4501 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
4503 ** New X resources recognized
4505 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
4506 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
4507 is useful for debugging X problems.
4511 emacs.synchronous: true
4513 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
4514 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
4515 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
4516 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
4517 visual class names are
4526 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
4527 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
4530 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
4531 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
4532 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
4537 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
4539 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
4540 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
4541 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
4542 resource values are `true' or `on'.
4546 emacs.privateColormap: true
4548 ** Faces and frame parameters.
4550 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
4551 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4552 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
4553 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
4554 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
4555 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
4556 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
4558 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
4559 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
4560 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
4561 `default' face and vice versa.
4565 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
4567 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
4569 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
4570 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
4571 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
4572 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
4574 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
4575 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
4576 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
4578 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
4581 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
4583 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
4584 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
4585 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
4586 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
4588 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
4590 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
4592 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
4594 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
4597 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
4600 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
4602 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
4603 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
4604 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
4606 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
4607 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
4609 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
4610 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
4611 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
4613 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
4615 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
4616 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
4617 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4618 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
4620 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
4621 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
4622 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
4623 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
4625 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
4626 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
4627 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
4630 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
4632 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
4633 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
4634 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
4636 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
4637 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
4638 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
4639 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
4640 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
4641 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
4643 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
4645 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
4646 notably at the end of lines.
4648 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
4649 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
4651 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
4653 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
4654 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
4656 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
4657 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
4658 after each match to get the replacement text.
4660 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
4661 you edit the replacement string.
4663 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
4664 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
4665 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
4667 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
4669 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
4670 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
4672 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
4673 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
4674 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
4675 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
4678 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
4679 read mail from the menu etc.
4681 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
4682 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
4683 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
4684 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
4686 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
4687 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4689 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
4690 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
4691 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
4692 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
4693 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
4696 ** Customize changes
4698 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
4699 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
4700 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
4701 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
4702 earlier versions of Emacs.
4704 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
4705 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
4708 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4709 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
4710 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
4711 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
4714 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
4715 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
4716 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
4717 already in your init file.
4719 ** New features in evaluation commands
4721 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
4722 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
4723 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
4724 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
4725 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
4727 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
4728 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
4729 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
4730 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
4733 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
4734 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
4736 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
4737 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
4739 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
4740 code when called with a prefix argument.
4744 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
4745 current user setups (although it's believed that these
4746 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
4747 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
4748 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
4749 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
4752 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
4753 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
4754 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
4757 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
4758 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
4759 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
4760 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
4762 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
4763 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
4765 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
4766 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
4768 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
4769 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
4770 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
4771 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
4773 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
4774 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
4775 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
4776 earlier statement. An example:
4778 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
4780 res += a[i]->offset;
4783 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
4784 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
4785 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
4786 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
4789 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
4792 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
4793 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
4794 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
4795 documentation or other natural language text.
4797 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
4798 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
4799 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
4800 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
4801 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
4802 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
4803 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
4805 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
4806 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
4807 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
4808 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
4810 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
4811 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
4812 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
4813 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
4816 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
4817 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
4818 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
4819 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
4820 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
4821 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
4822 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
4823 is reported afterwards.
4825 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
4826 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
4827 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
4829 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
4830 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
4831 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
4832 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
4833 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
4834 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
4837 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
4838 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
4839 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
4840 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
4841 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
4844 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
4845 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
4846 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
4847 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
4848 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
4849 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
4851 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
4852 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
4853 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
4854 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
4855 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
4856 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
4857 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
4858 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
4860 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
4861 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
4862 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
4863 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
4866 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
4867 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
4868 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
4869 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
4870 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
4871 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
4872 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
4873 function documentation for more info.
4875 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
4876 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4877 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4878 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4879 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4880 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4881 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4882 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4884 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4886 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4887 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4889 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4890 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4891 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4892 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4893 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4896 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4897 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4898 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4901 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4902 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4903 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4904 chapter about this in the manual.
4906 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4907 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4908 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4909 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4910 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4912 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4913 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4914 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4916 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4917 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4919 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4920 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4921 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4924 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4925 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4926 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4927 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4930 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4931 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4932 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4933 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4934 they were before the filling.
4936 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4937 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4938 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4941 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4942 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4943 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4944 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4947 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4948 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4949 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4950 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4951 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4953 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4954 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4955 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4957 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4959 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4960 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4961 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4962 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4964 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4965 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4966 the column specified by comment-column.
4968 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4969 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4970 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4971 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4972 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4973 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4975 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4976 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4979 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4981 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4982 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4983 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4984 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4987 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4991 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4992 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4993 is, delete only empty directories.
4995 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4996 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4997 copy directories recursively.
4999 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
5000 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
5001 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
5003 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
5004 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
5007 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
5008 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
5009 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
5010 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
5011 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
5013 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
5016 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
5017 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
5018 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
5019 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
5023 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
5024 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
5025 internationalization and mail-fetching.
5027 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
5028 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
5030 If you used procmail like in
5032 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
5033 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
5034 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
5035 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
5037 this now has changed to
5040 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
5043 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
5044 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
5046 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
5047 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
5048 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
5049 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
5051 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
5052 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
5053 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
5055 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
5056 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
5057 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
5058 now just a compatibility layer.
5060 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
5063 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
5064 called to position point.
5066 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
5067 summary buffers and NOV files.
5069 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
5070 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
5072 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
5073 subtly different manner.
5075 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
5076 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
5077 ever-changing layouts.
5079 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
5081 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
5083 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
5085 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
5089 -------------------------
5093 C-c C-c q @quotation
5095 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
5098 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
5100 ** Changes in Outline mode.
5102 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
5103 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
5104 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
5106 ** Changes to Emacs Server
5108 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
5109 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
5110 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
5111 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
5112 buffers to kill, as before.
5114 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
5115 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
5118 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
5119 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
5121 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
5123 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
5124 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
5125 use. Default is 1000.
5127 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
5128 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
5130 ** Changes to hideshow.el
5132 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
5134 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
5135 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
5136 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
5137 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
5139 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
5140 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
5141 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
5144 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
5145 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
5146 the normal block-hiding function.
5148 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
5150 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
5151 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
5152 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
5153 for `hs-minor-mode'.
5155 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
5156 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
5158 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
5160 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
5161 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
5162 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
5164 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
5167 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
5170 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
5171 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
5172 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
5173 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
5174 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
5175 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
5177 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
5179 ** Changes to cmuscheme
5181 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
5182 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
5184 ** Changes in Font Lock
5186 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
5187 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
5189 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
5190 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
5192 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
5193 the face used for each string/comment.
5195 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
5196 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
5198 ** Changes to Shell mode
5200 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
5201 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
5202 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
5203 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
5205 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5207 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
5208 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
5210 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
5211 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
5212 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
5213 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
5214 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
5215 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
5217 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
5218 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
5219 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
5220 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
5221 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
5222 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
5223 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
5224 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
5226 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
5227 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
5229 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
5230 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
5231 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
5233 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
5234 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
5235 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
5237 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
5238 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
5239 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
5241 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
5242 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
5243 argument, it appends to the file.
5245 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
5246 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
5249 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
5252 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
5253 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
5254 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
5256 ** Changes to Rmail mode
5258 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
5259 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
5260 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
5261 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
5262 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
5265 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
5266 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
5267 regexp matching your mail addresses.
5269 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
5270 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
5271 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
5272 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
5273 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
5275 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
5278 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
5279 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
5282 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
5283 in which folder to put messages automatically.
5285 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
5286 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
5287 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
5289 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
5290 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
5292 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
5293 use the -f option when sending mail.
5295 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
5296 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
5297 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
5298 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
5299 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
5300 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
5302 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
5303 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
5304 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
5306 ** Changes to TeX mode
5308 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
5311 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
5313 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
5315 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
5317 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5319 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
5320 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
5321 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
5322 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
5323 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
5324 can be edited from that buffer.
5326 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
5327 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
5328 `A' to use all marked entries).
5330 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
5331 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
5333 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
5334 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
5335 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
5338 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
5339 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
5340 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
5341 in column 1 are always made leaves.
5343 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
5344 has the following new features:
5346 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
5347 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
5348 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
5349 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
5351 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
5352 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
5353 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
5354 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
5355 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
5358 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
5363 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
5364 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
5365 spell-checks the current buffer.
5367 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
5370 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
5371 correction is made and re-checked.
5373 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
5375 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
5378 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
5381 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
5384 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
5386 ** Makefile mode changes
5388 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
5390 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
5391 Fontlock mode is active.
5395 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
5396 so that searches can be resumed.
5398 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
5399 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
5400 that started the search.
5402 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
5403 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
5405 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
5407 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
5408 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
5409 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
5410 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
5411 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
5412 `secondary-selection'.
5414 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
5415 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
5416 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
5417 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
5418 usual snappy response.
5420 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
5421 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
5422 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
5423 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
5427 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
5428 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
5429 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
5430 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
5431 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
5432 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
5433 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
5434 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
5435 file is registered in that backend.
5437 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
5438 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
5439 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
5440 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
5441 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
5442 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
5444 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
5445 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
5446 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
5447 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
5448 where it doesn't make sense.)
5450 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
5451 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
5452 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
5456 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
5457 checks are always done now.
5459 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
5462 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
5463 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
5464 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
5466 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
5467 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
5468 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
5469 the working file (``merge news'').
5471 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5472 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
5475 *** Multiple Backends
5477 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
5478 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
5479 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
5480 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
5483 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
5484 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
5485 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
5486 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
5488 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
5489 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
5490 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
5491 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
5492 current revision number from the more remote backend.
5494 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
5495 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
5496 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
5497 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
5499 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
5500 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
5501 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
5502 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
5506 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
5507 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
5508 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
5509 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
5510 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
5511 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
5512 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
5514 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
5515 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
5516 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
5517 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
5518 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
5519 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
5520 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
5521 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
5522 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
5523 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
5524 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
5527 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
5528 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
5529 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
5530 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
5531 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
5532 entire directory tree.
5534 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
5535 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
5536 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
5537 "watched" by other developers.)
5539 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
5540 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
5541 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
5542 starting at the given directory.
5544 *** Lisp Changes in VC
5546 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
5547 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
5548 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
5549 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
5550 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
5551 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
5552 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
5553 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
5554 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
5556 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
5557 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
5558 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
5559 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
5561 ** New modes and packages
5563 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
5564 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
5565 the default is not applicable.
5567 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
5568 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
5569 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
5573 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
5574 drawn, like this: | \ /
5578 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
5579 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
5580 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
5581 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
5582 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
5585 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
5586 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
5588 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
5591 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
5592 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
5593 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
5594 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
5596 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
5597 also do without the mouse.
5599 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
5600 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
5601 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
5602 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
5603 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
5605 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
5607 lines straight-lines
5609 poly-lines straight poly-lines
5611 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
5612 spray-can setting size for spraying
5613 vaporize line vaporize lines
5614 erase characters erase rectangles
5616 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
5617 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
5618 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
5621 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
5622 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
5623 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
5624 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
5626 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
5629 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
5630 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
5631 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
5632 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
5633 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
5634 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
5635 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
5636 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
5637 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
5639 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
5640 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
5641 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
5642 on certain projects.
5644 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
5645 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
5647 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
5649 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
5650 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
5651 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
5652 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
5653 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
5654 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
5655 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
5656 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
5658 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
5661 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
5662 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
5664 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
5665 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
5667 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
5668 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
5669 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
5670 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
5671 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
5673 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
5674 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
5675 separate Texinfo file.
5677 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
5678 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
5679 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
5680 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
5681 enter check-in log messages.
5683 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
5684 without invoking external programs.
5686 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
5687 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
5688 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
5689 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
5690 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
5692 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
5693 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
5695 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
5696 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
5698 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
5699 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
5700 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
5701 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
5702 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
5705 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
5706 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
5707 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
5708 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
5710 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
5711 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
5712 actually modifying content of a buffer.
5714 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
5717 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
5719 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
5721 ; comment (until end of line)
5725 $A default non-terminal
5726 $"C" default terminal
5727 $?C? default special
5728 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
5729 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
5730 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
5731 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
5732 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
5733 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
5734 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
5735 C+ one or more occurrences of C
5736 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
5737 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
5738 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
5739 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
5740 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
5741 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5742 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
5744 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
5746 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
5747 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
5748 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
5749 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
5750 equal signs of assignments.
5752 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
5753 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
5755 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
5756 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
5757 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
5759 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
5761 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
5762 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
5763 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
5764 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
5765 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
5766 which answers different needs.
5768 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
5769 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
5770 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
5771 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
5772 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
5775 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
5776 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
5778 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
5780 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
5781 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
5782 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
5784 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
5786 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
5787 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
5788 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
5789 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
5790 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
5791 and background colors.
5793 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
5796 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
5799 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
5801 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
5803 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
5804 whitespace in a file.
5806 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
5807 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
5808 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
5809 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
5810 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
5811 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
5812 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
5814 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
5816 Here is an example of columns:
5819 dog pineapple car EXTRA
5820 porcupine strawberry airplane
5822 Doing the following settings:
5824 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
5825 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
5826 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
5827 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
5830 Selecting the lines above and typing:
5832 M-x delimit-columns-region
5836 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
5837 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
5838 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
5840 delim-col has the following options:
5842 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
5845 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
5846 between each column.
5848 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
5851 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
5854 delim-col has the following commands:
5856 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
5857 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
5859 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
5860 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
5861 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
5862 recent file list can be displayed:
5864 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
5865 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
5866 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
5868 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
5869 dynamically change the menu appearance.
5871 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
5874 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
5875 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
5876 specific to Message mode.
5878 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5879 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5880 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5882 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5883 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5884 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5886 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5887 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5889 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5891 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5892 minibuffer with completion.
5894 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5895 with the diary features.
5897 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5898 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5900 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5903 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5904 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5905 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5906 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5908 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5909 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5912 ** Changes in sort.el
5914 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5915 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5916 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5919 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5921 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5922 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5923 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5925 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5926 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5928 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5929 output ^M at the end of lines.
5931 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5932 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5934 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5935 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5938 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5941 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5942 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5945 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5946 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5947 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5948 nil -- just delete one character.
5950 Default value is `untabify'.
5952 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5954 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5955 symbol, not double-quoted.
5957 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5958 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5959 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5960 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5962 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5963 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5964 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5966 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5967 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5968 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5970 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5971 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5973 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5974 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5976 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5977 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5979 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5980 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5981 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5982 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5983 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5984 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5986 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5987 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5989 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5991 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5992 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5994 ** Shell script mode changes.
5996 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5997 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5998 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
6002 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
6004 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
6005 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
6006 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
6007 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
6008 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
6010 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
6011 declarations when given the --declarations option.
6013 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
6014 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
6016 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
6017 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
6018 `template' keywords.
6020 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
6021 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
6023 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
6026 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
6028 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
6030 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
6033 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
6035 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
6036 variables are tagged.
6038 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
6040 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
6043 ** Changes in etags.el
6045 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
6046 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
6047 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
6049 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
6050 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
6052 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
6053 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
6054 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
6055 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
6057 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
6059 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
6060 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
6062 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
6064 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
6065 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
6066 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
6068 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
6069 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
6071 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
6072 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
6074 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
6075 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
6076 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
6077 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
6078 point will go to the beginning of the file.
6080 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
6081 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
6082 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
6084 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
6085 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
6086 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
6088 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
6089 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
6090 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
6092 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
6094 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
6096 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
6097 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
6098 expression from that list, are not checked.
6100 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
6101 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
6102 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
6103 the buffer, just like for the local files.
6105 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
6107 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
6108 displays local abbrevs, only.
6110 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
6111 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
6113 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
6114 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
6115 is measured in pixels.
6117 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
6118 to be visited as images.
6120 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
6121 were added to compile.el.
6123 ** Withdrawn packages
6125 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
6126 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
6128 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
6130 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
6133 * Incompatible Lisp changes
6135 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
6136 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
6137 See the sections below for details.
6139 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
6140 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
6141 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
6142 to remove the properties of the copy.
6144 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
6145 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
6146 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
6147 these properties are active.
6149 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
6150 ranges may affect some code.
6152 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
6153 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
6154 make a difference to some code.
6156 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
6157 operates on the minibuffer.
6159 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6160 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
6161 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
6162 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
6163 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
6164 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
6165 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
6166 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
6167 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
6168 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
6169 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
6170 the buffer as multibyte characters.
6172 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
6173 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
6174 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
6176 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
6177 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
6178 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
6180 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
6181 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
6182 such as `mapconcat'.
6184 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
6187 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
6188 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
6189 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
6190 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
6191 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
6192 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
6193 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
6194 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
6196 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
6197 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
6198 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
6199 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
6200 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
6201 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
6202 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
6203 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
6204 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
6205 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
6208 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
6209 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
6211 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
6213 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
6214 allows the animated display of strings.
6216 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
6217 interactive form of a function.
6219 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
6220 between custom options. Example:
6222 (defcustom default-input-method nil
6223 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
6224 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
6225 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
6227 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
6228 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
6230 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
6231 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
6232 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
6234 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
6235 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
6236 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
6237 (signal or normal termination).
6239 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
6240 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
6242 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
6243 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
6245 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
6246 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
6248 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
6250 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
6251 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
6254 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
6256 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
6257 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
6258 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
6259 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
6260 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
6263 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
6264 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
6267 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
6268 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
6270 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
6271 with the more general `:mask' property.
6273 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
6275 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
6278 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
6279 is running in batch mode. For example,
6281 (message "%s" (read t))
6283 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
6286 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
6287 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
6289 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
6290 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
6293 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
6296 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
6298 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
6299 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
6301 - Function: remq ELT LIST
6303 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
6304 comparison is done with `eq'.
6306 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
6308 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
6309 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
6310 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
6312 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
6313 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
6314 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
6316 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
6317 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
6319 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
6320 function was declared obsolete.
6322 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
6323 retained as an alias).
6325 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
6326 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
6327 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
6329 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
6331 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
6333 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
6334 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
6335 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
6336 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
6337 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
6338 means never include the minibuffer window.
6340 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
6342 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
6344 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
6346 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
6347 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
6348 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
6349 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
6352 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
6353 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
6354 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
6355 minibuffer even if it is active.
6357 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
6358 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
6359 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
6360 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
6361 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
6362 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
6364 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
6365 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
6366 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
6367 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
6368 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
6369 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
6370 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
6372 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
6373 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
6374 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
6376 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
6377 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
6378 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
6379 Default value is nil.
6381 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
6384 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
6385 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
6386 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
6388 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
6389 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
6390 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
6392 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
6393 list of a primitive.
6395 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
6397 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
6398 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
6399 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
6400 than replacing the local map.
6402 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
6403 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
6404 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
6407 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
6409 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
6410 as promised long ago.
6412 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
6414 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
6415 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
6416 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
6419 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
6421 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
6422 regular expressions.
6424 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
6426 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6430 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
6432 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
6436 matches string STRING literally.
6439 matches character CHAR literally.
6442 matches any character except a newline.
6445 matches any character
6448 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
6449 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
6455 matches any character not in SET
6458 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
6459 in the text being matched
6462 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
6465 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6466 string being matched against.
6469 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6470 string being matched against.
6473 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
6474 buffer being matched against.
6477 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
6478 buffer being matched against.
6481 matches the empty string, but only at point.
6484 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6488 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
6491 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
6494 `(not word-boundary)'
6495 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
6499 matches 0 through 9.
6502 matches ASCII control characters.
6505 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6508 matches space and tab only.
6511 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6515 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6519 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6520 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6523 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6524 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6527 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6530 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6533 matches anything lower-case.
6536 matches anything upper-case.
6539 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6540 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6543 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6546 matches anything that has word syntax.
6549 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
6550 of the following symbols.
6552 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
6553 `punctuation' (\\s.)
6556 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
6557 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
6558 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
6559 `string-quote' (\\s\")
6560 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
6562 `character-quote' (\\s/)
6563 `comment-start' (\\s<)
6564 `comment-end' (\\s>)
6566 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
6567 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
6569 `(category CATEGORY)'
6570 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
6571 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
6573 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
6575 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
6576 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
6580 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
6582 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
6583 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
6584 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
6585 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
6586 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
6587 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
6588 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
6589 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
6590 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
6591 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
6592 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
6601 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
6605 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
6612 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
6613 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
6615 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6616 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
6618 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6619 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
6620 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
6622 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6623 another name for `submatch'.
6625 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
6626 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
6627 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
6630 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
6631 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
6632 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
6633 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
6634 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
6636 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
6637 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
6639 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
6640 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6643 like `zero-or-more'.
6646 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6649 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6651 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
6652 matches one or more occurrences of A.
6658 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6661 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6663 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
6664 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
6670 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
6673 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
6676 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6679 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
6682 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
6686 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
6688 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
6690 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
6691 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
6692 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
6693 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
6695 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
6696 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
6697 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
6698 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
6700 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
6701 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
6702 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
6704 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
6705 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
6706 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
6707 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
6708 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
6709 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
6710 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
6713 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
6715 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
6716 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
6717 character set as previously.
6719 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
6720 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
6721 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
6723 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
6724 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
6725 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
6726 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
6728 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
6729 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
6731 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
6732 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
6735 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
6736 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
6738 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
6739 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
6740 buffers and strings.
6742 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
6743 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
6744 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
6745 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
6746 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
6747 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
6748 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
6751 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
6752 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
6753 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
6755 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
6756 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
6757 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
6758 may differ between buffer and string text.
6760 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
6761 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
6763 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
6764 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
6765 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
6766 `composition' from STRING.
6768 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
6769 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
6771 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
6774 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
6775 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
6777 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
6778 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
6779 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
6780 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
6782 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
6783 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
6784 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
6785 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
6786 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
6787 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
6789 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
6790 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
6791 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
6793 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
6794 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
6795 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
6797 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
6798 have been introduced.
6800 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
6801 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
6802 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
6803 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
6804 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
6805 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
6806 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
6807 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
6808 their multibyte equivalent.
6810 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
6811 that offset in the file before writing.
6813 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
6814 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
6816 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
6817 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
6818 from which the command was issued.
6820 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
6821 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
6822 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
6823 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
6826 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
6827 to `window-buffer-height'.
6829 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
6831 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
6832 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
6833 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
6835 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
6838 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
6839 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
6841 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
6842 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
6843 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
6845 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
6846 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
6847 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
6848 is currently displayed in some window.
6850 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
6851 argument function's results.
6853 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
6854 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
6855 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
6856 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
6859 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
6860 header in the list of headers passed to it.
6862 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
6863 ignores differences in case and text representation.
6865 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
6866 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
6869 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
6870 nil don't display a cursor
6871 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
6872 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
6873 others display a box cursor.
6875 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
6876 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6877 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6878 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6880 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6881 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6882 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6883 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6887 (string-to-syntax "()")
6890 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6893 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6894 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6901 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6906 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6911 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6918 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6919 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6922 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6923 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6924 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6925 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6927 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6929 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6930 for a regexp in a string.
6932 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6933 `mouse-position-function'.
6935 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6936 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6938 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6939 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6941 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6944 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6945 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6947 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6948 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6949 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6950 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6953 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6954 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6956 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6957 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6958 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6959 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6962 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6963 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6964 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6965 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6967 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6968 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6969 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6971 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6972 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6975 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6977 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6978 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6979 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6982 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6983 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6984 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6985 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6986 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6988 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6989 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6991 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6992 instead of being optional.
6994 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6995 modify read-only text.
6997 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6999 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
7000 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
7001 time functions like strftime. The new variables
7002 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
7003 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
7005 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
7006 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
7007 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
7008 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
7009 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
7010 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
7011 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
7013 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
7014 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
7015 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
7018 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
7019 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
7021 ** New function `propertize'
7023 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
7024 strings with text properties.
7026 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
7028 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
7029 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
7030 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
7031 specified value of that property. Example:
7033 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
7035 ** push and pop macros.
7037 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
7038 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
7039 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
7041 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
7042 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
7043 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
7045 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
7047 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
7048 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
7050 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
7051 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
7052 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
7053 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7055 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
7056 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
7057 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
7058 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
7060 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
7061 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
7062 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
7065 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
7066 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
7067 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7068 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
7069 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7071 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7073 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
7074 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7075 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7076 [:alpha:] matches letters.
7077 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7078 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7079 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7080 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7081 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
7082 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
7083 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7084 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7085 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7086 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
7087 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
7089 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
7091 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
7093 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
7095 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
7096 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
7100 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
7101 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
7102 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
7106 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
7107 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
7109 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
7111 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
7112 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
7113 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
7114 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
7115 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
7117 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
7119 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
7120 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
7121 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
7125 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
7126 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
7127 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
7128 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
7129 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
7131 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
7133 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
7135 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
7137 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
7139 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
7141 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
7144 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
7146 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
7148 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7150 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
7152 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
7154 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
7156 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
7158 Returns the size of TABLE.
7160 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
7162 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
7164 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
7166 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
7168 - Function: clrhash TABLE
7172 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
7174 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
7177 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
7179 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
7180 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
7182 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
7184 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
7186 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
7188 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
7189 arguments KEY and VALUE.
7191 - Function: sxhash OBJ
7193 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
7195 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
7197 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
7198 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
7199 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
7200 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
7201 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
7203 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
7205 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
7206 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
7207 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
7209 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
7210 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
7212 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
7213 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
7215 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
7216 (sxhash (upcase a)))
7218 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
7219 'case-fold-string-hash))
7221 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
7223 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
7225 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
7226 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
7227 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
7229 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
7231 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
7232 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
7234 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
7235 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
7236 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
7237 is too short to reach that column.
7239 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
7240 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
7241 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
7242 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
7244 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
7245 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
7246 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
7248 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
7249 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
7251 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
7252 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
7254 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
7255 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
7256 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
7257 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
7258 temporary-file-directory instead.
7260 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
7261 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
7262 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
7263 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
7265 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
7266 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
7268 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
7270 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
7271 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
7272 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
7274 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
7276 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
7277 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
7278 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
7279 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
7280 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
7281 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
7283 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
7284 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
7285 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
7286 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
7288 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
7290 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
7291 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
7292 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
7295 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
7296 string where arguments appear in the result string.
7300 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
7302 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
7303 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
7306 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
7308 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
7310 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
7311 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
7314 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
7316 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
7317 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
7322 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
7323 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
7325 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
7326 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
7327 to enable sound support.
7329 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
7330 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
7331 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
7332 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
7333 sound to play, before playing the sound.
7335 The following sound properties are supported:
7339 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
7340 searched relative to `data-directory'.
7344 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
7345 may be present, but not both.
7349 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
7350 0..1. This property is optional.
7354 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
7355 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
7357 Other properties are ignored.
7359 An alternative interface is called as
7360 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
7362 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
7364 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
7367 ** Changes to garbage collection
7369 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
7370 of live and free strings.
7372 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
7373 strings that have been consed so far.
7376 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
7379 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
7382 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
7383 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
7384 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
7386 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
7388 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
7390 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
7393 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
7395 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
7397 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
7398 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
7399 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
7400 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
7401 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
7403 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
7406 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
7408 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
7409 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
7410 or omitted means use the selected frame.
7412 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
7413 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
7415 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
7418 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
7422 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
7424 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
7425 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
7427 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
7428 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
7429 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
7430 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
7431 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
7432 just display it black instead.
7434 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
7437 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
7441 ** New face implementation.
7443 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
7444 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
7448 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
7450 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
7452 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
7453 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
7455 3. Font height in 1/10pt
7457 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
7459 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
7461 6. Foreground color.
7463 7. Background color.
7465 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
7467 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
7469 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
7471 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
7473 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
7476 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
7477 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
7479 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
7480 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
7481 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
7482 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
7483 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
7484 attributes mentioned above.
7486 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
7487 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
7490 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
7491 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
7496 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
7497 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
7498 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
7499 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
7500 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
7501 results in a fully-specified face.
7503 *** Face realization.
7505 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
7506 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
7507 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
7508 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
7509 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
7510 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
7512 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
7513 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
7514 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
7515 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
7517 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
7518 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
7519 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
7520 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
7521 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
7523 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
7524 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
7525 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
7526 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
7527 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
7530 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
7531 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
7532 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
7533 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
7535 **** Clearing face caches.
7537 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
7538 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
7543 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
7544 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
7545 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
7547 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
7548 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
7549 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
7550 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
7551 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
7553 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
7554 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
7555 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
7557 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
7559 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
7560 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
7561 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
7562 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
7563 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
7564 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
7565 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
7567 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7568 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
7571 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
7572 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
7575 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
7578 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
7583 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
7584 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
7587 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
7588 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
7589 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
7590 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
7591 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
7594 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
7596 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
7598 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
7600 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
7602 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
7603 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
7604 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
7606 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
7607 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
7608 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
7609 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
7610 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
7611 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
7612 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
7613 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
7614 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
7615 of the face font sort order.
7617 - Function: x-font-family-list
7619 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
7620 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
7621 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
7622 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
7624 - Variable: font-list-limit
7626 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
7627 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
7628 matching font. The default is currently 100.
7630 *** Setting face attributes.
7632 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
7633 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
7634 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
7637 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
7638 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
7640 The following attributes are recognized:
7644 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
7645 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
7646 and `?' are allowed.
7650 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
7651 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
7652 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
7653 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
7657 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
7658 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
7659 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
7660 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
7664 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
7665 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
7666 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
7670 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
7671 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
7674 `:foreground', `:background'
7676 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
7680 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
7681 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
7682 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
7687 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
7688 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
7689 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
7694 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
7695 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
7696 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
7697 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
7701 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
7702 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
7703 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
7704 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
7705 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
7706 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
7707 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
7708 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
7709 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
7710 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
7711 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
7712 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
7713 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
7714 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
7715 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
7716 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
7721 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
7722 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
7726 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
7727 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
7728 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
7729 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
7730 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
7731 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
7733 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
7734 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
7738 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
7739 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
7740 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
7743 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
7744 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
7745 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
7747 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
7752 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
7753 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
7754 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
7756 *** Face attributes and X resources
7758 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
7761 Face attribute X resource class
7762 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
7763 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
7764 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
7765 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
7766 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
7767 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
7768 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
7769 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
7770 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
7771 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
7772 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
7773 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
7774 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
7775 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
7776 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
7777 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
7778 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7779 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
7780 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
7781 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
7783 *** Text property `face'.
7785 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
7786 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
7787 specification can be
7789 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
7791 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
7792 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
7793 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
7794 for face attribute names.
7796 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
7797 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
7798 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
7800 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
7802 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
7803 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
7804 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
7805 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
7806 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
7807 used to clear the mapping table.
7809 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
7811 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
7812 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
7813 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
7814 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
7815 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
7816 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
7817 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
7818 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
7819 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
7820 modify their color-related behavior.
7822 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
7825 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
7827 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
7828 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
7829 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
7830 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
7831 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
7832 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
7833 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
7834 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
7835 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
7837 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
7838 display can display image files.
7840 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
7842 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
7843 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
7844 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
7845 `Inviolable' option.
7847 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
7848 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
7849 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
7851 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
7853 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
7854 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
7855 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
7857 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
7858 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
7859 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
7860 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
7861 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
7862 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
7863 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
7866 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
7867 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
7868 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
7870 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
7872 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
7874 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
7876 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7877 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7878 constrained position if that is different.
7880 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7881 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7882 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7883 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7884 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7885 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7886 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7887 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7888 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7890 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7891 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7892 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7893 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7894 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7896 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7897 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7899 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7901 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7903 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7904 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7905 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7907 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7909 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7910 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7911 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7912 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7913 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7915 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7917 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7918 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7919 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7920 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7921 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7923 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7925 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7926 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7927 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7929 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7931 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7932 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7933 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7937 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7938 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7939 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7940 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7942 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7943 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7944 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7945 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7948 IMAGE is an image specification.
7950 *** Image specifications
7952 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7953 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7954 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7955 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7956 described below are ignored.
7958 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7962 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7963 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7964 to use for its ascent.
7966 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7967 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7969 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7970 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7971 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7972 overlays that apply to the image.
7976 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7977 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7978 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7982 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7987 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7989 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7990 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7992 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7993 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7994 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7995 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7996 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7997 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7998 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7999 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
8002 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
8004 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
8006 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
8007 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
8008 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
8009 of the factors' absolute values.
8011 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
8017 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
8023 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
8028 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
8029 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
8030 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
8031 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
8032 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
8033 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
8034 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
8037 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
8038 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
8043 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
8044 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
8045 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
8046 may be present in the image specification.
8050 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
8051 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
8052 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
8053 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
8055 *** Supported image types
8057 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
8059 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
8060 properties supported are:
8064 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8065 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8069 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8070 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8072 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
8073 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
8074 instead of a `:file' property.
8078 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
8082 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
8088 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
8089 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
8091 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
8093 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
8096 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
8097 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
8100 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
8102 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
8103 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
8104 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
8105 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
8107 Additional image properties supported are:
8109 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
8111 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
8112 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
8115 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
8116 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
8118 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
8119 to display compressed images.
8121 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
8123 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
8124 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
8129 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
8130 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
8134 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
8135 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
8137 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
8139 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
8140 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8143 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
8145 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
8146 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8149 **** GIF, image type `gif'
8151 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
8152 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
8154 Additional image properties supported are:
8158 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
8159 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
8162 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
8163 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
8164 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
8167 (defun show-anim (file max)
8168 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
8169 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
8171 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
8174 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
8177 (goto-char (point-min))
8178 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
8179 (insert-image img "x"))
8180 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
8182 **** PNG, image type `png'
8184 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
8185 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
8188 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
8190 Additional image properties supported are:
8194 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
8195 integer. This is a required property.
8199 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
8200 must be a integer. This is an required property.
8204 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
8205 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
8206 files. This is an required property.
8208 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
8213 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
8214 which are supported in the current configuration.
8216 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
8217 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
8218 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
8219 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
8220 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
8222 *** Simplified image API, image.el
8224 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
8225 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
8226 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
8227 define an image based on available image types. The functions
8228 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
8233 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
8236 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
8237 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
8238 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
8239 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
8240 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
8241 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
8242 of the display margins.
8244 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
8245 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
8246 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
8247 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
8252 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
8253 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
8254 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
8255 that have a `help-echo' property.
8257 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
8258 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
8259 the window in which the help was found.
8261 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
8262 `help-echo' text property was found.
8264 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
8265 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
8267 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
8268 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
8271 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
8272 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
8274 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
8275 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
8276 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
8277 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
8278 used as help string.
8280 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
8281 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
8282 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
8284 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
8286 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
8287 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
8289 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
8290 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
8291 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
8292 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
8295 (global-set-key [A-down]
8298 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8299 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
8300 (global-set-key [A-up]
8303 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
8304 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
8306 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
8308 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
8309 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
8310 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
8311 is called with one argument, POS.
8313 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
8314 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
8315 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
8316 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
8317 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
8319 ** Tool bar support.
8321 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
8322 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
8323 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
8324 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
8325 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
8326 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
8328 *** Tool bar item definitions
8330 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
8331 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
8332 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
8334 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
8335 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
8336 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
8337 property (see below).
8339 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
8340 binding are currently ignored.
8342 The following properties are recognized:
8346 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
8351 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
8355 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
8356 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
8357 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
8359 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
8361 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
8362 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
8366 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
8367 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
8368 meaning of each of the four elements:
8370 Index Use when item is
8371 ----------------------------------------
8372 0 enabled and selected
8373 1 enabled and deselected
8374 2 disabled and selected
8375 3 disabled and deselected
8377 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
8378 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
8380 `:help HELP-STRING'.
8382 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
8383 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
8385 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
8386 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
8387 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
8390 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
8391 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
8392 buffer-locally to override the global map.
8394 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
8396 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
8397 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
8398 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
8400 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
8401 raised when the mouse moves over them.
8403 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
8404 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
8405 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
8406 vertical margins . Default is 1.
8408 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
8409 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
8411 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
8413 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
8416 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
8417 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
8418 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
8420 is the original tool bar item definition, then
8422 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
8424 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
8427 ** Mode line changes.
8429 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
8431 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
8432 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
8433 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
8435 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
8436 a `local-map' text property.
8438 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
8439 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
8441 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
8442 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
8443 `local-map' property.
8445 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
8446 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
8449 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
8450 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
8452 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
8453 variable mode-line-format to nil.
8455 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
8457 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
8458 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
8459 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
8460 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
8463 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
8466 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
8467 position in the header-line.
8469 ** Text property `display'
8471 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
8472 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
8473 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
8474 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
8475 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
8477 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
8479 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
8480 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
8482 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
8483 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
8484 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
8485 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8486 simpler form STRING as property value.
8488 *** Variable width and height spaces
8490 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
8491 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
8492 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
8493 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
8494 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
8495 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
8496 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
8498 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
8499 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
8500 properties described below.
8502 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
8503 characters having the `display' property.
8507 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
8508 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
8510 - :relative-width FACTOR
8512 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
8513 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
8514 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
8515 width of that character by FACTOR.
8519 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
8520 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
8522 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
8526 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
8529 - :relative-height FACTOR
8531 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
8532 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
8536 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
8537 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
8538 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
8541 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
8545 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
8546 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
8547 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
8548 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
8549 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
8550 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
8551 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
8552 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
8553 as display specification.
8555 *** Other display properties
8557 - (space-width FACTOR)
8559 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
8560 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
8565 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
8567 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
8568 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
8569 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
8570 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
8571 a font is available counts as a step.
8573 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
8574 as tall as the frame's default font.
8576 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
8577 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
8579 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
8580 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
8584 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
8585 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
8586 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
8587 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
8588 `height' subproperty.
8590 *** Conditional display properties
8592 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
8593 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
8594 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
8595 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
8596 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
8597 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
8598 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
8599 different when object is a string.
8601 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
8604 ** New menu separator types.
8606 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
8607 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
8608 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
8609 to specify other menu separator types.
8611 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
8613 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
8616 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
8618 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
8620 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
8622 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
8624 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
8626 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8628 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
8630 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
8632 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
8634 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
8635 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
8637 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
8639 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
8641 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
8643 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
8645 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
8647 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
8649 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
8651 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8653 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
8655 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
8657 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
8659 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
8661 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
8663 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
8665 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
8666 the corresponding single-line separators.
8668 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
8670 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
8671 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
8672 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
8673 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
8674 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
8675 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
8676 default foreground is black.
8678 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
8679 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
8680 `ScrollBarBackground').
8682 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
8683 settings for scroll bar colors.
8685 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
8686 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
8688 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
8689 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
8690 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
8691 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
8692 the original window start.
8694 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
8695 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
8696 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
8698 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
8700 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
8701 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
8702 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
8703 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
8705 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
8706 fixed-width and fixed-height.
8708 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
8710 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
8711 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
8712 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
8713 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
8714 temporarily to nil, for example
8716 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
8717 (enlarge-window 10))
8719 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
8720 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
8722 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
8723 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
8724 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
8725 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
8726 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
8727 support a vertical-bar cursor).
8731 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
8733 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
8736 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
8738 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
8740 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
8741 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
8742 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
8743 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
8744 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
8746 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
8750 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
8752 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
8756 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8758 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
8759 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
8761 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
8763 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
8765 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
8766 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
8767 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
8769 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
8770 is the one that is used.
8772 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
8773 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
8774 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
8775 separate from the command's regular output.
8776 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
8777 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
8778 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
8781 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
8782 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
8783 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
8784 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
8786 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
8787 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
8788 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
8789 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
8791 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
8792 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
8793 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
8794 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
8796 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
8797 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
8798 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
8799 they never ignore case.
8801 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
8802 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
8803 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
8804 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
8805 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
8806 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
8807 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
8809 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
8810 the same format that was used in the file before.
8812 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
8813 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
8815 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
8816 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
8817 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
8819 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
8820 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
8821 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
8822 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
8823 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
8824 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
8825 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
8827 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
8828 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
8829 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
8830 format. You can now customize these variables.
8832 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
8833 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
8834 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
8835 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
8837 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
8838 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
8839 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
8841 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
8842 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
8843 doesn't have any effect.
8845 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
8848 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
8849 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
8850 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
8852 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
8853 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
8854 `auto-show-mode' command.
8856 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
8857 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
8858 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
8859 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
8860 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
8862 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
8863 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
8865 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
8866 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
8867 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
8869 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
8870 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
8871 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
8872 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
8874 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
8876 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8877 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8878 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8879 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8880 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8882 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8883 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8885 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8886 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8887 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8888 `?' on other systems.
8890 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8891 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8894 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8895 current codepage when it starts.
8899 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8900 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8901 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8902 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8903 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8904 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8908 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8909 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8911 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8912 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8913 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8914 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8915 buffer-file-coding-system.
8917 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8918 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8921 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8922 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8923 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8924 list of possible coding systems.
8928 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8929 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8930 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8931 docstring for details.
8933 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8934 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8935 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8936 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8937 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8939 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8940 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8942 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8943 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8945 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8946 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8947 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8948 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8951 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8952 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8954 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8955 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8956 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8957 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8959 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8960 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8961 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8962 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8963 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8965 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8967 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8969 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8970 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8972 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8974 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8975 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8976 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8977 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8978 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8982 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8983 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8984 Gnus manual for the full story.
8986 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8987 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8988 group, which is created automatically.
8990 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8993 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8995 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8996 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8998 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
9001 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
9003 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
9004 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
9006 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
9008 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
9009 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
9011 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
9012 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
9014 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
9015 control over simplification.
9017 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
9019 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
9022 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
9024 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
9026 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
9027 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
9028 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
9030 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
9031 `a' forces normal posting method.
9033 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
9036 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
9039 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
9040 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
9042 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
9045 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
9047 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
9049 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
9050 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
9052 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
9053 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
9055 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
9057 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
9060 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
9061 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
9063 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
9064 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
9066 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
9068 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
9070 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
9072 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
9074 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
9075 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
9076 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
9078 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
9079 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
9080 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
9081 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
9082 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
9084 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
9085 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
9086 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
9087 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
9089 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
9090 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
9091 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
9094 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9096 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
9097 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
9099 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
9100 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
9101 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
9102 removed from the label.
9104 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
9105 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
9107 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
9108 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
9110 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
9111 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
9114 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
9116 ** New/deleted modes and packages
9118 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
9119 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
9121 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
9122 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
9123 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
9125 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
9126 changes with a special face.
9128 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
9129 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
9130 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
9132 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
9134 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
9135 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
9136 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
9137 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
9138 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
9140 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
9141 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
9142 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
9144 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
9145 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
9146 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
9147 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
9148 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
9149 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
9150 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
9151 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
9152 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
9154 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
9155 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
9156 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
9157 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
9158 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
9161 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
9162 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
9163 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
9164 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
9165 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
9166 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
9168 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
9169 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
9170 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
9171 was not documented clearly before.
9173 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
9174 This includes Tetris and Snake.
9176 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
9178 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
9179 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
9180 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
9181 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
9183 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
9184 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
9185 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
9187 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
9189 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
9190 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
9192 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9193 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
9196 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
9197 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
9198 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
9199 file names and attributes are returned.
9201 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
9202 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
9203 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
9204 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
9207 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
9208 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
9210 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
9212 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
9213 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
9214 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
9217 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
9218 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
9221 The new function process-running-child-p
9222 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
9223 terminal to its own child process.
9225 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
9226 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
9227 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
9228 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
9230 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
9231 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
9233 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
9234 :included is an alias for :visible.
9236 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
9237 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
9238 to move or copy menu entries.
9240 ** Multibyte editing changes
9242 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
9243 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
9244 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
9245 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
9246 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
9247 (setq char (sref str idx)
9248 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
9249 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
9251 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
9252 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
9253 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
9255 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
9256 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
9257 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
9259 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
9261 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
9262 across the boundary.
9264 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
9265 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
9266 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
9267 contains 8-bit characters.
9268 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
9269 contains invalid characters.
9271 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
9272 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
9273 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
9274 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
9277 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
9278 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
9279 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
9280 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
9282 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
9283 compose Thai characters in a string.
9285 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
9286 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
9287 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
9288 menus should always use the third argument.
9290 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
9291 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
9292 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
9293 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
9295 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
9296 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
9297 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
9298 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
9300 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
9301 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
9302 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
9305 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
9307 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
9308 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
9309 requested feature cannot be loaded.
9311 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
9312 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
9313 means to clear out that attribute.
9315 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
9316 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
9318 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
9319 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
9320 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
9321 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
9323 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
9324 the gap of the current buffer.
9326 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
9327 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
9330 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
9331 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
9332 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
9333 it back in after any modifications have been made.
9335 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
9337 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
9338 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
9339 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
9340 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
9341 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
9343 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
9344 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
9345 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
9346 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
9347 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
9349 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
9350 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
9351 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
9353 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
9354 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
9355 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
9356 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
9357 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
9360 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
9361 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
9362 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
9363 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
9365 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
9367 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
9368 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
9369 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
9370 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
9372 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
9373 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
9374 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
9375 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
9376 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
9377 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
9378 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
9381 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
9384 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
9385 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
9386 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
9387 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
9388 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
9390 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
9391 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
9392 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
9393 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
9395 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
9396 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
9397 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
9398 something that most users not do.
9400 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
9401 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
9402 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
9405 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
9408 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
9409 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
9410 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
9411 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
9414 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
9415 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
9416 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
9417 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
9418 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
9421 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
9422 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
9423 to be confused by TeX commands.
9425 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
9426 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
9427 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
9428 of various alternative replacements and actions.
9430 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
9431 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
9432 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
9433 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
9434 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
9436 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
9437 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
9439 ** Changes in input method usage.
9441 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
9442 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
9445 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
9447 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
9448 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
9450 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
9451 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
9453 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
9455 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
9457 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
9458 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
9460 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
9461 given in the following case:
9462 o When you are using a complex input method.
9463 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
9465 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
9466 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
9467 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
9468 setting it to t is helpful.
9470 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
9472 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
9474 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
9475 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
9476 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
9477 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
9480 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
9481 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
9482 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
9485 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
9487 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
9489 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
9490 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
9492 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
9493 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
9494 its owner and group.
9496 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
9497 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
9499 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
9500 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
9502 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
9503 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
9504 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
9505 by the left edge of the rectangle.
9507 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
9508 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
9509 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
9510 for writing keyboard macros.
9512 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
9513 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
9514 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
9515 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
9516 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
9519 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
9521 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
9522 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
9525 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
9526 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
9527 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
9528 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
9530 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
9531 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
9532 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
9534 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
9535 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
9536 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
9537 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
9539 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
9540 failure if the command produces no output.
9542 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
9543 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
9546 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
9547 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
9548 function and variable names.
9550 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
9551 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
9552 file-coding-system-alist.
9554 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
9555 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
9556 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
9557 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
9558 according to the current fontset.
9560 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
9562 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
9563 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
9564 nonascii-insert-offset.
9566 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
9567 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
9568 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
9569 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
9571 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
9572 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
9574 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
9575 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
9577 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
9578 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
9581 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
9582 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
9584 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
9585 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
9586 all variables that have documentation.
9588 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
9589 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
9590 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
9591 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
9592 it should show; the default is 20.
9594 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
9595 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
9598 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
9599 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
9600 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
9601 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
9602 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
9603 Newly added options are included as well.
9605 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
9606 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
9607 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
9609 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
9612 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
9613 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
9615 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
9616 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
9619 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
9620 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
9623 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
9624 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
9625 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
9626 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
9629 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
9631 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
9632 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
9633 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
9635 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
9636 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
9637 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
9642 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
9643 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
9645 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
9646 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
9648 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
9649 read and post multi-lingual articles.
9651 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
9652 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
9653 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
9654 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
9655 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
9656 made invisible again.
9658 ** Mail reading and sending changes
9660 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
9661 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
9662 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
9665 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
9666 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
9667 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
9668 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
9669 rmail-default-body-file.
9671 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
9672 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
9673 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
9675 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
9676 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
9677 is evaluated to insert the signature.
9679 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
9680 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
9681 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
9682 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
9683 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
9684 especially interested in trying feedmail.
9686 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
9687 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
9688 provided by feedmail are:
9690 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
9691 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
9692 there is also a queue for draft messages
9694 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
9695 be prompted for confirmation
9697 **** does smart filling of address headers
9699 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
9700 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
9701 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
9703 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
9704 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
9705 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
9706 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
9710 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
9711 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
9713 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
9714 run Dired on the directory name at point.
9716 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
9717 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
9718 for a specified regexp.
9722 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
9725 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
9726 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
9729 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
9730 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
9731 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
9732 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
9734 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
9735 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
9736 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
9737 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
9738 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
9740 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
9741 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
9742 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
9743 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
9744 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
9746 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
9747 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
9748 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
9749 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
9751 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
9752 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
9753 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
9755 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
9756 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
9757 session to resolve them.
9759 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
9760 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
9761 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
9764 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
9765 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
9766 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
9767 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
9768 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
9769 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
9772 ** Changes in Font Lock
9774 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
9775 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
9776 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
9777 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
9778 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
9780 ** Frame name display changes
9782 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
9783 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
9784 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
9785 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
9787 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
9788 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
9791 ** Comint (subshell) changes
9793 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
9794 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
9795 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
9797 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
9799 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
9800 that is, the line after the last line you got.
9801 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
9803 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
9804 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
9807 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
9808 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
9809 previously sent input.
9811 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
9812 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
9813 as the search string.
9815 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
9816 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
9820 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
9821 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
9822 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
9825 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
9826 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
9827 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
9828 style is still the default however.
9830 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
9832 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
9833 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
9834 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
9836 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
9837 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
9839 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
9840 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
9842 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
9843 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
9845 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
9846 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
9848 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
9849 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
9850 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
9851 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
9853 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
9855 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
9856 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
9857 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
9859 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
9860 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
9861 expanding dynamically.
9863 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
9864 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
9866 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
9867 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
9868 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
9869 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
9871 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
9873 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
9875 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
9876 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9877 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9878 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9879 against the first word in the title.
9881 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9882 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9883 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9884 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9885 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9886 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9888 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9889 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9890 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9891 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9893 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9895 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9896 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9897 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9898 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9899 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9900 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9902 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9903 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9905 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9906 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9907 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9909 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9910 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9914 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9915 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9916 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9918 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9919 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9920 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9921 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9924 o URLs are automatically skipped
9925 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9927 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9929 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9931 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9932 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9933 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9934 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9936 *** New recursive parser.
9938 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9939 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9940 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9942 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9944 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9945 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9946 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9948 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9950 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9952 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9954 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9956 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9958 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9959 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9961 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9963 *** References to external documents.
9965 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9966 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9967 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9968 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9969 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9970 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9971 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9973 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9975 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9976 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9978 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9979 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9981 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9983 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9984 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9986 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9988 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9989 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9990 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9991 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9992 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9993 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9996 *** Support for the varioref package
9998 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
10002 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
10003 and citations are created. These hooks are
10004 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
10005 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
10007 *** Citations outside LaTeX
10009 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
10010 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
10012 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
10014 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
10015 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
10018 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
10020 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
10021 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
10022 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
10023 directories that contain the same file name.
10025 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
10026 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
10027 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
10028 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
10029 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
10030 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
10031 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
10034 ** New modes and packages
10036 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
10037 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
10038 it, but some do not.
10040 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
10043 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
10044 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
10045 around in a buffer.
10047 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
10049 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
10050 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
10051 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
10052 established system of notation similar to Chess.
10054 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
10055 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
10056 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
10058 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
10059 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
10060 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
10061 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
10062 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
10065 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
10066 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
10068 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
10069 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
10070 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
10071 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
10073 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
10075 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
10076 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
10077 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
10078 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
10079 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
10080 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
10081 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
10082 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
10083 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
10084 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
10085 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
10087 Platform-specific modes:
10089 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
10090 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
10091 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
10092 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
10093 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
10094 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
10095 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
10096 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
10097 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
10099 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10101 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
10102 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
10103 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
10104 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
10106 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
10107 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
10108 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
10110 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
10111 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
10112 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
10113 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
10115 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
10116 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
10117 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
10120 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
10121 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
10122 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
10123 current input method for reading this one event.
10125 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
10126 now control whether to output certain characters as
10127 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
10128 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
10129 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
10130 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
10132 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
10134 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
10135 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
10137 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
10138 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
10139 always increases point by 1.
10141 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
10142 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
10144 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
10146 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
10147 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
10148 default value changed. For example,
10150 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
10155 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
10158 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
10159 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
10160 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
10161 `:version' in the top level group.
10163 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
10165 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
10166 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
10168 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
10169 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
10170 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
10173 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
10174 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
10177 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
10178 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
10179 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
10181 ** Frame-local variables.
10183 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
10184 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
10185 local bindings for that variable.
10187 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
10188 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
10189 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
10192 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
10193 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
10194 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
10195 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
10197 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
10198 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
10199 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
10200 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
10202 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
10203 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
10204 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
10205 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
10206 See the documentation in sregex.el.
10208 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
10209 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
10210 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
10211 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
10213 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
10214 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
10216 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
10217 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
10218 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
10220 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
10221 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
10222 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
10223 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
10225 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
10226 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
10229 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
10230 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
10231 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
10232 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
10233 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
10235 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
10236 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
10237 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
10238 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
10240 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
10241 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
10242 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
10243 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
10244 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
10246 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
10247 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
10248 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
10249 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
10251 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
10252 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
10253 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
10255 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
10256 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
10257 was directed to display this buffer.
10259 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
10260 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
10261 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
10262 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
10263 set-window-configuration.
10265 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
10266 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
10267 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
10268 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
10270 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
10271 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
10272 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
10274 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
10275 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
10276 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
10278 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
10279 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
10281 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
10282 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
10284 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
10285 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
10286 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
10288 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
10289 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
10290 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
10291 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
10295 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
10296 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
10299 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
10300 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
10301 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
10302 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
10303 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
10305 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
10307 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
10308 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
10309 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
10310 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
10313 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
10314 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
10315 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
10316 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
10317 The supported properties include
10319 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10321 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
10322 item should appear in the menu.
10324 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
10325 which will be REAL-BINDING.
10326 It should return a binding to use instead.
10328 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
10329 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
10330 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
10331 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
10332 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
10335 This means that the command normally has no
10336 keyboard equivalent.
10337 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
10338 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
10339 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
10340 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
10341 value says whether this button is currently selected.
10343 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
10344 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
10346 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
10350 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
10351 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
10352 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
10353 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
10355 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
10357 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10358 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
10359 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
10360 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
10361 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
10362 forward, away from the user.
10364 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10366 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
10367 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
10368 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
10369 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
10370 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
10372 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
10374 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
10375 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
10376 that were dragged and dropped.
10378 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
10380 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
10382 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
10383 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
10384 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
10386 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
10387 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
10388 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
10390 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
10391 in Emacs 19 and before.
10393 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
10394 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
10396 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
10397 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
10398 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
10399 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
10401 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
10402 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
10403 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
10404 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
10405 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
10407 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
10408 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
10409 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
10410 consistent with the new representation.
10412 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
10413 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
10414 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
10415 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10417 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
10418 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
10419 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
10421 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
10422 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
10423 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
10425 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
10426 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
10427 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
10429 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10430 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
10432 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
10433 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
10435 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
10436 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
10437 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
10438 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
10440 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
10441 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
10443 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
10444 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
10445 buffer or string being searched.
10447 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
10448 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
10449 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
10450 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
10451 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
10452 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
10453 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
10455 *** Structure of coding system changed.
10457 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
10458 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
10459 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
10460 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
10461 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
10462 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
10463 define-coding-system-alias.
10465 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
10466 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
10467 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
10468 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
10469 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
10470 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
10471 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
10474 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
10475 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
10476 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
10477 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
10479 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
10480 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
10481 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
10482 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
10484 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
10485 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
10486 This function requires a user interaction.
10488 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
10489 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
10490 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
10491 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
10492 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
10493 select-safe-coding-system.
10495 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
10496 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
10497 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
10500 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
10501 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
10502 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
10504 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
10505 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
10506 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
10507 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
10509 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
10510 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
10511 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
10514 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
10515 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
10517 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
10518 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
10519 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
10520 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
10521 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
10522 range of characters.
10524 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
10525 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
10527 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
10528 in the current buffer at position POS.
10530 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
10531 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
10532 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
10533 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
10534 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
10535 binding input-method-function to nil.
10537 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
10538 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
10539 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
10540 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
10541 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
10543 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
10544 subsequent events of a key sequence.
10546 *** You can customize any language environment by using
10547 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
10549 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
10550 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
10551 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
10552 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
10553 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
10555 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
10557 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
10558 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
10559 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
10562 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
10563 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
10565 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
10566 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
10567 in your .emacs file.)
10569 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
10570 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
10572 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
10573 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
10575 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
10576 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
10579 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
10580 delete the character before point, as usual.
10582 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
10583 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
10584 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
10586 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
10587 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
10588 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
10589 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
10590 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
10593 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
10594 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
10595 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
10596 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
10597 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
10599 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
10600 and is an alias for it.
10602 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
10603 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
10605 ** Scrolling changes
10607 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
10608 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
10610 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
10611 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
10614 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
10615 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
10616 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
10617 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
10619 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
10620 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
10621 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
10622 recenters the window.
10624 ** International character set support (MULE)
10626 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
10627 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
10628 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
10629 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
10630 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
10631 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
10633 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
10634 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
10635 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
10636 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
10637 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
10639 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
10640 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
10641 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
10642 language, to make it possible to type them.
10644 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
10645 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
10647 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
10648 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
10650 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
10652 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
10654 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
10655 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
10656 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
10657 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
10658 characters for their work until they want to change.
10662 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
10663 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
10664 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
10665 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
10666 support several input methods.
10668 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
10669 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
10672 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
10673 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
10674 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
10675 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
10676 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
10679 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
10680 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
10681 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
10682 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
10683 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
10685 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
10686 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
10687 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
10688 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
10690 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
10691 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
10692 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
10693 the first guess is wrong.
10695 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
10696 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
10698 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
10699 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
10700 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
10701 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
10703 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
10704 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
10705 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
10706 translate automatically to and from either one.
10708 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
10710 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
10711 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
10712 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
10715 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
10716 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
10717 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
10718 multibyte characters in that buffer.
10720 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
10721 character conversion as well.
10723 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
10725 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
10726 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
10727 requires using many fonts.
10729 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
10730 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
10732 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
10733 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
10734 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
10735 you would use a font.
10737 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
10738 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
10739 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
10741 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
10742 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
10745 *** Defining fontsets.
10747 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
10748 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
10749 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
10751 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
10752 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
10753 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
10754 standard fontset are created automatically.
10756 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
10757 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
10758 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
10759 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
10760 name is `fontset-startup'.
10762 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
10763 The resource value should have this form:
10764 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
10765 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
10766 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
10767 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
10768 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
10769 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
10770 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
10771 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
10772 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
10774 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
10775 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
10776 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
10778 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
10779 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
10780 following resource,
10781 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
10782 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
10783 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
10784 Here is the substitution rule:
10785 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
10786 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
10787 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
10788 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
10789 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
10791 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
10792 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
10793 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
10795 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
10796 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
10797 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
10798 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
10801 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
10802 defaults for a particular choice of language.
10804 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
10805 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
10806 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
10807 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
10808 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
10809 system for new files that you create.
10811 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
10812 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
10813 whole Emacs session.
10815 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
10816 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
10817 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
10819 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
10820 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
10821 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
10822 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
10823 coding systems that Emacs supports.
10825 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
10826 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
10827 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
10828 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
10829 is used for *the immediately following command*.
10831 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
10832 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
10834 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
10835 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
10837 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
10838 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
10840 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
10841 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
10842 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
10843 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
10846 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
10847 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
10848 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
10849 translated into that character code.
10851 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
10852 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
10854 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
10856 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
10857 the coding system for keyboard input.
10859 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
10860 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
10861 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
10863 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
10865 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
10866 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
10867 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
10868 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
10869 designed to work with terminals.
10871 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
10872 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
10873 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
10874 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
10875 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
10876 in the corresponding buffer.
10878 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10880 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10881 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10882 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10884 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10885 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10886 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10889 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10890 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10892 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10893 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10894 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10895 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10897 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10898 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10899 related information.
10901 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10902 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10905 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10906 information about the support for a particular language.
10907 You specify the language as an argument.
10909 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10910 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10913 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10914 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10915 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10916 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10918 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10920 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10921 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10922 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10923 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10924 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10925 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10926 K euc-korea (Korean)
10929 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10932 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10933 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10934 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10935 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10938 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10939 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10940 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10941 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10943 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10944 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10946 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10947 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10948 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10949 Rmail files themselves.
10951 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10952 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10954 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10957 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10958 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10959 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10960 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10961 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10963 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10964 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10965 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10968 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10969 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10970 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10971 without any conversion.
10973 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10974 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10975 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10976 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10978 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10979 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10981 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10982 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10984 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10985 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10987 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10988 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10989 in the buffer before point.
10991 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10992 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10995 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10996 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10998 ** File locking works with NFS now.
11000 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
11001 in the same directory as FILENAME.
11003 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
11004 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
11005 can become a bottleneck.
11007 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
11008 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
11009 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
11010 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
11011 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
11012 so useful that the change is worth while.
11014 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
11015 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
11016 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
11017 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
11019 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
11020 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
11023 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
11024 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
11025 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
11027 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
11028 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
11029 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
11031 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
11032 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
11033 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
11035 ** Changes in View mode.
11037 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
11038 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
11040 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
11041 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
11043 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
11046 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
11047 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
11049 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
11050 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
11051 not just the selected window.
11053 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
11054 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
11055 turns View mode on or off.
11057 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
11058 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
11059 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
11061 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
11062 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
11064 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
11065 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
11066 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
11067 which version to compare with.
11069 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
11070 blocks if a match is inside the block.
11072 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
11073 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
11074 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
11075 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
11077 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
11078 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
11079 blocks, all of them or none.
11081 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
11082 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
11083 confirmation first.
11085 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
11086 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
11087 However, the mode will not be changed if
11088 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
11089 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
11090 not suitable for ordinary files, or
11091 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
11093 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
11095 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
11096 these commands do not change the major mode.
11098 ** M-x occur changes.
11100 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
11101 it performs a case-sensitive search.
11103 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
11104 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
11105 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
11107 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
11108 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
11109 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
11110 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
11111 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
11113 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
11114 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
11115 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
11116 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
11118 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
11119 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
11120 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
11122 ** Outline mode changes.
11124 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
11126 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
11128 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
11129 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
11130 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
11131 was already active.
11133 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
11134 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
11135 get confused by it.
11137 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
11138 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
11140 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
11142 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
11143 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
11144 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
11145 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
11147 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
11148 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
11149 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
11151 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
11152 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
11155 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
11156 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
11157 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
11158 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
11160 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
11161 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
11162 can be. The default value is 30.
11164 ** Changes in Mail mode.
11166 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
11167 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
11168 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
11169 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
11170 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
11173 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
11174 compose-mail-other-frame.
11176 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
11177 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
11178 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
11179 buffer that shows the original message.
11181 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
11182 with separator lines around the contents.
11184 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
11185 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
11186 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
11187 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
11189 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
11191 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
11192 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
11193 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
11194 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
11196 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
11197 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
11200 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
11201 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
11204 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
11205 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
11206 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
11207 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
11209 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
11210 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
11211 be taken to be magic.
11213 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
11214 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
11215 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
11217 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
11218 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
11220 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
11221 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
11223 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
11225 new key dired.el binding old key
11226 ------- ---------------- -------
11227 * c dired-change-marks c
11229 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
11230 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
11231 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
11233 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
11234 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
11235 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
11236 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
11237 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
11238 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
11242 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
11243 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
11244 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
11245 each time you run it.
11247 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
11248 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
11250 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
11251 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
11252 means to move in the opposite direction.
11254 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
11255 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
11257 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
11258 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
11259 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
11260 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
11265 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
11267 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
11270 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
11271 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
11273 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
11276 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
11278 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
11280 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
11282 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
11283 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
11284 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
11286 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
11288 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
11290 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
11291 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
11293 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
11294 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
11295 used to pick articles.
11297 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
11298 another have been added.
11300 `M-x gnus-change-server'
11302 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
11303 generating lines in buffers.
11305 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
11308 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
11310 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
11312 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
11314 *** Scores can be decayed.
11316 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
11318 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
11319 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
11321 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
11324 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
11326 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
11327 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
11329 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
11331 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
11332 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
11334 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
11335 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
11337 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
11340 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
11341 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
11343 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
11345 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
11347 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
11349 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
11351 Use the `Y c' command.
11353 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
11355 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
11357 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
11359 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
11360 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
11362 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
11364 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
11366 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
11367 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
11369 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
11371 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
11372 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
11373 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
11374 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
11377 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
11378 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
11379 particular news group. This can be done by:
11381 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
11383 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
11384 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
11385 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
11386 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
11387 for reading and posting).
11389 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
11390 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
11391 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
11392 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
11395 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
11396 default. Here are some of these default settings:
11398 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
11399 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
11400 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
11401 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
11402 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
11404 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
11405 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
11407 ** CC mode changes.
11409 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
11410 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
11411 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
11412 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
11413 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
11416 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
11417 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
11418 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
11419 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
11420 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
11421 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
11423 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
11424 of the current buffer.
11426 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
11427 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
11428 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
11430 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
11431 style that the Python developers like.
11433 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
11434 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
11435 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
11437 ** VC Changes [new]
11439 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
11440 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
11441 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
11443 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
11444 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
11447 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
11448 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
11450 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
11451 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
11452 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
11453 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
11455 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
11456 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
11458 ** Calendar changes.
11460 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
11461 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
11462 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
11463 following/previous years.
11465 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
11466 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
11467 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
11468 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
11469 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
11470 supposed attribute of God.
11472 ** ps-print changes
11474 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
11477 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
11479 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
11480 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
11481 printer system has this behavior, set variable
11482 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
11484 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
11485 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
11486 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
11488 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
11489 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
11491 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
11492 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
11493 printing for your printer.
11495 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
11496 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11498 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
11499 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
11501 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
11502 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
11503 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
11504 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
11505 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
11506 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
11507 The default value is nil.
11509 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
11510 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
11512 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
11513 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
11514 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
11515 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
11516 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
11517 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
11518 color). The default is 0 ("black").
11520 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
11521 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
11523 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
11524 The default is 0 ("black").
11526 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
11527 The default is 0 ("black").
11529 border-width Specify the border width.
11530 The default is 0.4.
11532 Any other property is ignored.
11534 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
11535 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
11538 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
11539 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
11540 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
11541 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
11542 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
11543 controlling headers.
11545 *** Color management (subgroup)
11547 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
11550 *** Face Management (subgroup)
11552 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
11553 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
11554 background should be used. Valid values are:
11556 t always use face background color.
11557 nil never use face background color.
11558 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
11560 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
11562 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
11565 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
11566 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
11568 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
11571 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
11572 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
11573 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
11575 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
11579 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
11583 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
11587 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
11591 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
11593 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
11595 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
11598 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
11599 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
11600 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
11602 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
11603 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11604 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11605 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11606 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11610 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11611 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11612 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11615 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11616 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11617 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
11618 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
11619 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
11620 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11621 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11622 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
11623 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
11624 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
11625 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
11628 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
11630 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
11633 *** Printer management (subgroup)
11635 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
11636 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
11637 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
11638 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
11641 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
11642 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
11643 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
11645 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
11646 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
11649 *** Page settings (subgroup)
11651 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
11652 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
11653 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
11654 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
11655 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
11656 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
11659 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
11660 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
11661 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
11663 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
11664 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
11665 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
11666 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
11667 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
11668 its TO, are ignored.
11670 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
11671 pages. Valid values are:
11673 nil print all pages.
11675 `even-page' print only even pages.
11677 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
11679 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
11680 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11681 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
11682 print only the even sheet of paper.
11684 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
11685 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
11686 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
11687 only the odd sheet of paper.
11689 Any other value is treated as nil.
11691 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
11692 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
11693 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
11695 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
11697 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
11698 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
11700 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
11701 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11702 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
11703 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11704 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11705 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
11706 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
11708 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
11709 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
11710 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
11711 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
11712 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
11713 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
11714 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
11716 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
11718 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
11719 messages should be sent.
11721 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
11722 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
11723 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
11725 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
11727 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
11728 points for line numbers.
11730 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
11731 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
11733 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
11734 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
11735 to 2, the printing will look like:
11747 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
11748 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
11751 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
11752 zebra stripe is to be printed.
11754 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
11756 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
11757 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
11758 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
11759 3, the output will look like:
11773 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
11774 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
11776 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
11777 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11780 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
11781 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
11784 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
11786 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
11787 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
11789 ** hideshow changes.
11791 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
11794 *** Support for java-mode added.
11796 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
11797 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
11799 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
11800 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
11801 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
11803 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
11804 robust and a lot faster.
11806 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
11808 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
11809 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
11810 documentation for more details.
11812 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
11814 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
11815 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
11816 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
11817 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
11818 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
11820 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
11821 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
11822 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
11823 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
11829 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
11830 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
11831 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
11832 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
11833 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
11834 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
11836 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
11838 *** Maximum decoration
11840 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
11841 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
11842 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
11843 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
11844 to get the old behavior.
11848 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
11850 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
11851 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
11853 *** Configurable support
11855 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
11856 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
11857 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
11858 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
11859 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
11860 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
11861 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
11863 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
11864 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
11865 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
11867 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
11869 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
11870 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
11873 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
11875 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
11881 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11882 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11883 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11884 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11886 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11888 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11889 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11890 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11892 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11894 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11895 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11896 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11897 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11898 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11899 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11900 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11902 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11903 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11904 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11905 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11906 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11907 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11909 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11911 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11912 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11913 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11914 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11916 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11919 ** Ada mode changes.
11921 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11922 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11923 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11924 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11927 *** There are two new commands:
11928 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11929 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11931 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11932 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11933 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11935 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11936 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11937 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11939 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11940 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11941 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11942 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11944 ** Scheme mode changes.
11946 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11947 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11948 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11949 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11952 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11953 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11954 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11955 variables as buffer-local variables.
11957 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11958 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11960 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11962 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11963 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11964 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11965 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11967 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11968 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11971 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11972 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11973 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11974 option takes precedence.
11976 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11977 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11978 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11980 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11981 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11984 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11985 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11987 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11988 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11991 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11992 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11993 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11994 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11995 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11996 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11998 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11999 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
12000 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
12001 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
12003 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
12004 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
12005 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
12006 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
12007 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
12009 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
12010 since it applies only to the current frame.
12012 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
12013 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
12014 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
12016 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
12017 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
12018 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
12019 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
12020 instead of just the file you are editing.
12024 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
12025 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
12026 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
12027 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
12028 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
12031 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
12032 knows which kind of label is needed.
12034 C-c ) reftex-reference
12035 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
12036 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
12038 C-c [ reftex-citation
12039 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
12040 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
12042 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
12043 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
12046 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
12047 can quickly jump to every section.
12049 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
12050 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
12051 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
12052 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
12053 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
12055 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
12057 *** Info documentation is now available.
12059 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
12060 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
12062 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
12063 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
12065 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
12066 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
12068 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
12069 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
12070 appropriate functions.
12072 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
12073 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
12075 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
12078 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
12079 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
12081 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
12082 shall be delimited.
12084 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
12085 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
12086 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
12088 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
12089 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
12090 prefixed with `ALT'.
12092 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
12093 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
12094 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
12097 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
12098 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
12099 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
12101 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
12102 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
12104 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
12105 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
12106 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
12108 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
12110 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
12112 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
12113 from alien sources.
12115 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
12116 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
12119 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
12122 *** Added support for imenu.
12124 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
12125 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
12126 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
12127 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
12129 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
12130 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
12132 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
12134 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
12136 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
12137 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
12138 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
12141 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
12142 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
12144 ** browse-url changes
12146 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
12147 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
12148 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
12149 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
12150 customization variables.
12152 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
12154 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
12155 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
12156 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
12158 ** Changes in Ediff
12160 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
12161 pops up the Info file for this command.
12163 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
12164 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
12165 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
12168 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
12169 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
12170 files in the same directory.
12172 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
12173 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
12174 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
12176 ** Changes in Viper
12178 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
12179 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
12181 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
12182 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
12183 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
12184 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
12185 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
12186 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
12187 color when Viper is in insert state.
12188 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
12189 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
12190 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
12194 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
12195 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
12196 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
12197 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
12198 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
12200 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
12202 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
12203 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
12205 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
12206 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
12207 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
12209 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
12210 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
12211 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
12212 methods and protocols.
12214 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
12215 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
12216 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
12219 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
12220 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
12221 at least M times and as many as N times.
12223 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
12224 in files has changed slightly.
12226 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
12227 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
12228 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
12229 with old time-stamp-format values.
12231 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
12232 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
12233 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
12236 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
12237 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
12238 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
12239 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
12240 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
12241 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
12243 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
12244 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
12245 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
12247 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
12248 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
12249 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
12250 recommended now will continue to work then.
12252 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
12255 ** There are some additional major modes:
12257 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
12258 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
12259 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
12261 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
12262 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
12265 ** New Lisp packages include:
12267 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
12269 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
12270 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
12272 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
12274 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
12277 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
12278 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
12281 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
12282 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
12283 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
12284 strings or comments.
12286 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
12287 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
12288 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
12289 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
12292 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
12293 can visit them by short forms of their names.
12295 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
12296 Emacs Lisp function at point.
12298 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
12300 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
12301 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
12303 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
12305 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
12307 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
12309 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
12310 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
12312 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
12313 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
12314 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
12315 original place after inserting the copy.
12317 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
12320 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
12321 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
12322 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
12324 Enable mouse-drag with:
12325 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
12327 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
12329 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
12330 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
12332 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
12333 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
12337 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
12338 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
12339 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
12340 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
12341 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
12342 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
12343 instance) and vice versa.
12345 To use this package load it using
12346 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
12347 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
12348 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
12349 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
12350 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
12351 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
12353 *** Interface to ph.
12355 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
12357 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
12358 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
12361 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
12363 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
12364 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
12365 while the real cursor does not move.
12367 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
12368 for visiting your favorite web sites.
12370 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
12371 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
12375 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
12376 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
12377 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
12378 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
12380 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
12382 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
12384 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
12386 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
12387 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
12388 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
12389 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
12390 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
12392 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
12393 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
12394 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
12395 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
12396 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
12397 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
12399 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
12401 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
12402 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
12403 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
12404 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
12406 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
12407 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
12409 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
12410 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
12413 ** Basic Lisp changes
12415 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
12416 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
12418 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
12419 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
12422 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
12424 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
12426 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
12427 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
12429 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
12430 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
12433 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
12435 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
12437 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
12439 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
12440 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
12441 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
12444 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
12445 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
12446 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
12448 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
12449 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
12450 adding one of these suffixes.
12452 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
12453 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
12454 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
12456 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
12457 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
12459 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
12461 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
12462 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
12464 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
12465 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
12467 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
12469 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
12470 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
12472 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
12473 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
12474 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
12475 works using `save-current-buffer'.
12477 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
12478 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
12481 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
12482 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
12483 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
12486 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
12487 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
12490 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
12492 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
12493 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
12494 Then it returns that string.
12496 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
12498 (with-output-to-string
12499 (princ "The buffer is ")
12500 (princ (buffer-name)))
12502 returns "The buffer is foo".
12504 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
12507 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
12508 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
12509 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
12511 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
12512 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
12514 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
12515 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
12516 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
12517 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
12518 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
12519 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
12521 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
12522 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
12523 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
12526 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
12527 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
12528 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
12529 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
12530 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
12532 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
12533 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
12534 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
12535 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
12537 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
12538 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
12540 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
12542 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
12543 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
12544 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
12545 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
12548 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
12549 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
12552 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
12554 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
12555 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
12556 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
12557 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
12558 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
12560 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
12562 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
12563 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
12564 more than the number of characters.
12566 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
12567 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
12568 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
12569 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
12570 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
12571 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
12573 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
12574 and returns a string containing those characters.
12576 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
12577 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
12578 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
12579 character, sref signals an error.
12581 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
12582 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
12583 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12585 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
12586 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
12587 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
12589 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
12590 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
12591 to a vector of the characters in it.
12593 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
12594 of a string. You call it as follows:
12596 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
12598 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
12599 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
12600 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
12601 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
12602 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
12604 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
12605 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12607 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
12608 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
12610 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
12611 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
12612 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
12613 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
12615 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
12617 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
12619 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
12620 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
12621 are not included in the resulting value.
12623 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
12624 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
12625 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
12626 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
12628 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
12629 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
12630 character extends across that column), then the padding character
12631 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
12632 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
12633 column START-COLUMN.
12635 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
12636 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
12637 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
12638 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
12639 changed text, before the change.
12641 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
12642 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
12643 one character set for each script, not for each language.
12645 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
12647 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
12649 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
12650 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
12652 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
12653 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
12654 which identify the character within that character set.
12656 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
12657 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
12658 opposite of split-char.
12660 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
12661 of all the characters between BEG and END.
12663 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
12664 of all the characters in a string.
12666 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
12667 and specifying coding systems.
12669 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
12670 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
12671 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
12672 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
12673 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
12674 as what to do about code conversion.)
12676 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
12677 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
12679 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12680 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12681 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
12683 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12684 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
12685 to match against a file name.
12687 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12688 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12689 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12690 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12691 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12692 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12694 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12695 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12697 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
12698 the coding system to use for network sockets.
12700 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
12701 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
12702 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
12705 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
12706 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
12707 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
12708 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
12709 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
12710 specifies the coding system for encoding.
12712 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
12713 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
12715 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
12716 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
12717 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
12718 start the subprocess.
12720 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
12721 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
12722 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
12723 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
12724 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
12726 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
12727 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
12730 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
12731 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
12732 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
12733 connection permanently or until overridden.
12735 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
12736 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
12737 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
12738 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
12739 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
12740 system for one operation at a time.
12742 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
12743 files, subprocesses or network connections.
12745 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
12746 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
12747 The value is a cons cell,
12748 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
12749 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
12750 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
12751 input to the subprocess.
12753 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
12754 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
12756 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
12757 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
12758 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
12760 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
12761 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
12762 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
12763 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
12766 Thus, instead of writing
12768 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
12769 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
12771 you would now write this:
12773 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
12774 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
12778 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
12779 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
12780 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
12781 for a description of them.
12783 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
12784 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
12786 (defgroup ispell nil
12787 "Spell checking using Ispell."
12790 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
12791 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
12792 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
12793 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
12794 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
12796 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
12797 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
12798 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
12799 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
12800 first-level subgroups.
12802 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
12804 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
12805 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
12809 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
12810 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
12811 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
12812 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
12813 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
12814 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
12816 ** Text property changes
12818 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
12821 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
12822 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
12823 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
12824 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
12825 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
12827 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
12828 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
12829 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
12830 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
12832 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
12833 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
12834 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
12836 ** Changes in invisibility features
12838 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
12839 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
12840 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
12841 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
12842 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
12843 make the overlay visible.
12845 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
12846 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
12847 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
12848 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
12849 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
12850 t when it should hide it.
12852 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
12854 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
12855 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
12856 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
12857 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
12858 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
12859 Here is an example of how to do this:
12861 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
12862 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12863 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
12864 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12867 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
12870 ;; When done with the overlays:
12871 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
12872 ;; Or respectively:
12873 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
12875 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
12877 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12878 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12879 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12880 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12882 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12883 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12884 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12886 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12887 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12889 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12890 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12892 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12893 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12894 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12896 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12897 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12898 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12899 determine the syntax type of the character.
12901 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12902 of the current buffer.
12904 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12905 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12906 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12908 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12909 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12910 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12911 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12912 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12914 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12917 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12918 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12919 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12921 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12922 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12923 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12924 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12925 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12927 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12928 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12929 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12931 ** Changes in face features
12933 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12934 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12936 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12937 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12939 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12940 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12942 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12943 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12945 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12946 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12947 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12948 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12951 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12952 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12954 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12956 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12957 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12958 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12959 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12961 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12964 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12965 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12967 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12968 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12970 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12971 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12973 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12974 character code conversion as well as other things.
12976 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12977 (formerly it did not).
12979 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12980 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12982 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12983 instead of constant strings.
12985 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12986 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12987 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12989 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12990 in the same way as before.
12992 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12993 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12994 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12996 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12997 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12998 else, and returns nil.
13000 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
13001 directory cannot be listed.
13003 ** Changes in minibuffer input
13005 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
13006 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
13007 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
13008 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
13011 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
13012 It is available through the history command M-n.
13014 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
13015 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
13016 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
13017 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
13018 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
13020 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
13021 argument in this way.
13023 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
13024 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
13025 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
13027 ** Echo area features
13029 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
13030 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
13031 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
13032 after the echo area is cleared.
13034 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
13035 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
13037 ** Keyboard input features
13039 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
13040 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
13042 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
13043 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
13044 by keyboard macros.
13046 ** Frame-related changes
13048 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
13049 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
13050 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
13052 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
13053 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
13054 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
13056 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
13057 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
13058 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
13059 in the selected frame.
13061 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
13062 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
13063 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
13065 ** X Windows features
13067 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
13068 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
13069 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
13071 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
13072 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
13074 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
13075 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
13076 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
13078 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
13079 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
13081 ** Subprocess features
13083 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
13084 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
13087 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
13088 and returns the output from the command as a string.
13090 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
13091 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
13093 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
13094 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
13096 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
13097 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
13098 goes after the other menu items.
13100 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
13101 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
13102 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
13105 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
13106 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
13108 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
13109 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
13112 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
13113 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
13114 but its hook is still run.
13116 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
13117 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
13119 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
13120 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
13121 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
13123 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
13124 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
13125 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
13128 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
13129 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
13131 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
13132 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
13133 functions like display-time.
13135 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
13136 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
13138 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
13139 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
13140 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
13142 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
13143 if there is an error in compilation.
13145 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
13146 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
13147 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
13148 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
13150 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
13151 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
13152 the *scratch* buffer.
13154 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
13155 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
13156 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
13157 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
13159 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
13160 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
13161 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
13163 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
13164 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
13165 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
13166 and compose-mail-other-frame.
13168 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
13169 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
13170 full name of the specified user will be returned.
13172 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
13173 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
13174 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
13175 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
13176 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
13179 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
13180 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
13181 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
13182 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
13184 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
13185 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
13186 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
13187 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
13189 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
13191 ** imenu.el changes.
13193 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
13194 item from menu created by imenu.
13196 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
13197 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
13198 select one of those items.
13200 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
13202 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
13203 Copyright information:
13205 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
13207 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
13208 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
13209 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
13210 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
13212 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
13213 of this document, or of portions of it,
13214 under the above conditions, provided also that they
13215 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
13219 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
13222 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793