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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.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 Temporary note:
9 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
12 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
13
14 \f
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
16
17 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
18 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
19 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
20
21 ---
22 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
23
24 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with elisp code.
25
26 ---
27 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
28 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
29 installed programs.
30
31 ---
32 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
33 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
34 place for game scores to be stored. This may be controlled by the
35 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
36 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
37 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
38 in each user's home directory.
39
40 ---
41 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
42 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
43 Emacs with Leim.
44
45 +++
46 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
47
48 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
49 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
50 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
51 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
52
53 ---
54 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
55 the distribution.
56
57 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
58 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
59 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
60 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
61
62 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
63
64 ---
65 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
66
67 ---
68 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
69
70 ---
71 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
72 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
73
74 ---
75 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
76
77 ---
78 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
79
80 ---
81 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
82
83 \f
84 * Changes in Emacs 21.4
85
86 ** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
87 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
88 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
89 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
90 keyboard oriented alternative.
91
92 ** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
93 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
94 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
95 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
96 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
97
98 ** New commands `scan-buf-next-region' and `scan-buf-previous-region'
99 move to the start of the next (previous, respectively) region with
100 non-nil help-echo property and display any help found there in the
101 echo area, using `display-local-help'.
102
103 +++
104 ** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
105 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
106 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
107 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
108 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
109 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
110 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
111
112 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
113 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
114
115 +++
116 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
117 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
118 an interactively callable function.
119
120
121 ** sql changes.
122
123 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
124 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
125 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
126 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
127 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
128
129 The following values are supported:
130
131 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
132 db2 DB2
133 informix Informix
134 ingres Ingres
135 interbase Interbase
136 linter Linter
137 ms Microsoft
138 mysql MySQL
139 oracle Oracle
140 postgres Postgres
141 solid Solid
142 sqlite SQLite
143 sybase Sybase
144
145 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
146 SQL mode indicator.
147
148 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
149 your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
150 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
151
152 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
153 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
154 all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
155 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
156
157 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
158 '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
159
160 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
161 SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
162 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
163
164 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
165 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
166 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
167 osql flushes it's error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
168 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
169 terminated.
170
171 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
172 called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
173 credentials to authenticate the user.
174
175 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
176 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
177 defaults.
178
179 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
180 appropriate sql-interactive-mode wrapper for the current setting of
181 `sql-product'.
182
183 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
184 with special modes such as Tar mode.
185
186 ** Enhancements to apropos commands:
187
188 *** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
189 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
190 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
191 available.
192
193 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
194 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
195 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
196 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
197 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
198 matching item.
199
200 +++
201 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
202 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
203 the operating system or your X server.
204
205 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
206 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
207 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
208
209 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
210 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
211
212 +++
213 ** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
214 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
215 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
216
217 ** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
218 'sql-sqlite'.
219
220 ** BibTeX mode:
221 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
222 *** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
223 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
224 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
225 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
226 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
227 bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil.
228
229 *** If the new variable bibtex-parse-keys-fast is non-nil,
230 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
231
232 *** If the new variable bibtex-autoadd-commas is non-nil,
233 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
234
235 *** The new variable bibtex-autofill-types contains a list of entry
236 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
237
238 *** The new command bibtex-complete completes word fragment before
239 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
240
241 *** The new commands bibtex-find-entry and bibtex-find-crossref
242 locate entries and crossref'd entries.
243
244 *** In BibTeX mode the command fill-paragraph (bound to M-q) fills
245 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
246
247 ** When display margins are present in a window, the fringes are now
248 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
249 at the edges of the window.
250
251 ** A window may now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
252 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
253
254 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
255 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
256 or when the frame is resized.
257
258 ** New functions frame-current-scroll-bars and window-current-scroll-bars.
259
260 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
261 horisontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
262
263 ** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
264
265 ** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which may
266 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
267
268 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
269 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
270
271 ** `describe-char' can show data from the Unicode database file. See
272 user option `unicode-data'.
273
274 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
275
276 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
277 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
278
279 ** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
280 Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
281
282 ** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
283
284 ** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
285 and other common debugger commands.
286
287 ** recentf changes.
288
289 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
290 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
291 automatic cleanup.
292
293 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
294 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
295 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
296 recent list with different symbolic links.
297
298 To follow naming convention, `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-flag'
299 and `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag' respectively replace the
300 misnamed options `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p' and
301 `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The old names remain available as
302 aliases, but have been marked obsolete.
303
304 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
305 from the locale.
306
307 ** Init file changes
308
309 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
310 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
311
312 ** partial-completion-mode now does partial completion on directory names.
313
314 ** skeleton.el now supports using - to mark the skeleton-point without
315 interregion interaction. @ has reverted to only setting
316 skeleton-positions and no longer sets skeleton-point. Skeletons
317 which used @ to mark skeleton-point independent of _ should now use -
318 instead. The updated skeleton-insert docstring explains these new
319 features along with other details of skeleton construction.
320
321 ** MH-E changes.
322
323 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
324 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
325
326 +++
327 ** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
328 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given elisp
329 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
330
331 ** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
332
333 +++
334 ** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
335 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
336 appears between the position information and the major mode.
337
338 ** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
339 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
340
341 +++
342 ** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
343 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
344 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
345 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
346 set-fringe-style.
347
348 +++
349 ** There is a new user option `mail-default-directory' that allows you
350 to specify the value of `default-directory' for mail buffers. This
351 directory is used for auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to
352 "~/".
353
354 +++
355 ** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
356 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
357 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
358 to alter the file.)
359
360 ** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
361 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
362
363 ** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
364 of a file.
365
366 ---
367 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
368
369 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
370 ps-print, provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF fonts.
371 See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
372
373 ---
374 ** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
375 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
376 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
377
378 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
379 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
380 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
381 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
382 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
383
384 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
385 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
386 t, and the status is shown.
387
388 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
389 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
390
391 +++
392 ** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
393 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
394 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
395 faces.
396
397 ** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
398 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
399 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
400 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
401 automatically according to the locale.)
402
403 ** Indian support has been updated.
404 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
405 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
406 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
407 supported.
408
409 ---
410 ** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
411 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
412 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
413 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
414 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
415 tamil-inscript.
416
417 ---
418 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
419 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
420 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
421
422 ---
423 ** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
424 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
425 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
426 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
427 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
428 latter is used by GNU locales.
429
430 ** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
431 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
432 characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
433 option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
434 character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
435 Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
436 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
437 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
438 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
439 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
440 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
441
442 ** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
443 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
444 fontset appropriately.
445
446 ** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
447 unicode.
448
449 +++
450 ** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
451 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
452 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
453 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
454 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
455 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
456 mule-unicode-... ones.
457
458 By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
459 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
460 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
461 possible.
462
463 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
464 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
465 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
466 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
467 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
468
469 ** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
470 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
471 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
472 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
473
474 ** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
475 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
476 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
477 command.
478
479 ---
480 ** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
481 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
482 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
483
484 +++
485 ** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
486 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
487
488 +++
489 ** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
490 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
491 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
492 cursor does.
493
494 +++
495 ** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
496 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
497
498 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
499 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
500 program files that include other program files.
501
502 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
503 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
504 in them.
505
506 ---
507 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
508 when Emacs visits them.
509
510 ---
511 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
512
513 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
514 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
515 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
516
517 ** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
518 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
519 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
520 and use the more appropriately result.
521
522 +++
523 ** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
524 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
525 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
526 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
527
528 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
529 hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
530 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
531 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
532 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
533 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
534
535 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
536 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
537
538 ** TeX modes:
539 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
540 +++
541 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
542 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
543 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
544 TeX commands to use at startup.
545 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
546 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
547
548 *** New major mode doctex-mode for *.dtx files.
549
550 +++
551 ** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
552 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
553 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
554 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
555 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
556 feature is not enabled.
557
558 +++
559 ** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
560 description various information about a character, including its
561 encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
562 point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
563 on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
564
565 +++
566 ** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
567 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
568 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
569 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
570 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
571
572 +++
573 ** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
574 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
575 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
576 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
577 also disable mouse highlighting.
578
579 +++
580 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
581 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
582 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
583 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
584 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
585
586 +++
587 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
588 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
589 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
590 prompt string.
591
592 +++
593 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
594 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
595 the mode line of the currently selected window.
596
597 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
598 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
599
600 ---
601 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
602 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
603 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
604 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
605 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
606 current date and time, current line and column number in the
607 mode-line.
608
609 ---
610 ** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
611
612 +++
613 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mail
614 in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
615 `display-time-mail-directory'.
616
617 +++
618 ** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
619
620 ---
621 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
622
623 +++
624 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
625 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
626 argument it toggles the mode.
627
628 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
629 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
630
631 +++
632 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
633 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
634 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
635 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
636 `inhibit-splash-screen').
637
638 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
639
640 +++
641 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
642 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
643 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
644 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
645 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
646 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
647 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
648 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
649 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
650
651 ---
652 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
653 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
654 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
655 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
656 all of these colors.
657
658 ---
659 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
660
661 +++
662 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
663
664 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
665 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
666 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
667 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
668
669 ---
670 ** Info-index offers completion.
671
672 ---
673 ** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
674 automatically.
675
676 +++
677 ** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
678 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
679 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
680 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
681
682 +++
683 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
684
685 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
686
687 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
688 that do not change:
689
690 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
691 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
692
693 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
694 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
695
696 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
697
698 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
699 run by the key sequence.
700
701 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
702 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
703 that command.
704
705 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
706 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
707
708 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
709 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
710
711 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
712 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
713
714 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
715 new-kill-line is on C-k
716
717 +++
718 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
719 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
720 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
721 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
722
723 +++
724 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
725 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
726 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
727 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
728
729 +++
730 ** Occur, Info, and comint-derived modes now support using
731 M-x font-lock-mode to toggle fontification. The variable
732 `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable fontification,
733 remove `turn-on-font-lock' from `Info-mode-hook'.
734
735 +++
736 ** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
737 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
738 detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
739 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
740 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
741 command lines to be used than was possible before.
742
743 ---
744 ** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
745 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
746 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
747 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
748 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
749 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
750 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
751
752 +++
753 ** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
754 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
755 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
756 under the "[State]" button.
757
758 ** The new customization type `float' specifies numbers with floating
759 point (no integers are allowed).
760
761 +++
762 ** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
763 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
764
765 ---
766 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
767
768 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
769 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
770 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
771 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
772 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
773
774 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
775 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
776 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
777 (gud-finish).
778
779 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
780 (Java 1.1 jdb).
781
782 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
783 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
784 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
785
786 Added Customization Variables
787
788 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
789
790 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
791 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
792 java sources (previous method).
793
794 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
795 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
796 is nil).
797
798 Minor Improvements
799
800 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
801
802 +++
803 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
804 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
805 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
806
807 +++
808 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
809 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
810 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
811 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
812 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
813 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
814
815 +++
816 ** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
817 types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
818 what external viewers to use and when.
819
820 +++
821 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
822 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
823 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
824 is only rarely needed.
825
826 ---
827 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
828
829 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
830 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
831 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
832 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
833
834 +++
835 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
836 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
837 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
838 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
839 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
840 bind that to a key.
841
842 +++
843 ** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
844 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
845 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
846 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
847 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
848 command only.
849
850 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
851 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
852 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
853 mark or the region.
854
855 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
856 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
857 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
858 C-g.
859
860 +++
861 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
862 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
863 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
864
865 +++
866 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
867 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
868 switching to it.
869
870 +++
871 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
872 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
873 affects the initial frame.
874
875 +++
876 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
877 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
878 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
879 paragraphs.
880
881 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
882 into the kill ring.
883
884 +++
885 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
886 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
887 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
888 directory listing into a buffer.
889
890 ---
891 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
892 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
893
894 ** Unexpected yanking of text due to accidental clicking on the mouse
895 wheel button (typically mouse-2) during wheel scrolling is now avoided.
896 This behaviour can be customized via the mouse-wheel-click-event and
897 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
898
899 +++
900 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
901 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
902 may mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
903 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
904 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
905 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
906 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
907 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
908
909 +++
910 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
911 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
912 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
913 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
914 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
915
916 +++
917 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
918 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
919 appears in.
920
921 ** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
922 of the recognized cursor types.
923
924 ---
925 ** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
926 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
927 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
928
929 +++
930 ** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
931 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
932 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic' now take an optional parameter MARK,
933 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
934 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
935 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
936 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
937 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
938 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
939
940 +++
941 ** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
942 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
943 count backward from the end of the year.
944
945 ** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
946 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
947 and `diary-header-line-format'.
948
949 ** VC Changes
950
951 *** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
952 the read-only state of the buffer (toggle-read-only). We made this
953 change because we held a poll and found that many users were unhappy
954 with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this behavior, you
955 can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your .emacs:
956
957 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
958
959 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
960
961 +++
962 *** There is a new user option `vc-cvs-global-switches' that allows
963 you to specify switches that are passed to any CVS command invoked
964 by VC. These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which
965 means they are inserted before the command name. For example, this
966 allows you to specify a compression level using the "-z#" option for
967 CVS.
968
969 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
970
971 ** EDiff changes.
972
973 +++
974 *** When comparing directories.
975 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
976 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
977 from one directory to another.
978
979 +++
980 *** When comparing files or buffers.
981 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
982 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
983 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
984 comparison.
985
986 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
987 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
988 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
989
990 +++
991 ** Etags changes.
992
993 *** New regular expressions features
994
995 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
996 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
997 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
998 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
999 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
1000 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
1001 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
1002 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
1003 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
1004 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
1005 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
1006
1007 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in Gcc.
1008 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
1009 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
1010 CR, TAB, VT,
1011
1012 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
1013 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
1014 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
1015 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
1016
1017 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
1018 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
1019 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
1020
1021 *** New language parsing features
1022
1023 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
1024 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
1025
1026 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
1027 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
1028 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
1029 package::sub.
1030
1031 **** New language PHP.
1032 Tags are functions, classes and defines.
1033 If the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
1034
1035 **** New language HTML.
1036 Title and h1, h2, h3 are tagged. Also, tags are generated when name= is
1037 used inside an anchor and whenever id= is used.
1038
1039 **** New default keywords for TeX.
1040 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
1041 renewenvironment.
1042
1043 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
1044 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
1045 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
1046
1047 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
1048
1049 *** Honour #line directives.
1050 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
1051 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
1052 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
1053 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
1054 writes tags pointing to the source file.
1055
1056 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
1057 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
1058 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
1059 will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
1060 the file FILE.
1061
1062 +++
1063 ** CC Mode changes.
1064
1065 *** Font lock support.
1066 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1067 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1068 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1069 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1070 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1071 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1072
1073 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1074 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1075 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1076 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1077 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1078 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1079 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1080 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1081 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1082
1083 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1084 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1085 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1086 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1087 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1088 take the better part of a minute.
1089
1090 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1091 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1092 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1093 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1094 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1095 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1096
1097 **** Support for documentation comments.
1098 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1099 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1100 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1101 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1102
1103 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1104 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1105 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1106 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1107
1108 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1109 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1110 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1111 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1112 parens.
1113
1114 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1115 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1116 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1117 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1118 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1119
1120 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1121 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1122 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1123 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1124 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1125
1126 *** Support for the AWK language.
1127 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1128 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1129 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1130 Here is a summary:
1131
1132 **** Indentation Engine
1133 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1134
1135 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1136 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1137 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1138 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1139 definition, or structured statement.
1140
1141 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
1142 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
1143 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
1144
1145 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
1146 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
1147 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
1148 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
1149
1150 **** Font Locking
1151 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
1152 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
1153 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
1154 the AWK language itself.
1155
1156 **** Comment Commands
1157 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
1158 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
1159
1160 **** Movement Commands
1161 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
1162 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
1163 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
1164
1165 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
1166 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
1167 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
1168 functions.
1169
1170 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
1171 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
1172 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
1173 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
1174
1175 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
1176 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
1177 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
1178 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
1179 composition-close, and incomposition.
1180
1181 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
1182 The functions c-hungry-backspace and c-hungry-delete-forward can be
1183 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
1184 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1185
1186 *** Better control over require-final-newline.
1187 The variable that controls how to handle a final newline when the
1188 buffer is saved, require-final-newline, is now customizable on a
1189 per-mode basis through c-require-final-newline. The default is to set
1190 it to t only in languages that mandate a final newline in source files
1191 (C, C++ and Objective-C).
1192
1193 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
1194 The elements in the syntactic context returned by c-guess-basic-syntax
1195 and stored in c-syntactic-context has been changed somewhat to allow
1196 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
1197 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
1198
1199 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
1200
1201 is now analysed as
1202
1203 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
1204
1205 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
1206 symbol.
1207
1208 This change might affect code that call c-guess-basic-syntax directly,
1209 and custom lineup functions if they use c-syntactic-context. However,
1210 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
1211 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
1212
1213 *** API changes for derived modes.
1214 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
1215 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
1216 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
1217 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
1218 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
1219
1220 **** New language variable system.
1221 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
1222
1223 **** New initialization functions.
1224 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
1225 give better control: c-basic-common-init, c-font-lock-init, and
1226 c-init-language-vars.
1227
1228 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
1229 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
1230 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
1231 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
1232
1233 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
1234 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
1235 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
1236 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
1237 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1238
1239 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
1240 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
1241 its substatement. E.g:
1242
1243 if (x)
1244 x_is_true:
1245 do_stuff();
1246
1247 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
1248
1249 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
1250 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
1251 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
1252 variable c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros. A new syntactic symbol
1253 cpp-define-intro has been added to control the initial indentation
1254 inside #define's.
1255
1256 **** New lineup function c-lineup-cpp-define.
1257 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
1258 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
1259 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
1260 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
1261 much line c-lineup-dont-change, which was used earlier, but handles
1262 empty lines within the macro better.
1263
1264 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
1265 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
1266 c-context-line-break and c-context-open-line.
1267
1268 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1269 c-backslash-region tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
1270 variable c-backslash-max-column which put a limit on how far out
1271 backslashes can be moved.
1272
1273 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
1274 This is controlled by the new variable c-auto-align-backslashes. It
1275 affects c-context-line-break, c-context-open-line and newlines
1276 inserted in auto-newline mode.
1277
1278 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
1279 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
1280 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
1281 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
1282 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
1283 backslash) in the macro.
1284
1285 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
1286 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
1287 the variable c-indent-comment-alist. The indentation behavior based
1288 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
1289 and #endif but indentation to comment-column in most other cases
1290 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
1291
1292 *** New function c-context-open-line.
1293 It's the open-line equivalent of c-context-line-break.
1294
1295 *** New lineup functions
1296
1297 **** c-lineup-string-cont
1298 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
1299 continues. E.g:
1300
1301 result = prefix + "A message "
1302 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
1303
1304 **** c-lineup-cascaded-calls
1305 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
1306
1307 **** c-lineup-knr-region-comment
1308 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
1309 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
1310
1311 **** c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg
1312 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks. Contributed by Kevin
1313 Ryde.
1314
1315 **** c-lineup-argcont
1316 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
1317 Contributed by Kevin Ryde.
1318
1319 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
1320 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
1321 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
1322 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
1323 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
1324 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
1325
1326 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
1327 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
1328 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
1329 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
1330 context.
1331
1332 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
1333 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
1334 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
1335 happen when macros are involved.
1336
1337 *** Improved the way c-indent-exp chooses the block to indent.
1338 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
1339 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
1340 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
1341 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
1342 line is left untouched.
1343
1344 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
1345 The function c-toggle-syntactic-indentation can be used to toggle
1346 syntactic indentation.
1347
1348 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
1349 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
1350
1351 +++
1352 ** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
1353 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
1354
1355 +++
1356 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1357 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1358 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1359
1360 +++
1361 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
1362 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
1363 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
1364
1365 +++
1366 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1367 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
1368 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1369
1370 +++
1371 ** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
1372 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
1373 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
1374 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
1375 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
1376 from the file name or buffer contents.
1377
1378 +++
1379 ** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
1380
1381 +++
1382 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
1383 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behavior of isearch
1384 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
1385
1386 ---
1387 ** Lisp mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
1388
1389 ---
1390 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
1391
1392 +++
1393 ** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
1394 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
1395 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
1396
1397 ---
1398 ** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
1399 `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
1400
1401 ---
1402 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
1403 to support use of font-lock.
1404
1405 +++
1406 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
1407 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
1408 `same-window'.
1409
1410 +++
1411 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
1412 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
1413 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
1414
1415 +++
1416 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
1417 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
1418 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
1419 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
1420 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
1421 candidate is a directory.
1422
1423 +++
1424 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
1425 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
1426 it remains unchanged.
1427
1428 +++
1429 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
1430 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
1431 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
1432
1433 ** Compilation mode enhancements:
1434
1435 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1436 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1437 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1438 subprocesses inherit.
1439
1440 *** `next-error' now temporarily highlights the corresponding source line.
1441
1442 ** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1443
1444 *** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
1445
1446 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1447 `grep-scroll-output' can be used to override the corresponding
1448 compilation mode settings for grep commands.
1449
1450 *** Source line is temporarily highlighted when going to next match.
1451
1452 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1453 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1454 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1455 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1456 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1457 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1458 file.
1459
1460 ---
1461 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
1462
1463 ---
1464 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
1465 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
1466 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
1467
1468 ---
1469 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
1470 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
1471
1472 ---
1473 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
1474 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
1475 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
1476 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
1477 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
1478 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
1479 against.
1480
1481 ---
1482 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
1483 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
1484 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
1485 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
1486 sound support for those formats.
1487
1488 ---
1489 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
1490 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
1491
1492 ---
1493 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
1494 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
1495 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
1496 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
1497
1498 ---
1499 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
1500 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
1501 much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
1502 adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
1503 for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
1504 and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
1505 `list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
1506 wish to use them in other faces.
1507
1508 +++
1509 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1510 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1511 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1512 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1513 Meta and Alt:
1514 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1515 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1516 \f
1517 * New modes and packages in 21.4
1518
1519 +++
1520 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1521 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1522
1523 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1524
1525 ---
1526 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1527
1528 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1529 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1530 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1531 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1532
1533 ---
1534 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1535
1536 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1537 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1538 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1539 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1540 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1541 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1542
1543 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1544 rectangle highlighting: Use S-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1545 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1546 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1547
1548 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1549 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1550 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1551 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1552 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1553 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1554 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1555
1556 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1557 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1558 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1559
1560 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1561 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1562
1563 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1564 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1565 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1566 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1567
1568 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1569 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1570 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you may customize the
1571 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1572
1573 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1574 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1575 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1576 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1577
1578 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1579 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1580 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1581 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1582 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1583
1584 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1585 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1586 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1587 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1588 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1589 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1590
1591 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1592 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1593 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1594 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1595 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1596 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1597 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1598 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1599 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1600 or local keymaps.
1601
1602 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1603 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1604
1605 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1606 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1607 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1608 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1609
1610 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1611 defined macros.
1612
1613 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1614 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1615 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1616 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1617 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1618 for more commands.
1619
1620 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1621 the keyboard macro ring.
1622
1623 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1624 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1625
1626 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1627 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1628 this behaviour via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1629 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1630
1631 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1632 C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1633 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1634
1635 ---
1636 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
1637 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
1638 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
1639 C-c C-i b, and so on.
1640
1641 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1642
1643 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1644 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1645 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1646 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1647 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1648 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1649
1650 +++
1651 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1652
1653 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1654 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1655 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1656 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1657
1658 +++
1659 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1660
1661 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1662 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1663 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1664 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1665 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1666 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1667 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1668 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1669 `rsync' to do the copying).
1670
1671 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1672 `su' and `sudo'.
1673
1674 ---
1675 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1676 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1677 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1678 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1679 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method may
1680 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1681
1682 ---
1683 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1684 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1685 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1686 settings.
1687
1688 ---
1689 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1690 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1691 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1692 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1693
1694 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1695
1696 ---
1697 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1698 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1699
1700 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1701 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1702 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1703 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1704 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1705 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1706
1707 +++
1708 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1709 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1710 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1711 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1712
1713 ---
1714 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
1715 Emacs will still work on terminals that require magic cookies in order
1716 to use standout mode, however they will not be able to display
1717 mode-lines in inverse-video.
1718
1719 ---
1720 ** cplus-md.el has been removed to avoid problems with Custom.
1721
1722 ** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
1723 timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
1724
1725 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
1726 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
1727 in Indented-Text mode.
1728
1729 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
1730 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
1731 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
1732
1733 ** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
1734
1735 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1736 configuration files.
1737 \f
1738 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
1739
1740 ** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
1741 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
1742 string. The old behavior is available if you call
1743 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
1744
1745 ** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
1746 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
1747 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
1748 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
1749 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
1750
1751 ** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
1752 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
1753 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
1754 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
1755 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
1756
1757 ** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
1758 :pointer image property.
1759
1760 ** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images may now be
1761 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
1762
1763 ** Images may now have an associated image map via the :map property.
1764
1765 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
1766 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
1767 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((x0 . y0) . (x1 . y1))) specifying the
1768 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
1769 A circle is a cons (circle . ((x0 . y0) . r)) specifying the center
1770 and the radius of the circle; r may be a float or integer.
1771 A polygon is a cons (poly . [x0 y0 x1 y1 ...]) where each pair in the
1772 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
1773
1774 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
1775 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
1776 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
1777 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
1778 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable 'void-area-text-pointer'
1779 for possible pointer shapes.
1780
1781 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
1782 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
1783 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
1784
1785 ** Mouse event enhancements:
1786
1787 *** Mouse clicks on fringes now generates left-fringe or right-fringes
1788 events, rather than a text area click event.
1789
1790 +++
1791 *** Mouse events now includes buffer position for all event types.
1792
1793 +++
1794 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
1795
1796 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
1797
1798 +++
1799 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
1800 text area).
1801
1802 +++
1803 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types.
1804
1805 +++
1806 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns actual glyph coordinates.
1807
1808 +++
1809 *** Mouse events may now include image object in addition to string object.
1810
1811 +++
1812 *** Mouse events include relative x and y pixel coordinates relative to
1813 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
1814
1815 *** New functions 'posn-object' and 'posn-object-x-y' return the image
1816 or string object of a mouse click, and the x and y pixel coordinates
1817 relative to the top left corner of that object.
1818
1819 ** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
1820 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
1821 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
1822 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
1823 forcing an explicit window update.
1824
1825 ** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
1826 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
1827
1828 +++
1829 ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
1830 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
1831 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
1832 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
1833 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
1834
1835 +++
1836 ** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
1837
1838 +++
1839 ** If optional third argument APPEND to `add-to-list' is non-nil, a
1840 new element gets added at the end of the list instead of at the
1841 beginning. This change actually occurred in Emacs-21.1, but was not
1842 documented.
1843
1844 ** Major modes can define `eldoc-print-current-symbol-info-function'
1845 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
1846 the language.
1847
1848 ---
1849 ** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
1850 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
1851 parts, e.g. utf-16.
1852
1853 +++
1854 ** The argument to forward-word, backward-word, forward-to-indentation
1855 and backward-to-indentation is now optional, and defaults to 1.
1856
1857 +++
1858 ** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
1859 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
1860 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
1861
1862 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
1863 does that, this value may not be accurate.
1864
1865 +++
1866 ** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
1867 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
1868 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
1869 the mode line.
1870
1871 +++
1872 ** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
1873 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
1874
1875 +++
1876 ** The kill-buffer-hook is now permanent-local.
1877
1878 +++
1879 ** `select-window' takes an optional second argument `norecord', like
1880 `switch-to-buffer'.
1881
1882 +++
1883 ** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
1884 selected window without impacting the order of buffer-list.
1885
1886 +++
1887 ** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
1888 text-properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
1889 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
1890
1891 +++
1892 ** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
1893 in the keymap.
1894
1895 ---
1896 ** VC changes for backends:
1897 *** (vc-switches BACKEND OPERATION) is a new function for use by backends.
1898 *** The new `find-version' backend function replaces the `destfile'
1899 parameter of the `checkout' backend function.
1900 Old code still works thanks to a default `find-version' behavior that
1901 uses the old `destfile' parameter.
1902
1903 +++
1904 ** The new macro dynamic-completion-table supports using functions
1905 as a dynamic completion table.
1906
1907 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
1908
1909 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
1910 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
1911 completions. This alist may be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
1912 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
1913 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
1914 entered. dynamic-completion-table then computes the completion.
1915
1916 +++
1917 ** The new macro lazy-completion-table initializes a variable
1918 as a lazy completion table.
1919
1920 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
1921
1922 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
1923 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
1924 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
1925 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
1926 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
1927 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
1928
1929 +++
1930 ** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
1931
1932 +++
1933 ** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
1934 for all (existing and future) frames.
1935
1936 +++
1937 ** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
1938
1939 +++
1940 ** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
1941
1942 +++
1943 ** The macro `with-syntax-table' does not copy the table any more.
1944
1945 +++
1946 ** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
1947 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
1948 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
1949 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
1950 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
1951
1952 +++
1953 ** The function `number-sequence' returns a list of equally-separated
1954 numbers. For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9).
1955 By default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different separation
1956 as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns (1.5 3.5 5.5).
1957
1958 +++
1959 ** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
1960 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
1961 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
1962 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
1963
1964 ---
1965 ** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
1966 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
1967
1968 +++
1969 ** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character,
1970 unless it is followed by a `-' in a character constant (e.g. ?\s-A),
1971 in which case it is still interpreted as the super modifier.
1972 In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
1973
1974 +++
1975 ** New function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the multibyteness
1976 of a string given to a process's filter.
1977
1978 +++
1979 ** New function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns t if
1980 a string given to a process's filter is multibyte.
1981
1982 +++
1983 ** A filter function of a process is called with a multibyte string if
1984 the filter's multibyteness is t. That multibyteness is decided by the
1985 value of `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is
1986 created and can be changed later by `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
1987
1988 +++
1989 ** If a process's coding system is raw-text or no-conversion and its
1990 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
1991 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
1992 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
1993 which was not compatible with the behaviour of file reading.
1994
1995 +++
1996 ** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
1997 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
1998
1999 +++
2000 ** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
2001 on garbage collection.
2002
2003 +++
2004 ** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
2005 it is read from a file without decoding.
2006
2007 +++
2008 ** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
2009
2010 +++
2011 ** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
2012 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
2013 by calling `select-window'.
2014
2015 ---
2016 ** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
2017 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
2018 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
2019 need to have a name.
2020
2021 ** Byte compiler changes:
2022
2023 ---
2024 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
2025 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
2026 Emacs and XEmacs and may sometimes make the result significantly more
2027 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
2028 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
2029 you anything.
2030
2031 +++
2032 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
2033 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
2034 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
2035 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
2036 forms:
2037
2038 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
2039 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
2040
2041 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
2042 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
2043 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
2044 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
2045 macro expansion), but such tests may be nested. Note that `when' and
2046 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
2047
2048 +++
2049 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
2050 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
2051
2052 +++
2053 ** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
2054 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
2055 be inserted is translated through it.
2056
2057 +++
2058 ** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
2059 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
2060 current file redefined it).
2061
2062 +++
2063 ** New Lisp library testcover.el works with edebug to help you determine
2064 whether you've tested all your Lisp code. Function testcover-start
2065 instruments all functions in a given file. Then test your code. Function
2066 testcover-mark-all adds overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to
2067 show where coverage is lacking. Command testcover-next-mark (bind it to
2068 a key!) will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
2069
2070 *** Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely evaluated;
2071 a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same value. The red
2072 splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly complete their evaluation,
2073 such as `error'. The brown splotches are skipped for forms that are expected
2074 to always evaluate to the same value, such as (setq x 14).
2075
2076 *** For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to help
2077 out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a red splotch.
2078 It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does return. The macro 1value
2079 suppresses a brown splotch for its argument. This macro is a no-op except
2080 during test-coverage -- then it signals an error if the argument actually
2081 returns differing values.
2082
2083 +++
2084 ** New function unsafep returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly
2085 do anything dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be
2086 unsafe (calls dangerous function, alters global variable, etc).
2087
2088 +++
2089 ** The new variable `print-continuous-numbering', when non-nil, says
2090 that successive calls to print functions should use the same
2091 numberings for circular structure references. This is only relevant
2092 when `print-circle' is non-nil.
2093
2094 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
2095 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
2096
2097 +++
2098 ** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
2099 the scroll-bar-width frame parameter value is nil.
2100
2101 +++
2102 ** The new function copy-abbrev-table returns a new abbrev table that
2103 is a copy of a given abbrev table.
2104
2105 +++
2106 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
2107 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
2108 can start with this line:
2109
2110 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
2111
2112 +++
2113 ** A function's docstring can now hold the function's usage info on
2114 its last line. It should match the regexp "\n\n(fn.*)\\'".
2115
2116 ---
2117 ** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
2118 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
2119
2120 +++
2121 ** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional buffer
2122 argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted it defaults to
2123 the current buffer.
2124
2125 +++
2126 ** There is a new Warnings facility; see the functions `warn'
2127 and `display-warning'.
2128
2129 +++
2130 ** The functions all-completions and try-completion now accept lists
2131 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
2132 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
2133 exported to Lisp.
2134
2135 ---
2136 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
2137 much pure storage it will approximately need.
2138
2139 +++
2140 ** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
2141 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
2142 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
2143 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
2144
2145 ---
2146 ** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
2147 of one coding system from another coding system.
2148
2149 ---
2150 ** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
2151 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
2152 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
2153 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
2154 needed.
2155
2156 ---
2157 ** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
2158 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
2159 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
2160 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
2161 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
2162 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
2163
2164 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
2165 confirmation as before.
2166
2167 +++
2168 ** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
2169
2170 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
2171 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
2172 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
2173 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
2174
2175 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
2176 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
2177 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
2178 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
2179 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
2180 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
2181
2182 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
2183 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
2184 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
2185 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
2186
2187 +++
2188 ** Per-window fringes settings
2189
2190 Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and position
2191 settings.
2192
2193 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
2194 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
2195 `set-window-fringes'.
2196
2197 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
2198 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
2199 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
2200 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
2201
2202 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
2203 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
2204 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
2205 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
2206 an update of the display margins.
2207
2208 +++
2209 ** Per-window vertical scroll-bar settings
2210
2211 Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
2212 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
2213
2214 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
2215 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
2216 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
2217 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
2218 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2219 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2220 of the display margins.
2221
2222 +++
2223 ** The function `set-window-buffer' now has an optional third argument
2224 KEEP-MARGINS which will preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
2225 and scroll-bar settings if non-nil.
2226
2227 +++
2228 ** Renamed file hooks to follow the convention:
2229 find-file-hooks to find-file-hook,
2230 find-file-not-found-hooks to find-file-not-found-functions,
2231 write-file-hooks to write-file-functions,
2232 write-contents-hooks to write-contents-functions.
2233 Marked local-write-file-hooks as obsolete (use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook').
2234
2235 +++
2236 ** The new variable `delete-frame-functions' replaces `delete-frame-hook'.
2237 It was renamed to follow the naming conventions for abnormal hooks. The old
2238 name remains available as an alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2239
2240 +++
2241 ** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
2242 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
2243 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
2244 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
2245 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
2246
2247 ---
2248 ** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
2249 to override the internal read-file-name function.
2250
2251 +++
2252 ** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
2253 `read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
2254 will only show directories.
2255
2256 +++
2257 ** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
2258 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
2259 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
2260
2261 ---
2262 ** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
2263 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
2264 (require 'cl) when loaded.
2265
2266 +++
2267 ** The `defmacro' form may contain declarations specifying how to
2268 indent the macro in Lisp mode and how to debug it with Edebug. The
2269 syntax of defmacro has been extended to
2270
2271 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
2272
2273 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
2274 declaration specifiers supported are:
2275
2276 (indent INDENT)
2277 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
2278
2279 (edebug DEBUG)
2280 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
2281 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro.
2282
2283 +++
2284 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
2285
2286 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
2287 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
2288 binding and lookup functionality.
2289
2290 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
2291 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
2292 original command.
2293
2294 Example:
2295 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
2296 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
2297 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
2298 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
2299 kill-word.
2300
2301 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
2302 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
2303 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
2304 map using define-key:
2305
2306 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
2307 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
2308
2309 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
2310 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
2311
2312 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
2313 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
2314 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
2315
2316 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
2317
2318 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2319 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
2320 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
2321 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
2322
2323 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
2324 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
2325
2326 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
2327 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
2328
2329 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
2330 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
2331 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
2332 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
2333 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
2334 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
2335
2336 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
2337 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
2338 command was not remapped.
2339
2340 +++
2341 ** New variable emulation-mode-map-alists.
2342
2343 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
2344 keymap alist separate from minor-mode-map-alist by adding their keymap
2345 alist to this list.
2346
2347 +++
2348 ** Atomic change groups.
2349
2350 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
2351 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
2352 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
2353
2354 (atomic-change-group
2355 (insert foo)
2356 (delete-region x y))
2357
2358 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
2359 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
2360 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
2361 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
2362
2363 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
2364 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
2365
2366 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
2367 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
2368 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
2369 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
2370
2371 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
2372 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
2373 do this.
2374
2375 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
2376 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
2377 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
2378 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
2379
2380 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
2381 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
2382 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
2383 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
2384 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
2385 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
2386 twice.
2387
2388 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
2389 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
2390 returned values, like this:
2391
2392 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
2393 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
2394
2395 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
2396 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
2397 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
2398
2399 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
2400 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
2401 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
2402 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
2403 finished.
2404
2405 +++
2406 ** New variable char-property-alias-alist.
2407
2408 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
2409 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
2410 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
2411 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
2412
2413 +++
2414 ** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
2415
2416 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
2417 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
2418 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
2419 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
2420
2421 +++
2422 ** New function remove-list-of-text-properties.
2423
2424 The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties' is almost the same
2425 as `remove-text-properties'. The only difference is that it takes
2426 a list of property names as argument rather than a property list.
2427
2428 +++
2429 ** New function insert-for-yank.
2430
2431 This function normally works like `insert' but removes the text
2432 properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list. However, if the
2433 inserted text has a `yank-handler' text property on the first
2434 character of the string, the insertion of the text may be modified in
2435 a number of ways. See the description of `yank-handler' below.
2436
2437 +++
2438 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-as-yank.
2439
2440 This function works like `insert-buffer-substring', but removes the
2441 text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list.
2442
2443 +++
2444 ** New function insert-buffer-substring-no-properties.
2445
2446 This function is like insert-buffer-substring, but removes all
2447 text properties from the inserted substring.
2448
2449 +++
2450 ** New `yank-handler' text property may be used to control how
2451 previously killed text on the kill-ring is reinserted.
2452
2453 The value of the yank-handler property must be a list with one to four
2454 elements with the following format:
2455 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
2456
2457 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
2458 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
2459 element on the kill-ring). If a yank-handler property is found,
2460 the normal behaviour of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
2461
2462 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
2463 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
2464 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
2465 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
2466 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
2467 rectangle.
2468 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
2469 yank-excluded-properties is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
2470 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
2471 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
2472 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
2473 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
2474 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
2475 FUNCTION may set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
2476
2477 *** The functions kill-new, kill-append, and kill-region now have an
2478 optional argument to specify the yank-handler text property to put on
2479 the killed text.
2480
2481 *** The function yank-pop will now use a non-nil value of the variable
2482 `yank-undo-function' (instead of delete-region) to undo the previous
2483 yank or yank-pop command (or a call to insert-for-yank). The function
2484 insert-for-yank automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
2485 element of the string argument's yank-handler text property if present.
2486
2487 +++
2488 ** New function display-supports-face-attributes-p may be used to test
2489 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
2490
2491 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
2492 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
2493 defined with defface.
2494
2495 +++
2496 ** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
2497 accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
2498 inheritance is used when determining the value of a face attribute.
2499
2500 +++
2501 ** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
2502 help with handling relative face attributes.
2503
2504 +++
2505 ** Enhancements to process support
2506
2507 *** Function list-processes now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
2508 only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set are listed.
2509
2510 *** New set-process-query-on-exit-flag and process-query-on-exit-flag
2511 functions. The existing process-kill-without-query function is still
2512 supported, but new code should use the new functions.
2513
2514 *** Function signal-process now accepts a process object or process
2515 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
2516
2517 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
2518 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
2519
2520 The new functions process-get and process-put are used to access, add,
2521 and modify elements on this property list.
2522
2523 The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
2524 used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
2525
2526 ???
2527 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
2528
2529 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
2530 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
2531 very poor performance. This behaviour can be remedied to some extent
2532 by setting the new variable process-adaptive-read-buffering to a
2533 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
2534 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
2535 emacs tries to read it.
2536
2537 +++
2538 ** Enhanced networking support.
2539
2540 *** There is a new `make-network-process' function which supports
2541 opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
2542 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
2543
2544 - A server is started using :server t arg.
2545 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
2546 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
2547 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
2548 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
2549 - The process' property list may be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
2550 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
2551 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
2552
2553 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
2554 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
2555
2556 *** Original open-network-stream is now emulated using make-network-process.
2557
2558 *** New function open-network-stream-nowait.
2559
2560 This function initiates a non-blocking connect and returns immediately
2561 without waiting for the connection to be established. It takes the
2562 filter and sentinel functions as arguments; when the non-blocking
2563 connect completes, the sentinel is called with a status string
2564 matching "open" or "failed".
2565
2566 *** New function open-network-stream-server.
2567
2568 This function creates a network server process for a TCP service.
2569 When a client connects to the specified service, a new subprocess
2570 is created to handle the new connection, and the sentinel function
2571 is called for the new process.
2572
2573 *** New functions process-datagram-address and set-process-datagram-address.
2574
2575 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
2576 and set the current address of the remote partner.
2577
2578 *** New function format-network-address.
2579
2580 This function reformats the lisp representation of a network address
2581 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
2582 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
2583 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
2584 string for other formatting options.
2585
2586 *** By default, the function process-contact still returns (HOST SERVICE)
2587 for a network process. Using the new optional KEY arg, the complete list
2588 of network process properties or a specific property can be selected.
2589
2590 Using :local and :remote as the KEY, the address of the local or
2591 remote end-point is returned. An Inet address is represented as a 5
2592 element vector, where the first 4 elements contain the IP address and
2593 the fifth is the port number.
2594
2595 *** Network processes can now be stopped and restarted with
2596 `stop-process' and `continue-process'. For a server process, no
2597 connections are accepted in the stopped state. For a client process,
2598 no input is received in the stopped state.
2599
2600 *** New function network-interface-list.
2601
2602 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
2603 current network addresses.
2604
2605 *** New function network-interface-info.
2606
2607 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
2608 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
2609
2610 +++
2611 ** New function copy-tree.
2612
2613 +++
2614 ** New function substring-no-properties.
2615
2616 +++
2617 ** New function minibuffer-selected-window.
2618
2619 +++
2620 ** New function `call-process-shell-command'.
2621
2622 ---
2623 ** The dummy function keys made by easymenu
2624 are now always lower case. If you specify the
2625 menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
2626 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
2627
2628 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for
2629 the bindings that were made with easymenu.
2630
2631 +++
2632 ** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional
2633 argument. If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks
2634 for a function that could be called with `call-interactively',
2635 and does not return t for keyboard macros.
2636
2637 ---
2638 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
2639 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
2640
2641 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
2642 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
2643 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
2644 commands.
2645
2646 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
2647 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
2648 SQL buffer.
2649
2650 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
2651 (function (lambda ()
2652 (master-mode t)
2653 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2654 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
2655 (function (lambda ()
2656 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
2657
2658 +++
2659 ** File local variables.
2660
2661 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
2662 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
2663
2664 +++
2665 ** New function window-body-height.
2666
2667 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
2668 or the header line.
2669
2670 +++
2671 ** New function format-mode-line.
2672
2673 This returns the mode-line or header-line of the selected (or a
2674 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
2675
2676 +++
2677 ** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
2678
2679 These functions are like `plist-get' and `plist-put' except that they
2680 compare the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
2681
2682 +++
2683 ** New function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu'
2684
2685 The `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' must not be used (as previously
2686 recommended) for making entries in the tool bar for local keymaps.
2687 Instead, use the function `tool-bar-local-item-from-menu', which lets
2688 you specify the map to use as an argument.
2689
2690 +++
2691 ** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
2692
2693 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
2694 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
2695 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
2696
2697 +++
2698 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
2699
2700 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
2701 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
2702 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
2703 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
2704 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
2705
2706 +++
2707 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
2708 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
2709 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
2710 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
2711
2712 +++
2713 ** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
2714 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
2715
2716 +++
2717 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
2718 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
2719 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
2720
2721 +++
2722 ** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
2723 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
2724 line.
2725
2726 ---
2727 ** Indentation of simple and extended loop forms has been added to the
2728 cl-indent package. The new user options
2729 `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation', `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and
2730 `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can be used to customize the
2731 indentation of keywords and forms in loop forms.
2732
2733 ---
2734 ** Indentation of backquoted forms has been made customizable in the
2735 cl-indent package. See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
2736
2737 +++
2738 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
2739
2740 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
2741 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
2742 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
2743 now:
2744
2745 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
2746
2747 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
2748 the time it takes to convert the format.
2749
2750 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
2751 wasteful.
2752
2753 +++
2754 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
2755 over minor mode keymaps.
2756
2757 +++
2758 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
2759 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
2760
2761 +++
2762 ** At the end of a command, point moves out from within invisible
2763 text, in the same way it moves out from within text covered by an
2764 image or composition property.
2765
2766 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
2767 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
2768 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
2769 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
2770 post-command-hook and thus does not care about intermediate states.
2771
2772 +++
2773 ** field-beginning and field-end now accept an additional optional
2774 argument, LIMIT.
2775
2776 +++
2777 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
2778 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
2779 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
2780 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
2781 flag.
2782
2783 ---
2784 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
2785
2786 ---
2787 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
2788
2789 ---
2790 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
2791 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
2792 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
2793 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
2794 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
2795 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
2796
2797 ---
2798 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
2799 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
2800 bindings of the parent keymap.
2801
2802 ---
2803 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
2804 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
2805 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
2806 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
2807 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
2808 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
2809
2810 s{
2811 foo
2812 }{
2813 bar
2814 }e
2815
2816 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
2817 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
2818 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
2819 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
2820
2821 ---
2822 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
2823 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
2824
2825 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
2826 (the last prior group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
2827
2828 +++
2829 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
2830 it receives a request from emacsclient.
2831
2832 ---
2833 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
2834 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
2835 than 3 levels of nesting.
2836
2837 ---
2838 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
2839 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
2840 it in that buffer.
2841
2842 ---
2843 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
2844 properties from surrounding text.
2845
2846 +++
2847 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
2848
2849 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
2850 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
2851 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
2852
2853 ---
2854 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
2855 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
2856 clone to the other.
2857
2858 +++
2859 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
2860 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
2861 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set
2862 other properties than `face'.
2863 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
2864 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
2865
2866 ---
2867 ** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
2868 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
2869 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
2870 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
2871 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
2872
2873 +++
2874 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
2875 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
2876 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
2877
2878 +++
2879 ** define-minor-mode now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
2880 and simply passes them to defcustom, if applicable.
2881
2882 +++
2883 ** define-derived-mode by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
2884 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
2885
2886 +++
2887 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
2888 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
2889 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
2890
2891 +++
2892 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
2893 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
2894 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
2895
2896 +++
2897 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
2898 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
2899 accepts a float as UID parameter.
2900
2901 ---
2902 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
2903
2904 +++
2905 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
2906
2907 +++
2908 ** The Emacs Lisp byte-compiler now displays the actual line and
2909 character position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form
2910 of its warning and error messages have been brought more in line with
2911 the output of other GNU tools.
2912
2913 +++
2914 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
2915
2916 ---
2917 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
2918
2919 +++
2920 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
2921 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
2922
2923 +++
2924 ** Variable aliases have been implemented:
2925
2926 *** defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
2927
2928 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
2929 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
2930 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
2931 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
2932
2933 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
2934 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
2935
2936 *** indirect-variable VARIABLE
2937
2938 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
2939 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
2940 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
2941
2942 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
2943 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
2944
2945 +++
2946 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
2947 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
2948
2949 +++
2950 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
2951 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
2952
2953 +++
2954 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
2955 hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
2956
2957 ---
2958 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
2959 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
2960 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
2961
2962 ** Functions y-or-n-p, read-char, read-key-sequence and the like, that
2963 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
2964 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
2965
2966 ** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
2967 running under X.
2968
2969 ** New packages:
2970
2971 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2972 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2973 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2974 state of your program. It separates the input/output of your program from
2975 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2976 Emacs 21 such as the display margin for breakpoints, and the toolbar.
2977
2978 Use M-x gdba to start GDB-UI.
2979
2980 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
2981 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
2982
2983 *** The new package bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
2984 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
2985 data structures.
2986
2987 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
2988 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
2989
2990 *** The new package button.el implements simple and fast `clickable buttons'
2991 in emacs buffers. `buttons' are much lighter-weight than the `widgets'
2992 implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that doesn't
2993 require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for such things
2994 as help and apropos buffers.
2995
2996 \f
2997 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
2998
2999 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
3000 been added.
3001
3002 \f
3003 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
3004
3005 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
3006 with Custom.
3007
3008 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
3009 as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
3010 of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
3011 multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
3012 C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
3013
3014 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
3015 in UTF-8 locales).
3016
3017 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
3018 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
3019 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
3020 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
3021 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
3022 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
3023 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
3024 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
3025 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
3026 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
3027
3028 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
3029 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
3030
3031 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
3032 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
3033 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
3034 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behaviour is actually
3035 contrary to the compound text specification.
3036
3037 \f
3038 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
3039
3040 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
3041
3042 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
3043
3044 \f
3045 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
3046
3047 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
3048
3049 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
3050 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
3051 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
3052 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
3053 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
3054
3055 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
3056 were changed.
3057
3058 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
3059 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
3060
3061 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
3062 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
3063 instead of using default-major-mode.
3064
3065 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
3066 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
3067 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
3068 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
3069 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
3070 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
3071 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
3072
3073 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
3074 NEWS.
3075
3076 \f
3077 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
3078
3079 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
3080 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
3081 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
3082
3083 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
3084 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
3085
3086 \f
3087 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
3088
3089 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
3090 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
3091 charsets in this release.
3092
3093 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
3094
3095 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
3096
3097 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
3098 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
3099 to list them.
3100
3101 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
3102 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
3103 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
3104 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
3105 necessary changes to unexec.
3106
3107 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
3108 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
3109
3110 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
3111 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
3112
3113 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
3114 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
3115
3116 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
3117 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
3118 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
3119 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
3120 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
3121
3122 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
3123 new display features described below.
3124
3125 \f
3126 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
3127
3128 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
3129
3130 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
3131 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
3132 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
3133 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
3134 the text.
3135
3136 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
3137
3138 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
3139 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
3140 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
3141 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
3142 specify a font.
3143
3144 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
3145 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
3146 under Lisp changes, below.
3147
3148 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
3149
3150 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
3151 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
3152 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
3153 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
3154 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
3155 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
3156 on terminals.
3157
3158 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
3159 supported on character terminals.
3160
3161 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
3162 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
3163 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
3164 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
3165
3166 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
3167
3168 ** Sound support
3169
3170 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
3171 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
3172 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
3173 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
3174 sound support.
3175
3176 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
3177
3178 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
3179 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
3180 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
3181 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
3182
3183 - User option: max-mini-window-height
3184
3185 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
3186 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
3187 specifies a number of lines.
3188
3189 Default is 0.25.
3190
3191 - User option: resize-mini-windows
3192
3193 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
3194 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
3195 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
3196 again.
3197
3198 Default is `grow-only'.
3199
3200 ** LessTif support.
3201
3202 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
3203 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
3204
3205 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
3206
3207 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
3208 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
3209 non-nil.
3210
3211 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
3212
3213 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
3214 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
3215 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
3216
3217 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
3218
3219 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
3220 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
3221 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
3222 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
3223 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
3224 Emacs.
3225
3226 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
3227 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
3228 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
3229 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
3230 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
3231 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
3232
3233 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
3234 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
3235 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
3236 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
3237 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
3238 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
3239
3240 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
3241 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
3242 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
3243 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
3244 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
3245
3246 ** Tool bar support.
3247
3248 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
3249 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
3250 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
3251 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
3252 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
3253 icons will be used.
3254
3255 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
3256 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
3257
3258 ** Tooltips.
3259
3260 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
3261 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
3262 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
3263
3264 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
3265 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
3266 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
3267 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
3268
3269 ** Automatic Hscrolling
3270
3271 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
3272 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
3273 customized.
3274
3275 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
3276 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
3277 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
3278 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
3279 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
3280
3281 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
3282 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
3283 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
3284 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
3285 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
3286 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
3287
3288 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
3289 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
3290 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
3291 customizing face `fringe'.
3292
3293 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
3294 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
3295 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
3296 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
3297 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
3298 the window to be partially obscured.)
3299
3300 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
3301 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
3302 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
3303 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
3304
3305 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3306
3307 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
3308 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
3309 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
3310 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
3311 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
3312 have enabled one.
3313
3314 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
3315
3316 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
3317
3318 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
3319
3320 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
3321 `*') toggles the status.
3322
3323 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
3324
3325 ** Hourglass pointer
3326
3327 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
3328 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
3329
3330 ** Blinking cursor
3331
3332 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
3333 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
3334 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
3335 the group `cursor'.
3336
3337 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
3338
3339 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
3340 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
3341 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
3342 details.
3343
3344 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
3345 have to do anything to activate it.
3346
3347 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
3348
3349 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
3350 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
3351
3352 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
3353 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
3354 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
3355 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
3356 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
3357 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
3358 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
3359 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
3360
3361 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
3362 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
3363 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
3364 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
3365 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
3366 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
3367
3368 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
3369 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
3370
3371 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
3372 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
3373 buffer by default.
3374
3375 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
3376 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
3377 beginning and end of the buffer.
3378
3379 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
3380 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
3381 signaled.
3382
3383 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
3384 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
3385
3386 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
3387 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
3388 this behavior.
3389
3390 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
3391 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
3392 Emacs dump core.
3393
3394 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
3395
3396 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
3397 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
3398 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
3399
3400 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
3401 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
3402 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
3403
3404 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
3405 using that menu.
3406
3407 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
3408
3409 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
3410 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
3411 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
3412 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
3413 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
3414 whitespace.
3415
3416 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
3417 all frames except the selected one.
3418
3419 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
3420 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
3421
3422 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
3423 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
3424 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
3425 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
3426 `Info-use-header-line'.
3427
3428 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
3429 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
3430 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
3431
3432 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
3433
3434 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
3435 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
3436 `fr-drdref.tex'.
3437
3438 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
3439 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
3440 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
3441 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
3442
3443 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
3444
3445 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
3446 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
3447 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
3448 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
3449
3450 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
3451 point in a pop-up window.
3452
3453 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
3454 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
3455 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
3456
3457 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
3458 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
3459
3460 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
3461 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
3462 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
3463 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
3464
3465 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
3466
3467 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3468 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3469
3470 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
3471 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
3472 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
3473
3474 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
3475 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
3476 non-nil.
3477
3478 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
3479 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
3480 file that is already visited under a different name.
3481
3482 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
3483 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
3484
3485 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
3486 and displays information about that.
3487
3488 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
3489 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
3490
3491 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
3492 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
3493 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
3494 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
3495 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
3496 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
3497
3498 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
3499 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
3500
3501 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
3502 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
3503 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
3504 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
3505 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
3506 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
3507 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
3508
3509 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
3510 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
3511
3512 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
3513 system for keyboard input.
3514
3515 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
3516 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
3517 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
3518 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
3519 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
3520 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
3521 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
3522 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
3523 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
3524
3525 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
3526 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
3527
3528 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
3529 displays all characters in that character set.
3530
3531 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
3532 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
3533
3534 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
3535 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
3536 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
3537
3538 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
3539 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
3540 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
3541 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
3542 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
3543 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
3544 and Polish `slash'.
3545
3546 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
3547 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
3548 of the tutorial.
3549
3550 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
3551 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
3552 Lisp Coding Convention".
3553
3554 new command old-binding
3555 --- ------- -----------
3556 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
3557 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
3558 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
3559
3560 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
3561 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
3562 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
3563
3564 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
3565 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
3566 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
3567 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
3568 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
3569 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
3570
3571 ** There are new Leim input methods.
3572 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
3573 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
3574 package.
3575
3576 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
3577 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
3578 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
3579 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
3580 "`", you must type "=q".
3581
3582 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
3583 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
3584 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
3585 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
3586 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
3587 on.
3588
3589 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
3590 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
3591 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
3592 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
3593
3594 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
3595 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
3596 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
3597 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
3598
3599 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
3600 on the display using several methods
3601
3602 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
3603 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
3604 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
3605
3606 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
3607 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
3608
3609 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
3610
3611 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
3612 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
3613
3614 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
3615 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
3616 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
3617 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
3618
3619 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
3620 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
3621 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
3622
3623 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
3624 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
3625
3626 ** New X resources recognized
3627
3628 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
3629 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
3630 is useful for debugging X problems.
3631
3632 Example:
3633
3634 emacs.synchronous: true
3635
3636 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
3637 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
3638 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
3639 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
3640 visual class names are
3641
3642 TrueColor
3643 PseudoColor
3644 DirectColor
3645 StaticColor
3646 GrayScale
3647 StaticGray
3648
3649 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
3650 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
3651 meaning.
3652
3653 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
3654 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
3655 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
3656 visual.
3657
3658 Example:
3659
3660 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
3661
3662 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
3663 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
3664 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
3665 resource values are `true' or `on'.
3666
3667 Example:
3668
3669 emacs.privateColormap: true
3670
3671 ** Faces and frame parameters.
3672
3673 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
3674 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3675 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
3676 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
3677 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
3678 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
3679 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
3680
3681 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
3682 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
3683 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
3684 `default' face and vice versa.
3685
3686 ** New face `menu'.
3687
3688 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
3689
3690 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
3691
3692 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
3693 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
3694 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
3695 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
3696
3697 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
3698 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
3699 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
3700
3701 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
3702 `ScreenGamma'.
3703
3704 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
3705
3706 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
3707 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
3708 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
3709 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
3710
3711 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
3712
3713 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
3714
3715 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
3716
3717 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
3718 LessTif/Motif one.
3719
3720 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
3721 LessTif and Motif.
3722
3723 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
3724
3725 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
3726 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
3727 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
3728
3729 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
3730 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
3731
3732 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
3733 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
3734 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
3735
3736 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
3737
3738 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
3739 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
3740 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3741 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
3742
3743 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
3744 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
3745 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
3746 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
3747
3748 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
3749 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
3750 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
3751 buffers.
3752
3753 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
3754
3755 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
3756 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
3757 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
3758
3759 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
3760 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
3761 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
3762 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
3763 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
3764 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
3765
3766 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
3767
3768 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
3769 notably at the end of lines.
3770
3771 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
3772 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
3773
3774 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
3775
3776 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
3777 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
3778
3779 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
3780 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
3781 after each match to get the replacement text.
3782
3783 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
3784 you edit the replacement string.
3785
3786 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
3787 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
3788 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
3789
3790 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
3791
3792 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
3793 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
3794
3795 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
3796 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
3797 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
3798 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
3799
3800 --
3801 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
3802 read mail from the menu etc.
3803
3804 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
3805 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
3806 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
3807 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
3808
3809 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
3810 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
3811
3812 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
3813 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
3814 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
3815 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
3816 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
3817 of Emacs.
3818
3819 ** Customize changes
3820
3821 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
3822 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
3823 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
3824 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
3825 earlier versions of Emacs.
3826
3827 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
3828 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
3829 default).
3830
3831 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3832 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
3833 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
3834 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
3835 file.
3836
3837 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
3838 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
3839 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
3840 already in your init file.
3841
3842 ** New features in evaluation commands
3843
3844 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
3845 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
3846 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
3847 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
3848 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
3849
3850 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
3851 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
3852 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
3853 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
3854 printed).
3855
3856 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
3857 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
3858
3859 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
3860 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
3861
3862 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
3863 code when called with a prefix argument.
3864
3865 ** CC mode changes.
3866
3867 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
3868 current user setups (although it's believed that these
3869 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
3870 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
3871 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
3872 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
3873 release.
3874
3875 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
3876 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
3877 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
3878 confusion.
3879
3880 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
3881 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
3882 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
3883 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
3884
3885 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
3886 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
3887
3888 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
3889 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
3890
3891 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
3892 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
3893 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
3894 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
3895
3896 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
3897 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
3898 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
3899 earlier statement. An example:
3900
3901 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
3902 if (a[i])
3903 res += a[i]->offset;
3904 else
3905
3906 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
3907 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
3908 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
3909 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
3910 the preceding "if".
3911
3912 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
3913 by default.
3914
3915 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
3916 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
3917 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
3918 documentation or other natural language text.
3919
3920 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
3921 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
3922 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
3923 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
3924 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
3925 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
3926 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
3927
3928 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
3929 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
3930 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
3931 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
3932
3933 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
3934 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
3935 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
3936 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
3937 Pike mode only.
3938
3939 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
3940 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
3941 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
3942 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
3943 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
3944 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
3945 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
3946 is reported afterwards.
3947
3948 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
3949 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
3950 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
3951
3952 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
3953 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
3954 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
3955 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
3956 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
3957 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
3958 groundwork.
3959
3960 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
3961 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
3962 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
3963 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
3964 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
3965 have to bother.
3966
3967 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
3968 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
3969 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
3970 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
3971 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
3972 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
3973
3974 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
3975 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
3976 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
3977 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
3978 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
3979 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
3980 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
3981 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
3982
3983 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
3984 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
3985 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
3986 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
3987 above.
3988
3989 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
3990 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
3991 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
3992 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
3993 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
3994 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
3995 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
3996 function documentation for more info.
3997
3998 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
3999 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
4000 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
4001 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
4002 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
4003 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
4004 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
4005 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
4006
4007 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
4008
4009 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
4010 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
4011
4012 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
4013 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
4014 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
4015 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
4016 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
4017 style system.
4018
4019 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
4020 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
4021 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
4022 as far as possible.
4023
4024 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
4025 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
4026 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
4027 chapter about this in the manual.
4028
4029 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
4030 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
4031 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
4032 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
4033 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
4034
4035 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
4036 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
4037 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
4038
4039 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
4040 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
4041
4042 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
4043 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
4044 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
4045 inside CC Mode.
4046
4047 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
4048 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
4049 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
4050 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
4051 cc-mode/).
4052
4053 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
4054 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
4055 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
4056 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
4057 they were before the filling.
4058
4059 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
4060 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
4061 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
4062 literals.
4063
4064 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
4065 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
4066 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
4067 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
4068 this function.
4069
4070 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
4071 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
4072 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
4073 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
4074 Thanks to Eric Eide.
4075
4076 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
4077 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
4078 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
4079
4080 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
4081
4082 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
4083 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
4084 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
4085 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
4086
4087 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
4088 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
4089 the column specified by comment-column.
4090
4091 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
4092 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
4093 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
4094 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
4095 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
4096 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
4097
4098 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
4099 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
4100 arguments.
4101
4102 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
4103
4104 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
4105 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
4106 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
4107 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
4108 Provan).
4109
4110 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
4111
4112 ** Dired changes
4113
4114 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
4115 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
4116 is, delete only empty directories.
4117
4118 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
4119 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
4120 copy directories recursively.
4121
4122 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
4123 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
4124 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
4125
4126 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
4127 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
4128 directory.
4129
4130 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
4131 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
4132 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
4133 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
4134 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
4135
4136 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
4137 from ls switches.
4138
4139 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
4140 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
4141 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
4142 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
4143
4144 ** Gnus changes.
4145
4146 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
4147 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
4148 internationalization and mail-fetching.
4149
4150 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
4151 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
4152
4153 If you used procmail like in
4154
4155 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
4156 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
4157 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
4158 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
4159
4160 this now has changed to
4161
4162 (setq mail-sources
4163 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
4164 :suffix ".in")))
4165
4166 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
4167 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
4168
4169 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
4170 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
4171 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
4172 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
4173
4174 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
4175 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
4176 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
4177
4178 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
4179 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
4180 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
4181 now just a compatibility layer.
4182
4183 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
4184 Gnus facilities.
4185
4186 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
4187 called to position point.
4188
4189 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
4190 summary buffers and NOV files.
4191
4192 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
4193 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
4194
4195 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
4196 subtly different manner.
4197
4198 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
4199 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
4200 ever-changing layouts.
4201
4202 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
4203
4204 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
4205
4206 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
4207
4208 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
4209 macros
4210
4211 Key binding Macro
4212 -------------------------
4213 C-c C-c C-s @strong
4214 C-c C-c C-e @emph
4215 C-c C-c u @uref
4216 C-c C-c q @quotation
4217 C-c C-c m @email
4218 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
4219 M-RET @item
4220
4221 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
4222
4223 ** Changes in Outline mode.
4224
4225 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
4226 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
4227 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
4228
4229 ** Changes to Emacs Server
4230
4231 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
4232 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
4233 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
4234 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
4235 buffers to kill, as before.
4236
4237 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
4238 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
4239 this way.
4240
4241 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
4242 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
4243
4244 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
4245
4246 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
4247 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
4248 use. Default is 1000.
4249
4250 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
4251 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
4252
4253 ** Changes to hideshow.el
4254
4255 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
4256
4257 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
4258 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
4259 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
4260 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
4261
4262 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
4263 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
4264 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
4265 the open block.
4266
4267 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
4268 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
4269 the normal block-hiding function.
4270
4271 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
4272
4273 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
4274 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
4275 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
4276 for `hs-minor-mode'.
4277
4278 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
4279 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
4280
4281 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
4282
4283 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
4284 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
4285 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
4286
4287 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
4288 current buffer.
4289
4290 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
4291 in a log file.
4292
4293 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
4294 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
4295 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
4296 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
4297 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
4298 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
4299
4300 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
4301
4302 ** Changes to cmuscheme
4303
4304 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
4305 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
4306
4307 ** Changes in Font Lock
4308
4309 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
4310 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
4311
4312 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
4313 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
4314
4315 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
4316 the face used for each string/comment.
4317
4318 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
4319 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
4320
4321 ** Changes to Shell mode
4322
4323 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
4324 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
4325 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
4326 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
4327
4328 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4329
4330 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
4331 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
4332
4333 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
4334 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
4335 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
4336 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
4337 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
4338 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
4339
4340 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
4341 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
4342 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
4343 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
4344 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
4345 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
4346 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
4347 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
4348
4349 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
4350 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
4351
4352 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
4353 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
4354 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
4355
4356 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
4357 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
4358 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
4359
4360 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
4361 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
4362 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
4363
4364 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
4365 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
4366 argument, it appends to the file.
4367
4368 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
4369 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
4370 compatibility.
4371
4372 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
4373 ring (history).
4374
4375 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
4376 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
4377 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
4378
4379 ** Changes to Rmail mode
4380
4381 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
4382 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
4383 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
4384 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
4385 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
4386 as correspondent.
4387
4388 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
4389 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
4390 regexp matching your mail addresses.
4391
4392 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
4393 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
4394 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
4395 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
4396 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
4397
4398 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
4399 like `j'.
4400
4401 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
4402 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
4403 digest message.
4404
4405 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
4406 in which folder to put messages automatically.
4407
4408 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
4409 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
4410 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
4411
4412 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
4413 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
4414
4415 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
4416 use the -f option when sending mail.
4417
4418 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
4419 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
4420 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
4421 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
4422 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
4423 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
4424
4425 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
4426 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
4427 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
4428
4429 ** Changes to TeX mode
4430
4431 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
4432 `latex-mode'.
4433
4434 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
4435
4436 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
4437
4438 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
4439
4440 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4441
4442 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
4443 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
4444 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
4445 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
4446 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
4447 can be edited from that buffer.
4448
4449 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
4450 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
4451 `A' to use all marked entries).
4452
4453 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
4454 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
4455
4456 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
4457 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
4458 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
4459 been cited.
4460
4461 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
4462 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
4463 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
4464 in column 1 are always made leaves.
4465
4466 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
4467 has the following new features:
4468
4469 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
4470 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
4471 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
4472 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
4473
4474 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
4475 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
4476 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
4477 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
4478 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
4479 defaults to 1.
4480
4481 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
4482 file names.
4483
4484 ** Ispell changes
4485
4486 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
4487 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
4488 spell-checks the current buffer.
4489
4490 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
4491 added.
4492
4493 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
4494 correction is made and re-checked.
4495
4496 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
4497
4498 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
4499 cases.
4500
4501 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
4502 on syntax errors.
4503
4504 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
4505 end of the buffer.
4506
4507 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
4508
4509 ** Makefile mode changes
4510
4511 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
4512
4513 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
4514 Fontlock mode is active.
4515
4516 ** Isearch changes
4517
4518 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
4519 so that searches can be resumed.
4520
4521 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
4522 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
4523 that started the search.
4524
4525 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
4526 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
4527
4528 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
4529
4530 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
4531 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
4532 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
4533 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
4534 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
4535 `secondary-selection'.
4536
4537 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
4538 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
4539 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
4540 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
4541 usual snappy response.
4542
4543 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
4544 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
4545 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
4546 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
4547
4548 ** VC Changes
4549
4550 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
4551 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
4552 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
4553 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
4554 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
4555 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
4556 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
4557 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
4558 file is registered in that backend.
4559
4560 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
4561 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
4562 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
4563 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
4564 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
4565 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
4566
4567 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
4568 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
4569 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
4570 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
4571 where it doesn't make sense.)
4572
4573 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
4574 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
4575 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
4576
4577 *** General Changes
4578
4579 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
4580 checks are always done now.
4581
4582 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
4583 operations.
4584
4585 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
4586 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
4587 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
4588
4589 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
4590 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
4591 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
4592 the working file (``merge news'').
4593
4594 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4595 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
4596 downwards.
4597
4598 *** Multiple Backends
4599
4600 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
4601 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
4602 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
4603 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
4604 local RCS archives.
4605
4606 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
4607 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
4608 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
4609 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
4610
4611 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
4612 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
4613 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
4614 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
4615 current revision number from the more remote backend.
4616
4617 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
4618 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
4619 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
4620 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
4621
4622 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
4623 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
4624 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
4625 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
4626
4627 *** Changes for CVS
4628
4629 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
4630 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
4631 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
4632 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
4633 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
4634 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
4635 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
4636
4637 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
4638 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
4639 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
4640 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
4641 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
4642 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
4643 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
4644 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
4645 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
4646 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
4647 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
4648 name.)
4649
4650 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
4651 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
4652 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
4653 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
4654 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
4655 entire directory tree.
4656
4657 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
4658 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
4659 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
4660 "watched" by other developers.)
4661
4662 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
4663 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
4664 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
4665 starting at the given directory.
4666
4667 *** Lisp Changes in VC
4668
4669 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
4670 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
4671 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
4672 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
4673 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
4674 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
4675 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
4676 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
4677 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
4678
4679 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
4680 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
4681 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
4682 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
4683
4684 ** New modes and packages
4685
4686 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
4687 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
4688 the default is not applicable.
4689
4690 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
4691 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
4692 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
4693
4694 Features are:
4695
4696 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
4697 drawn, like this: | \ /
4698 --+-- X
4699 | / \
4700
4701 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
4702 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
4703 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
4704 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
4705 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
4706 you are drawing.
4707
4708 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
4709 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
4710
4711 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
4712 flood-filling.
4713
4714 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
4715 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
4716 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
4717 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
4718
4719 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
4720 also do without the mouse.
4721
4722 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
4723 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
4724 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
4725 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
4726 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
4727
4728 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
4729
4730 lines straight-lines
4731 rectangles squares
4732 poly-lines straight poly-lines
4733 ellipses circles
4734 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
4735 spray-can setting size for spraying
4736 vaporize line vaporize lines
4737 erase characters erase rectangles
4738
4739 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
4740 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
4741 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
4742 drawing.
4743
4744 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
4745 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
4746 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
4747 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
4748
4749 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
4750 can be turned off).
4751
4752 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
4753 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
4754 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
4755 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
4756 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
4757 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
4758 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
4759 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
4760 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
4761
4762 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
4763 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
4764 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
4765 on certain projects.
4766
4767 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
4768 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
4769
4770 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
4771
4772 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
4773 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
4774 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
4775 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
4776 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
4777 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
4778 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
4779 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
4780
4781 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
4782 Emacs is idle.
4783
4784 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
4785 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
4786
4787 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
4788 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
4789
4790 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
4791 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
4792 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
4793 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
4794 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
4795
4796 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
4797 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
4798 separate Texinfo file.
4799
4800 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
4801 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
4802 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
4803 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
4804 enter check-in log messages.
4805
4806 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
4807 without invoking external programs.
4808
4809 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
4810 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
4811 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
4812 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
4813 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
4814
4815 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
4816 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
4817
4818 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
4819 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
4820
4821 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
4822 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
4823 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
4824 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
4825 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
4826 single step.
4827
4828 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
4829 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
4830 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
4831 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
4832
4833 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
4834 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
4835 actually modifying content of a buffer.
4836
4837 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
4838 PostScript.
4839
4840 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
4841
4842 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
4843
4844 ; comment (until end of line)
4845 A non-terminal
4846 "C" terminal
4847 ?C? special
4848 $A default non-terminal
4849 $"C" default terminal
4850 $?C? default special
4851 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
4852 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
4853 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
4854 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
4855 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
4856 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
4857 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
4858 C+ one or more occurrences of C
4859 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
4860 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
4861 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
4862 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
4863 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
4864 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4865 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
4866
4867 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
4868
4869 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
4870 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
4871 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
4872 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
4873 equal signs of assignments.
4874
4875 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
4876 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
4877
4878 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
4879 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
4880 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
4881
4882 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
4883
4884 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
4885 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
4886 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
4887 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
4888 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
4889 which answers different needs.
4890
4891 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
4892 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
4893 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
4894 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
4895 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
4896 to be enabled.
4897
4898 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
4899 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
4900
4901 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
4902
4903 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
4904 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
4905 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
4906
4907 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
4908
4909 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
4910 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
4911 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
4912 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
4913 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
4914 and background colors.
4915
4916 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
4917 Pascal) language.
4918
4919 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
4920 the text at point.
4921
4922 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
4923
4924 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
4925
4926 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
4927 whitespace in a file.
4928
4929 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
4930 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
4931 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
4932 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
4933 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
4934 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
4935 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
4936
4937 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
4938
4939 Here is an example of columns:
4940
4941 horse apple bus
4942 dog pineapple car EXTRA
4943 porcupine strawberry airplane
4944
4945 Doing the following settings:
4946
4947 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
4948 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
4949 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
4950 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
4951
4952
4953 Selecting the lines above and typing:
4954
4955 M-x delimit-columns-region
4956
4957 It results:
4958
4959 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
4960 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
4961 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
4962
4963 delim-col has the following options:
4964
4965 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
4966 before all columns.
4967
4968 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
4969 between each column.
4970
4971 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
4972 after all columns.
4973
4974 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
4975 each column.
4976
4977 delim-col has the following commands:
4978
4979 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
4980 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
4981
4982 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
4983 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
4984 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
4985 recent file list can be displayed:
4986
4987 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
4988 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
4989 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
4990
4991 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
4992 dynamically change the menu appearance.
4993
4994 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
4995 text.
4996
4997 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
4998 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
4999 specific to Message mode.
5000
5001 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
5002 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
5003 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
5004
5005 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
5006 interface to access directory servers using different directory
5007 protocols. It has a separate manual.
5008
5009 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
5010 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
5011
5012 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
5013
5014 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
5015 minibuffer with completion.
5016
5017 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
5018 with the diary features.
5019
5020 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
5021 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
5022
5023 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
5024 Fill mode.
5025
5026 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
5027 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
5028 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
5029 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
5030
5031 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
5032 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
5033 `.g'.
5034
5035 ** Changes in sort.el
5036
5037 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
5038 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
5039 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
5040 numeric base.
5041
5042 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
5043
5044 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
5045 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
5046 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
5047
5048 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
5049 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
5050
5051 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
5052 output ^M at the end of lines.
5053
5054 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
5055 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
5056
5057 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
5058 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
5059 `(msb-mode 1)'.
5060
5061 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
5062 group.
5063
5064 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
5065 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
5066 are recognized:
5067
5068 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
5069 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
5070 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
5071 nil -- just delete one character.
5072
5073 Default value is `untabify'.
5074
5075 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
5076
5077 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
5078 symbol, not double-quoted.
5079
5080 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
5081 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
5082 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
5083 moved to lisp/obsolete.
5084
5085 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
5086 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
5087 `auto-compression-mode' command.
5088
5089 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
5090 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
5091 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
5092
5093 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
5094 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
5095
5096 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
5097 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
5098
5099 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
5100 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
5101
5102 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
5103 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
5104 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
5105 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
5106 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
5107 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
5108
5109 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
5110 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
5111
5112 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
5113
5114 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
5115 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
5116
5117 ** Shell script mode changes.
5118
5119 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
5120 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
5121 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
5122
5123 ** Etags changes.
5124
5125 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
5126
5127 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
5128 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
5129 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
5130 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
5131 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
5132
5133 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
5134 declarations when given the --declarations option.
5135
5136 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
5137 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
5138
5139 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
5140 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
5141 `template' keywords.
5142
5143 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
5144 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
5145
5146 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
5147 types.
5148
5149 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
5150
5151 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
5152
5153 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
5154 are now tagged.
5155
5156 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
5157
5158 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
5159 variables are tagged.
5160
5161 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
5162
5163 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
5164 for PSWrap.
5165
5166 ** Changes in etags.el
5167
5168 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
5169 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
5170 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
5171
5172 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
5173 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
5174
5175 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
5176 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
5177 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
5178 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
5179
5180 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
5181
5182 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
5183 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
5184
5185 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
5186
5187 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
5188 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
5189 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
5190
5191 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
5192 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
5193
5194 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
5195 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
5196
5197 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
5198 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
5199 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
5200 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
5201 point will go to the beginning of the file.
5202
5203 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
5204 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
5205 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
5206
5207 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
5208 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
5209 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
5210
5211 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
5212 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
5213 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
5214
5215 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
5216
5217 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
5218
5219 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
5220 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
5221 expression from that list, are not checked.
5222
5223 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
5224 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
5225 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
5226 the buffer, just like for the local files.
5227
5228 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
5229
5230 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
5231 displays local abbrevs, only.
5232
5233 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
5234 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
5235
5236 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
5237 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
5238 is measured in pixels.
5239
5240 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
5241 to be visited as images.
5242
5243 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
5244 were added to compile.el.
5245
5246 ** Withdrawn packages
5247
5248 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
5249 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
5250
5251 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
5252
5253 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
5254
5255 \f
5256 * Incompatible Lisp changes
5257
5258 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
5259 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
5260 See the sections below for details.
5261
5262 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
5263 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
5264 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
5265 to remove the properties of the copy.
5266
5267 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
5268 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
5269 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
5270 these properties are active.
5271
5272 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
5273 ranges may affect some code.
5274
5275 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
5276 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
5277 make a difference to some code.
5278
5279 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
5280 operates on the minibuffer.
5281
5282 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5283 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
5284 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
5285 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
5286 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
5287 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
5288 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
5289 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
5290 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
5291 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
5292 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
5293 the buffer as multibyte characters.
5294
5295 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
5296 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
5297 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
5298
5299 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
5300 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
5301 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
5302
5303 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
5304 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
5305 such as `mapconcat'.
5306
5307 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
5308 string.
5309
5310 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
5311 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
5312 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
5313 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
5314 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
5315 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
5316 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
5317 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
5318
5319 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
5320 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
5321 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
5322 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
5323 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
5324 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
5325 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
5326 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
5327 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
5328 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
5329
5330 \f
5331 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
5332 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
5333
5334 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
5335
5336 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
5337 allows the animated display of strings.
5338
5339 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
5340 interactive form of a function.
5341
5342 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
5343 between custom options. Example:
5344
5345 (defcustom default-input-method nil
5346 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
5347 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
5348 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
5349 :group 'mule
5350 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
5351 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
5352
5353 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
5354 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
5355 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
5356
5357 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
5358 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
5359 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
5360 (signal or normal termination).
5361
5362 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
5363 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
5364
5365 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5366 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5367
5368 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
5369 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
5370
5371 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
5372
5373 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
5374 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
5375 being deleted.
5376
5377 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
5378
5379 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
5380 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
5381 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
5382 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
5383 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
5384 charset.
5385
5386 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
5387 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
5388 message.
5389
5390 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
5391 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
5392
5393 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
5394 with the more general `:mask' property.
5395
5396 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
5397
5398 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
5399 backslash.
5400
5401 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
5402 is running in batch mode. For example,
5403
5404 (message "%s" (read t))
5405
5406 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
5407 to standard output.
5408
5409 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
5410 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
5411
5412 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
5413 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
5414 frame or window.
5415
5416 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
5417 were added
5418
5419 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
5420
5421 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
5422 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
5423
5424 - Function: remq ELT LIST
5425
5426 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
5427 comparison is done with `eq'.
5428
5429 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
5430
5431 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
5432 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
5433 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
5434
5435 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
5436 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
5437 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
5438
5439 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
5440 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
5441
5442 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
5443 function was declared obsolete.
5444
5445 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
5446 retained as an alias).
5447
5448 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
5449 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
5450 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
5451
5452 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
5453
5454 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
5455
5456 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
5457 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
5458 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
5459 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
5460 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
5461 means never include the minibuffer window.
5462
5463 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
5464
5465 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
5466
5467 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
5468
5469 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
5470 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
5471 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
5472 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
5473 returned.
5474
5475 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
5476 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
5477 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
5478 minibuffer even if it is active.
5479
5480 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
5481 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
5482 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
5483 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
5484 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
5485 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
5486
5487 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
5488 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
5489 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
5490 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
5491 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
5492 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
5493 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
5494
5495 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
5496 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
5497 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
5498
5499 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
5500 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
5501 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
5502 Default value is nil.
5503
5504 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
5505 meaning no limit.
5506
5507 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
5508 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
5509 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
5510
5511 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
5512 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
5513 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
5514
5515 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
5516 list of a primitive.
5517
5518 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
5519
5520 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
5521 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
5522 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
5523 than replacing the local map.
5524
5525 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
5526 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
5527 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
5528 instead.
5529
5530 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
5531
5532 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
5533 as promised long ago.
5534
5535 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
5536
5537 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
5538 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
5539 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
5540
5541 \f
5542 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
5543
5544 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
5545 regular expressions.
5546
5547 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
5548
5549 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5550
5551 - Macro: rx SEXP
5552
5553 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
5554
5555 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
5556 notation.
5557
5558 STRING
5559 matches string STRING literally.
5560
5561 CHAR
5562 matches character CHAR literally.
5563
5564 `not-newline'
5565 matches any character except a newline.
5566 .
5567 `anything'
5568 matches any character
5569
5570 `(any SET)'
5571 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
5572 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
5573
5574 '(in SET)'
5575 like `any'.
5576
5577 `(not (any SET))'
5578 matches any character not in SET
5579
5580 `line-start'
5581 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
5582 in the text being matched
5583
5584 `line-end'
5585 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
5586
5587 `string-start'
5588 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5589 string being matched against.
5590
5591 `string-end'
5592 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5593 string being matched against.
5594
5595 `buffer-start'
5596 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
5597 buffer being matched against.
5598
5599 `buffer-end'
5600 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
5601 buffer being matched against.
5602
5603 `point'
5604 matches the empty string, but only at point.
5605
5606 `word-start'
5607 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5608 word.
5609
5610 `word-end'
5611 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
5612
5613 `word-boundary'
5614 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
5615 word.
5616
5617 `(not word-boundary)'
5618 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
5619 word.
5620
5621 `digit'
5622 matches 0 through 9.
5623
5624 `control'
5625 matches ASCII control characters.
5626
5627 `hex-digit'
5628 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
5629
5630 `blank'
5631 matches space and tab only.
5632
5633 `graphic'
5634 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
5635 space, and DEL.
5636
5637 `printing'
5638 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
5639 and DEL.
5640
5641 `alphanumeric'
5642 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5643 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5644
5645 `letter'
5646 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5647 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
5648
5649 `ascii'
5650 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
5651
5652 `nonascii'
5653 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
5654
5655 `lower'
5656 matches anything lower-case.
5657
5658 `upper'
5659 matches anything upper-case.
5660
5661 `punctuation'
5662 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
5663 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
5664
5665 `space'
5666 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
5667
5668 `word'
5669 matches anything that has word syntax.
5670
5671 `(syntax SYNTAX)'
5672 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
5673 of the following symbols.
5674
5675 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
5676 `punctuation' (\\s.)
5677 `word' (\\sw)
5678 `symbol' (\\s_)
5679 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
5680 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
5681 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
5682 `string-quote' (\\s\")
5683 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
5684 `escape' (\\s\\)
5685 `character-quote' (\\s/)
5686 `comment-start' (\\s<)
5687 `comment-end' (\\s>)
5688
5689 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
5690 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
5691
5692 `(category CATEGORY)'
5693 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
5694 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
5695
5696 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
5697 `base-vowel' (\\c1)
5698 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
5699 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
5700 `tone-mark' (\\c4)
5701 `symbol' (\\c5)
5702 `digit' (\\c6)
5703 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
5704 `vowel-sign' (\\c8)
5705 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
5706 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
5707 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
5708 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
5709 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
5710 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
5711 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
5712 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
5713 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
5714 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
5715 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
5716 `ascii' (\\ca)
5717 `arabic' (\\cb)
5718 `chinese' (\\cc)
5719 `ethiopic' (\\ce)
5720 `greek' (\\cg)
5721 `korean' (\\ch)
5722 `indian' (\\ci)
5723 `japanese' (\\cj)
5724 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
5725 `latin' (\\cl)
5726 `lao' (\\co)
5727 `tibetan' (\\cq)
5728 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
5729 `thai' (\\ct)
5730 `vietnamese' (\\cv)
5731 `hebrew' (\\cw)
5732 `cyrillic' (\\cy)
5733 `can-break' (\\c|)
5734
5735 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
5736 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
5737
5738 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5739 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
5740
5741 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5742 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
5743 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
5744
5745 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5746 another name for `submatch'.
5747
5748 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
5749 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
5750 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
5751 regular expression.
5752
5753 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
5754 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
5755 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
5756 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
5757 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
5758
5759 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
5760 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
5761
5762 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
5763 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5764
5765 `(0+ SEXP)'
5766 like `zero-or-more'.
5767
5768 `(* SEXP)'
5769 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5770
5771 `(*? SEXP)'
5772 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5773
5774 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
5775 matches one or more occurrences of A.
5776
5777 `(1+ SEXP)'
5778 like `one-or-more'.
5779
5780 `(+ SEXP)'
5781 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5782
5783 `(+? SEXP)'
5784 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5785
5786 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
5787 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
5788
5789 `(optional SEXP)'
5790 like `zero-or-one'.
5791
5792 `(? SEXP)'
5793 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
5794
5795 `(?? SEXP)'
5796 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
5797
5798 `(repeat N SEXP)'
5799 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5800
5801 `(repeat N M SEXP)'
5802 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
5803
5804 `(eval FORM)'
5805 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
5806 `regexp-quote' it.
5807
5808 `(regexp REGEXP)'
5809 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
5810
5811 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
5812
5813 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
5814 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
5815 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
5816 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
5817
5818 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
5819 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
5820 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
5821 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
5822
5823 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
5824 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
5825 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
5826
5827 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
5828 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
5829 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
5830 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
5831 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
5832 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
5833 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
5834 eight-bit-graphic.
5835
5836 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
5837
5838 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
5839 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
5840 character set as previously.
5841
5842 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
5843 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
5844 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
5845
5846 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
5847 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
5848 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
5849 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
5850
5851 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
5852 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
5853
5854 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
5855 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
5856 "fontset-default".
5857
5858 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
5859 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
5860
5861 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
5862 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
5863 buffers and strings.
5864
5865 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
5866 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
5867 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
5868 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
5869 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
5870 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
5871 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
5872 also been deleted.
5873
5874 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
5875 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
5876 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
5877
5878 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
5879 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
5880 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
5881 may differ between buffer and string text.
5882
5883 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
5884 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
5885
5886 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
5887 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
5888 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
5889 `composition' from STRING.
5890
5891 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
5892 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
5893
5894 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
5895 obsolete.
5896
5897 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
5898 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
5899
5900 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
5901 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
5902 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
5903 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
5904
5905 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
5906 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
5907 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
5908 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
5909 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
5910 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
5911
5912 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
5913 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
5914 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
5915
5916 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
5917 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
5918 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
5919
5920 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
5921 have been introduced.
5922
5923 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
5924 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
5925 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
5926 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
5927 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
5928 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
5929 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
5930 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
5931 their multibyte equivalent.
5932
5933 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
5934 that offset in the file before writing.
5935
5936 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
5937 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
5938
5939 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
5940 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
5941 from which the command was issued.
5942
5943 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
5944 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
5945 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
5946 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
5947 operate on.
5948
5949 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
5950 to `window-buffer-height'.
5951
5952 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
5953
5954 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
5955 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
5956 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
5957
5958 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
5959 respectively.
5960
5961 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
5962 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
5963
5964 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
5965 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
5966 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
5967
5968 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
5969 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
5970 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
5971 is currently displayed in some window.
5972
5973 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
5974 argument function's results.
5975
5976 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
5977 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
5978 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
5979 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
5980 sequence).
5981
5982 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
5983 header in the list of headers passed to it.
5984
5985 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
5986 ignores differences in case and text representation.
5987
5988 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
5989 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
5990 as follows:
5991
5992 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
5993 nil don't display a cursor
5994 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
5995 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
5996 others display a box cursor.
5997
5998 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
5999 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
6000 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
6001 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
6002
6003 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
6004 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
6005 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
6006 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
6007
6008 Example:
6009
6010 (string-to-syntax "()")
6011 => (4 . 41)
6012
6013 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
6014 other than 10.
6015
6016 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
6017 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
6018
6019 #b1111
6020 => 15
6021 #b-1111
6022 => -15
6023
6024 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
6025
6026 #o666
6027 => 438
6028
6029 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
6030
6031 #xbeef
6032 => 48815
6033
6034 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
6035
6036 #2R-111
6037 => -7
6038 #25rah
6039 => 267
6040
6041 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
6042 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
6043 and isn't a string.
6044
6045 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
6046 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
6047 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
6048 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
6049
6050 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
6051
6052 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
6053 for a regexp in a string.
6054
6055 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
6056 `mouse-position-function'.
6057
6058 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
6059 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
6060
6061 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
6062 Keywords are now always considered constants.
6063
6064 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
6065 returns it.
6066
6067 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
6068 returned by function `recent-keys'.
6069
6070 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
6071 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
6072 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
6073 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
6074 mode.
6075
6076 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
6077 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
6078
6079 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
6080 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
6081 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
6082 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
6083 been performed."
6084
6085 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
6086 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
6087 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
6088 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
6089
6090 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
6091 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
6092 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
6093
6094 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
6095 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
6096 specified table.
6097
6098 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
6099
6100 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
6101 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
6102 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
6103 what BODY returns.
6104
6105 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
6106 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
6107 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
6108 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
6109 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
6110
6111 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
6112 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
6113
6114 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
6115 instead of being optional.
6116
6117 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
6118 modify read-only text.
6119
6120 ** New functions and variables for locales.
6121
6122 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
6123 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
6124 time functions like strftime. The new variables
6125 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
6126 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
6127
6128 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
6129 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
6130 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
6131 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
6132 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
6133 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
6134 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
6135
6136 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
6137 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
6138 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
6139 start sequences.
6140
6141 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
6142 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
6143
6144 ** New function `propertize'
6145
6146 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
6147 strings with text properties.
6148
6149 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
6150
6151 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
6152 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
6153 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
6154 specified value of that property. Example:
6155
6156 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
6157
6158 ** push and pop macros.
6159
6160 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
6161 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
6162 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
6163
6164 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
6165 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
6166 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
6167
6168 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
6169
6170 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
6171 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
6172
6173 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
6174 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
6175 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
6176 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6177
6178 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
6179 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
6180 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
6181 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
6182
6183 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
6184 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
6185 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
6186 or a sign.
6187
6188 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
6189 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
6190 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
6191 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
6192 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
6193 space, and DEL.
6194 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
6195 and DEL.
6196 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
6197 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6198 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6199 [:alpha:] matches letters.
6200 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6201 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
6202 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
6203 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
6204 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
6205 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
6206 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
6207 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
6208 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
6209 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
6210 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
6211
6212 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
6213
6214 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
6215
6216 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
6217
6218 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
6219 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
6220
6221 :test TEST
6222
6223 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
6224 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
6225 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
6226
6227 :size SIZE
6228
6229 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
6230 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
6231
6232 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
6233
6234 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
6235 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
6236 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
6237 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
6238 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
6239
6240 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
6241
6242 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
6243 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
6244 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
6245
6246 :weakness WEAK
6247
6248 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
6249 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
6250 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
6251 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
6252 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
6253
6254 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
6255
6256 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
6257
6258 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
6259
6260 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
6261
6262 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
6263
6264 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
6265 values are shared.
6266
6267 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
6268
6269 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
6270
6271 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6272
6273 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
6274
6275 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
6276
6277 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
6278
6279 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
6280
6281 Returns the size of TABLE.
6282
6283 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
6284
6285 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
6286
6287 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
6288
6289 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
6290
6291 - Function: clrhash TABLE
6292
6293 Clear TABLE.
6294
6295 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
6296
6297 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
6298 not found.
6299
6300 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
6301
6302 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
6303 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
6304
6305 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
6306
6307 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
6308
6309 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
6310
6311 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
6312 arguments KEY and VALUE.
6313
6314 - Function: sxhash OBJ
6315
6316 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
6317
6318 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
6319
6320 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
6321 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
6322 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
6323 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
6324 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
6325
6326 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
6327
6328 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
6329 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
6330 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
6331
6332 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
6333 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
6334
6335 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
6336 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
6337
6338 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
6339 (sxhash (upcase a)))
6340
6341 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
6342 'case-fold-string-hash))
6343
6344 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
6345
6346 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
6347
6348 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
6349 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
6350 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
6351
6352 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
6353
6354 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
6355 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
6356
6357 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
6358 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
6359 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
6360 is too short to reach that column.
6361
6362 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
6363 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
6364 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
6365 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
6366
6367 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
6368 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
6369 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
6370
6371 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
6372 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
6373
6374 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
6375 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
6376
6377 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
6378 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
6379 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
6380 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
6381 temporary-file-directory instead.
6382
6383 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
6384 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
6385 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
6386 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
6387
6388 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
6389 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
6390
6391 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
6392
6393 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
6394 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
6395 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
6396
6397 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
6398
6399 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
6400 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
6401 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
6402 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
6403 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
6404 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
6405
6406 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
6407 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
6408 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
6409 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
6410
6411 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
6412
6413 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
6414 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
6415 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
6416 result string.
6417
6418 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
6419 string where arguments appear in the result string.
6420
6421 Example:
6422
6423 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
6424 (s2 "world"))
6425 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
6426 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
6427 (format s1 s2))
6428
6429 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
6430
6431 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
6432
6433 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
6434 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
6435 argument in it.
6436
6437 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
6438 (arg "world"))
6439 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
6440 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
6441 (message msg arg))
6442
6443 ** Sound support
6444
6445 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
6446 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
6447
6448 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
6449 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
6450 to enable sound support.
6451
6452 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
6453 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
6454 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
6455 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
6456 sound to play, before playing the sound.
6457
6458 The following sound properties are supported:
6459
6460 - `:file FILE'
6461
6462 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
6463 searched relative to `data-directory'.
6464
6465 - `:data DATA'
6466
6467 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
6468 may be present, but not both.
6469
6470 - `:volume VOLUME'
6471
6472 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
6473 0..1. This property is optional.
6474
6475 - `:device DEVICE'
6476
6477 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
6478 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
6479
6480 Other properties are ignored.
6481
6482 An alternative interface is called as
6483 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
6484
6485 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
6486
6487 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
6488 a keyword symbol.
6489
6490 ** Changes to garbage collection
6491
6492 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
6493 of live and free strings.
6494
6495 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
6496 strings that have been consed so far.
6497
6498 \f
6499 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
6500 Lisp Manual
6501
6502 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
6503 mini-windows.
6504
6505 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
6506 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
6507 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
6508
6509 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
6510
6511 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
6512
6513 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
6514 image.
6515
6516 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
6517
6518 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
6519
6520 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
6521 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
6522 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
6523 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
6524 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
6525
6526 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
6527 has a mask bitmap.
6528
6529 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
6530
6531 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
6532 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
6533 or omitted means use the selected frame.
6534
6535 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
6536 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
6537
6538 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
6539 optional.
6540
6541 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
6542 below).
6543
6544 \f
6545 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
6546
6547 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
6548 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
6549
6550 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
6551 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
6552 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
6553 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
6554 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
6555 just display it black instead.
6556
6557 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
6558 a line like
6559
6560 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
6561
6562 in your `.emacs'.
6563
6564 ** New face implementation.
6565
6566 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
6567 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
6568
6569 *** New faces.
6570
6571 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
6572
6573 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
6574
6575 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
6576 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
6577
6578 3. Font height in 1/10pt
6579
6580 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
6581
6582 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
6583
6584 6. Foreground color.
6585
6586 7. Background color.
6587
6588 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
6589
6590 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
6591
6592 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
6593
6594 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
6595
6596 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
6597 color.
6598
6599 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
6600 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
6601
6602 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
6603 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
6604 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
6605 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
6606 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
6607 attributes mentioned above.
6608
6609 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
6610 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
6611 created frames.
6612
6613 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
6614 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
6615 `fully-specified'.
6616
6617 *** Face merging.
6618
6619 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
6620 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
6621 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
6622 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
6623 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
6624 results in a fully-specified face.
6625
6626 *** Face realization.
6627
6628 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
6629 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
6630 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
6631 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
6632 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
6633 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
6634
6635 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
6636 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
6637 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
6638 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
6639
6640 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
6641 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
6642 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
6643 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
6644 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
6645
6646 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
6647 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
6648 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
6649 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
6650 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
6651 Emacs.
6652
6653 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
6654 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
6655 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
6656 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
6657
6658 **** Clearing face caches.
6659
6660 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
6661 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
6662 unused fonts.
6663
6664 *** Font selection.
6665
6666 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
6667 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
6668 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
6669
6670 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
6671 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
6672 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
6673 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
6674 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
6675
6676 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
6677 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
6678 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
6679
6680 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
6681
6682 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
6683 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
6684 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
6685 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
6686 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
6687 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
6688 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
6689
6690 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6691 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
6692 doesn't exist.
6693
6694 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
6695 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
6696 registry.
6697
6698 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
6699 slightly different.
6700
6701 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
6702
6703
6704 **** Scalable fonts
6705
6706 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
6707 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
6708 servers.
6709
6710 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
6711 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
6712 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
6713 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
6714 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
6715 that list. Example:
6716
6717 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
6718
6719 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
6720
6721 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
6722
6723 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
6724
6725 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
6726 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
6727 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
6728
6729 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
6730 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
6731 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
6732 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
6733 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
6734 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
6735 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
6736 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
6737 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
6738 of the face font sort order.
6739
6740 - Function: x-font-family-list
6741
6742 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
6743 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
6744 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
6745 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
6746
6747 - Variable: font-list-limit
6748
6749 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
6750 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
6751 matching font. The default is currently 100.
6752
6753 *** Setting face attributes.
6754
6755 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
6756 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
6757 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
6758 `face-attribute'.
6759
6760 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
6761 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
6762
6763 The following attributes are recognized:
6764
6765 `:family'
6766
6767 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
6768 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
6769 and `?' are allowed.
6770
6771 `:width'
6772
6773 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
6774 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
6775 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
6776 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
6777
6778 `:height'
6779
6780 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
6781 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
6782 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
6783 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
6784
6785 `:weight'
6786
6787 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
6788 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
6789 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
6790
6791 `:slant'
6792
6793 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
6794 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
6795 `reverse-oblique'.
6796
6797 `:foreground', `:background'
6798
6799 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
6800
6801 `:underline'
6802
6803 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
6804 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
6805 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
6806 don't underline.
6807
6808 `:overline'
6809
6810 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
6811 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
6812 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
6813 overline.
6814
6815 `:strike-through'
6816
6817 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
6818 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
6819 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
6820 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
6821
6822 `:box'
6823
6824 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
6825 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
6826 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
6827 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
6828 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
6829 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
6830 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
6831 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
6832 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
6833 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
6834 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
6835 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
6836 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
6837 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
6838 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
6839 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
6840 box.
6841
6842 `:inverse-video'
6843
6844 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
6845 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
6846
6847 `:stipple'
6848
6849 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
6850 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
6851 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
6852 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
6853 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
6854 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
6855
6856 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
6857 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
6858
6859 `:font'
6860
6861 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
6862 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
6863 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
6864 versions of Emacs.
6865
6866 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
6867 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
6868 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
6869
6870 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
6871 `defface'.
6872
6873 `:inherit'
6874
6875 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
6876 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
6877 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
6878
6879 *** Face attributes and X resources
6880
6881 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
6882 from X resources:
6883
6884 Face attribute X resource class
6885 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
6886 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
6887 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
6888 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
6889 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
6890 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
6891 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
6892 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
6893 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
6894 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
6895 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
6896 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
6897 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
6898 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
6899 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
6900 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
6901 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6902 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
6903 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
6904 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
6905
6906 *** Text property `face'.
6907
6908 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
6909 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
6910 specification can be
6911
6912 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
6913
6914 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
6915 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
6916 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
6917 for face attribute names.
6918
6919 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
6920 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
6921 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
6922
6923 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
6924
6925 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
6926 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
6927 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
6928 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
6929 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
6930 used to clear the mapping table.
6931
6932 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
6933
6934 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
6935 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
6936 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
6937 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
6938 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
6939 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
6940 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
6941 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
6942 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
6943 modify their color-related behavior.
6944
6945 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
6946 any frame type.
6947
6948 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
6949
6950 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
6951 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
6952 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
6953 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
6954 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
6955 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
6956 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
6957 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
6958 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
6959
6960 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
6961 display can display image files.
6962
6963 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
6964
6965 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
6966 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
6967 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
6968 `Inviolable' option.
6969
6970 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
6971 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
6972 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
6973
6974 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
6975
6976 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
6977 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
6978 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
6979
6980 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
6981 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
6982 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
6983 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
6984 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
6985 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
6986 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
6987 functions.
6988
6989 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
6990 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
6991 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
6992
6993 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
6994
6995 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
6996
6997 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
6998
6999 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7000 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
7001 constrained position if that is different.
7002
7003 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
7004 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
7005 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
7006 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
7007 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7008 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
7009 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
7010 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
7011 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
7012
7013 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
7014 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
7015 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
7016 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
7017 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
7018
7019 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
7020 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
7021
7022 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
7023
7024 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
7025
7026 Delete the field surrounding POS.
7027 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7028 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7029
7030 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7031
7032 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
7033 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7034 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7035 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
7036 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
7037
7038 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
7039
7040 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
7041 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7042 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7043 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
7044 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
7045
7046 - Function: field-string &optional POS
7047
7048 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
7049 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7050 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7051
7052 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
7053
7054 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
7055 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
7056 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
7057
7058 ** Image support.
7059
7060 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
7061 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
7062 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
7063 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
7064
7065 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
7066 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
7067 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
7068 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
7069 area.
7070
7071 IMAGE is an image specification.
7072
7073 *** Image specifications
7074
7075 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
7076 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
7077 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
7078 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
7079 described below are ignored.
7080
7081 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
7082
7083 `:ascent ASCENT'
7084
7085 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
7086 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
7087 to use for its ascent.
7088
7089 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
7090 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
7091
7092 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
7093 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
7094 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
7095 overlays that apply to the image.
7096
7097 `:margin MARGIN'
7098
7099 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
7100 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
7101 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
7102
7103 `:relief RELIEF'
7104
7105 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
7106 around an image.
7107
7108 `:conversion ALGO'
7109
7110 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
7111
7112 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
7113 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
7114
7115 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
7116 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
7117 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
7118 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
7119 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
7120 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
7121 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
7122 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
7123 below.
7124
7125 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
7126 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
7127 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
7128
7129 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
7130 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
7131 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
7132 of the factors' absolute values.
7133
7134 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
7135
7136 (1 0 0
7137 0 0 0
7138 9 9 -1)
7139
7140 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
7141
7142 ( 2 -1 0
7143 -1 0 1
7144 0 1 -2)
7145
7146 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
7147 ``disabled''.
7148
7149 `:mask MASK'
7150
7151 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
7152 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
7153 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
7154 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
7155 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
7156 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
7157 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
7158 image.
7159
7160 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
7161 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
7162 `:mask nil'.
7163
7164 `:file FILE'
7165
7166 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
7167 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
7168 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
7169 may be present in the image specification.
7170
7171 `:data DATA'
7172
7173 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
7174 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
7175 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
7176 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
7177
7178 *** Supported image types
7179
7180 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
7181
7182 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
7183 properties supported are:
7184
7185 `:foreground FG'
7186
7187 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7188 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7189
7190 `:background BG'
7191
7192 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7193 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7194
7195 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
7196 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
7197 instead of a `:file' property.
7198
7199 `:width WIDTH'
7200
7201 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
7202
7203 `:height HEIGHT'
7204
7205 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
7206
7207 `:data DATA'
7208
7209 DATA must be either
7210
7211 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
7212 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
7213
7214 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
7215
7216 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
7217 bitmap.
7218
7219 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
7220 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
7221 in the file.
7222
7223 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
7224
7225 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
7226 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
7227 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
7228 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
7229
7230 Additional image properties supported are:
7231
7232 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
7233
7234 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
7235 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
7236 name.
7237
7238 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
7239 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
7240
7241 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
7242 to display compressed images.
7243
7244 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
7245
7246 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
7247 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
7248 mono images are:
7249
7250 `:foreground FG'
7251
7252 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
7253 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
7254
7255 `:background FG'
7256
7257 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
7258 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
7259
7260 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
7261
7262 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
7263 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7264 properties defined.
7265
7266 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
7267
7268 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
7269 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7270 properties defined.
7271
7272 **** GIF, image type `gif'
7273
7274 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
7275 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
7276
7277 Additional image properties supported are:
7278
7279 `:index INDEX'
7280
7281 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
7282 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
7283 as a hollow box.
7284
7285 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
7286 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
7287 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
7288 every 0.1 seconds.
7289
7290 (defun show-anim (file max)
7291 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
7292 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
7293
7294 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
7295 (when (= idx max)
7296 (setq idx 0))
7297 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
7298 (save-excursion
7299 (set-buffer buffer)
7300 (goto-char (point-min))
7301 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
7302 (insert-image img "x"))
7303 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
7304
7305 **** PNG, image type `png'
7306
7307 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
7308 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
7309 properties defined.
7310
7311 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
7312
7313 Additional image properties supported are:
7314
7315 `:pt-width WIDTH'
7316
7317 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
7318 integer. This is a required property.
7319
7320 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
7321
7322 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
7323 must be a integer. This is an required property.
7324
7325 `:bounding-box BOX'
7326
7327 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
7328 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
7329 files. This is an required property.
7330
7331 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
7332 lisp/gs.el.
7333
7334 *** Lisp interface.
7335
7336 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
7337 which are supported in the current configuration.
7338
7339 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
7340 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
7341 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
7342 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
7343 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
7344
7345 *** Simplified image API, image.el
7346
7347 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
7348 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
7349 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
7350 define an image based on available image types. The functions
7351 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
7352 buffer.
7353
7354 ** Display margins.
7355
7356 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
7357 and images.
7358
7359 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
7360 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
7361 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
7362 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
7363 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
7364 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
7365 of the display margins.
7366
7367 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
7368 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
7369 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
7370 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
7371 in this file).
7372
7373 ** Help display
7374
7375 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
7376 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
7377 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
7378 that have a `help-echo' property.
7379
7380 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
7381 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
7382 the window in which the help was found.
7383
7384 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
7385 `help-echo' text property was found.
7386
7387 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
7388 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
7389
7390 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
7391 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
7392 mouse.
7393
7394 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
7395 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
7396
7397 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
7398 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
7399 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
7400 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
7401 used as help string.
7402
7403 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
7404 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
7405 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
7406
7407 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
7408
7409 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
7410 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
7411
7412 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
7413 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
7414 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
7415 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
7416 used.
7417
7418 (global-set-key [A-down]
7419 #'(lambda ()
7420 (interactive)
7421 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7422 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
7423 (global-set-key [A-up]
7424 #'(lambda ()
7425 (interactive)
7426 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
7427 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
7428
7429 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
7430
7431 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
7432 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
7433 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
7434 is called with one argument, POS.
7435
7436 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
7437 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
7438 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
7439 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
7440 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
7441
7442 ** Tool bar support.
7443
7444 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
7445 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
7446 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
7447 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
7448 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
7449 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
7450
7451 *** Tool bar item definitions
7452
7453 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
7454 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
7455 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
7456
7457 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
7458 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
7459 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
7460 property (see below).
7461
7462 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
7463 binding are currently ignored.
7464
7465 The following properties are recognized:
7466
7467 `:enable FORM'.
7468
7469 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
7470 or disabled.
7471
7472 `:visible FORM'
7473
7474 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
7475
7476 `:filter FUNCTION'
7477
7478 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
7479 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
7480 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
7481
7482 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
7483
7484 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
7485 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
7486
7487 `:image IMAGES'
7488
7489 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
7490 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
7491 meaning of each of the four elements:
7492
7493 Index Use when item is
7494 ----------------------------------------
7495 0 enabled and selected
7496 1 enabled and deselected
7497 2 disabled and selected
7498 3 disabled and deselected
7499
7500 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
7501 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
7502
7503 `:help HELP-STRING'.
7504
7505 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
7506 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
7507
7508 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
7509 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
7510 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
7511 menu bar.
7512
7513 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
7514 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
7515 buffer-locally to override the global map.
7516
7517 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
7518
7519 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
7520 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
7521 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
7522
7523 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
7524 raised when the mouse moves over them.
7525
7526 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
7527 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
7528 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
7529 vertical margins . Default is 1.
7530
7531 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
7532 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
7533
7534 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
7535
7536 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
7537 a tool bar item. If
7538
7539 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
7540 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
7541 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
7542
7543 is the original tool bar item definition, then
7544
7545 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
7546
7547 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
7548 item.
7549
7550 ** Mode line changes.
7551
7552 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
7553
7554 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
7555 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
7556 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
7557
7558 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
7559 a `local-map' text property.
7560
7561 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
7562 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
7563
7564 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
7565 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
7566 `local-map' property.
7567
7568 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
7569 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
7570 example.
7571
7572 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
7573 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
7574
7575 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
7576 variable mode-line-format to nil.
7577
7578 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
7579
7580 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
7581 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
7582 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
7583 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
7584 line.
7585
7586 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
7587 `header-line'.
7588
7589 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
7590 position in the header-line.
7591
7592 ** Text property `display'
7593
7594 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
7595 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
7596 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
7597 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
7598 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
7599
7600 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
7601
7602 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
7603 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
7604
7605 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
7606 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
7607 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
7608 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7609 simpler form STRING as property value.
7610
7611 *** Variable width and height spaces
7612
7613 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
7614 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
7615 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
7616 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
7617 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
7618 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
7619 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
7620
7621 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
7622 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
7623 properties described below.
7624
7625 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
7626 characters having the `display' property.
7627
7628 - :width WIDTH
7629
7630 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
7631 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
7632
7633 - :relative-width FACTOR
7634
7635 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
7636 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
7637 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
7638 width of that character by FACTOR.
7639
7640 - :align-to HPOS
7641
7642 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
7643 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
7644
7645 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
7646
7647 - :height HEIGHT
7648
7649 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
7650 normal line height.
7651
7652 - :relative-height FACTOR
7653
7654 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
7655 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
7656
7657 - :ascent ASCENT
7658
7659 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
7660 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
7661 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
7662 equal to 100.
7663
7664 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
7665
7666 *** Images
7667
7668 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
7669 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
7670 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
7671 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
7672 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
7673 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
7674 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
7675 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
7676 as display specification.
7677
7678 *** Other display properties
7679
7680 - (space-width FACTOR)
7681
7682 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
7683 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
7684 integer or float.
7685
7686 - (height HEIGHT)
7687
7688 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
7689
7690 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
7691 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
7692 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
7693 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
7694 a font is available counts as a step.
7695
7696 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
7697 as tall as the frame's default font.
7698
7699 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
7700 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
7701
7702 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
7703 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
7704
7705 - (raise FACTOR)
7706
7707 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
7708 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
7709 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
7710 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
7711 `height' subproperty.
7712
7713 *** Conditional display properties
7714
7715 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
7716 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
7717 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
7718 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
7719 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
7720 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
7721 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
7722 different when object is a string.
7723
7724 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
7725 `(when t . SPEC)'.
7726
7727 ** New menu separator types.
7728
7729 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
7730 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
7731 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
7732 to specify other menu separator types.
7733
7734 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
7735
7736 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
7737 separator occurs.
7738
7739 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
7740
7741 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
7742
7743 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
7744
7745 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
7746
7747 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
7748
7749 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7750
7751 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
7752
7753 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
7754
7755 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
7756
7757 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
7758 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
7759
7760 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
7761
7762 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
7763
7764 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
7765
7766 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
7767
7768 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
7769
7770 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
7771
7772 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
7773
7774 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7775
7776 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
7777
7778 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
7779
7780 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
7781
7782 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
7783
7784 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
7785
7786 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
7787
7788 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
7789 the corresponding single-line separators.
7790
7791 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
7792
7793 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
7794 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
7795 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
7796 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
7797 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
7798 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
7799 default foreground is black.
7800
7801 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
7802 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
7803 `ScrollBarBackground').
7804
7805 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
7806 settings for scroll bar colors.
7807
7808 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
7809 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
7810
7811 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
7812 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
7813 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
7814 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
7815 the original window start.
7816
7817 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
7818 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
7819 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
7820
7821 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
7822
7823 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
7824 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
7825 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
7826 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
7827
7828 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
7829 fixed-width and fixed-height.
7830
7831 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
7832
7833 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
7834 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
7835 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
7836 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
7837 temporarily to nil, for example
7838
7839 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
7840 (enlarge-window 10))
7841
7842 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
7843 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
7844
7845 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
7846 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
7847 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
7848 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
7849 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
7850 support a vertical-bar cursor).
7851
7852
7853 \f
7854 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
7855
7856 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
7857 input.
7858
7859 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
7860
7861 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
7862
7863 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
7864 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
7865 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
7866 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
7867 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
7868
7869 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
7870 been added.
7871
7872 \f
7873 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
7874
7875 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
7876
7877
7878 \f
7879 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7880
7881 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
7882 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
7883 \f
7884 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
7885
7886 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
7887
7888 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
7889 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
7890 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
7891
7892 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
7893 is the one that is used.
7894
7895 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
7896 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
7897 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
7898 separate from the command's regular output.
7899 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
7900 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
7901 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
7902 the buffer name.
7903
7904 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
7905 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
7906 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
7907 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
7908
7909 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
7910 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
7911 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
7912 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
7913
7914 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
7915 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
7916 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
7917 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
7918
7919 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
7920 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
7921 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
7922 they never ignore case.
7923
7924 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
7925 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
7926 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
7927 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
7928 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
7929 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
7930 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
7931
7932 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
7933 the same format that was used in the file before.
7934
7935 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
7936 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
7937
7938 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
7939 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
7940 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
7941
7942 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
7943 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
7944 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
7945 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
7946 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
7947 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
7948 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
7949
7950 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
7951 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
7952 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
7953 format. You can now customize these variables.
7954
7955 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
7956 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
7957 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
7958 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
7959
7960 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
7961 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
7962 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
7963
7964 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
7965 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
7966 doesn't have any effect.
7967
7968 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
7969 not one per buffer.
7970
7971 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
7972 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
7973 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
7974
7975 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
7976 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
7977 `auto-show-mode' command.
7978
7979 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
7980 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
7981 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
7982 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
7983 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
7984
7985 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
7986 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
7987
7988 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
7989 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
7990 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
7991
7992 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
7993 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
7994 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
7995 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
7996
7997 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
7998
7999 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
8000 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
8001 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
8002 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
8003 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
8004
8005 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
8006 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
8007
8008 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
8009 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
8010 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
8011 `?' on other systems.
8012
8013 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
8014 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
8015 Unix.
8016
8017 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
8018 current codepage when it starts.
8019
8020 ** Mail changes
8021
8022 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
8023 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
8024 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
8025 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
8026 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
8027 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
8028 latin-1:
8029
8030 MIME-version: 1.0
8031 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
8032 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
8033
8034 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
8035 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
8036 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
8037 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
8038 buffer-file-coding-system.
8039
8040 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
8041 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
8042 mail.
8043
8044 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
8045 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
8046 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
8047 list of possible coding systems.
8048
8049 ** CC Mode changes
8050
8051 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
8052 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
8053 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
8054 docstring for details.
8055
8056 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
8057 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
8058 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
8059 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
8060 lineup functions use this feature currently.
8061
8062 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
8063 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
8064
8065 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
8066 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
8067
8068 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
8069 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
8070 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
8071 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
8072 anonymous classes.
8073
8074 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
8075 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
8076
8077 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
8078 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
8079 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
8080 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
8081
8082 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
8083 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
8084 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
8085 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
8086 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
8087
8088 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
8089
8090 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
8091
8092 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
8093 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
8094
8095 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
8096
8097 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
8098 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
8099 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
8100 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
8101 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
8102
8103 ** Gnus changes.
8104
8105 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
8106 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
8107 Gnus manual for the full story.
8108
8109 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
8110 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
8111 group, which is created automatically.
8112
8113 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
8114 values.
8115
8116 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
8117
8118 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
8119 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
8120
8121 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
8122 `C-u C-c C-c'.
8123
8124 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
8125
8126 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
8127 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
8128
8129 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
8130
8131 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
8132 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
8133
8134 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
8135 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
8136
8137 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
8138 control over simplification.
8139
8140 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
8141
8142 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
8143 limit.
8144
8145 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
8146
8147 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
8148
8149 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
8150 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
8151 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
8152
8153 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
8154 `a' forces normal posting method.
8155
8156 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
8157 -- `W d'.
8158
8159 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
8160 to a non-nil value.
8161
8162 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
8163 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
8164
8165 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
8166 has been added.
8167
8168 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
8169
8170 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
8171
8172 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
8173 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
8174
8175 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
8176 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
8177
8178 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
8179
8180 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
8181 been added.
8182
8183 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
8184 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
8185
8186 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
8187 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
8188
8189 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
8190
8191 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
8192
8193 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
8194
8195 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
8196
8197 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
8198 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
8199 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
8200
8201 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
8202 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
8203 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
8204 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
8205 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
8206
8207 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
8208 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
8209 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
8210 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
8211
8212 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
8213 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
8214 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
8215 mismatch.
8216
8217 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
8218
8219 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
8220 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
8221
8222 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
8223 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
8224 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
8225 removed from the label.
8226
8227 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
8228 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
8229
8230 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
8231 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
8232
8233 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
8234 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
8235 expressions.
8236
8237 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
8238
8239 ** New/deleted modes and packages
8240
8241 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
8242 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
8243
8244 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
8245 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
8246 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
8247
8248 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
8249 changes with a special face.
8250
8251 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
8252 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
8253 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
8254 \f
8255 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
8256
8257 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
8258 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
8259 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
8260 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
8261 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
8262
8263 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
8264 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
8265 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
8266
8267 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
8268 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
8269 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
8270 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
8271 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
8272 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
8273 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
8274 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
8275 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
8276
8277 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
8278 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
8279 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
8280 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
8281 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
8282 program.
8283
8284 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
8285 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
8286 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
8287 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
8288 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
8289 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
8290
8291 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
8292 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
8293 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
8294 was not documented clearly before.
8295
8296 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
8297 This includes Tetris and Snake.
8298 \f
8299 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
8300
8301 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
8302 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
8303 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
8304 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
8305
8306 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
8307 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
8308 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
8309
8310 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
8311
8312 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
8313 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
8314
8315 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8316 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
8317 integers.
8318
8319 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
8320 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
8321 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
8322 file names and attributes are returned.
8323
8324 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
8325 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
8326 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
8327 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
8328 returns the result.
8329
8330 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
8331 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
8332
8333 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
8334
8335 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
8336 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
8337 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
8338 optionally.
8339
8340 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
8341 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
8342
8343 **
8344 The new function process-running-child-p
8345 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
8346 terminal to its own child process.
8347
8348 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
8349 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
8350 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
8351 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
8352
8353 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
8354 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
8355
8356 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
8357 :included is an alias for :visible.
8358
8359 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
8360 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
8361 to move or copy menu entries.
8362
8363 ** Multibyte editing changes
8364
8365 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
8366 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
8367 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
8368 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
8369 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
8370 (setq char (sref str idx)
8371 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
8372 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
8373
8374 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
8375 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
8376 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
8377
8378 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
8379 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
8380 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
8381
8382 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
8383
8384 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
8385 across the boundary.
8386
8387 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
8388 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
8389 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
8390 contains 8-bit characters.
8391 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
8392 contains invalid characters.
8393
8394 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
8395 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
8396 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
8397 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
8398 way.
8399
8400 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
8401 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
8402 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
8403 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
8404
8405 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
8406 compose Thai characters in a string.
8407
8408 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
8409 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
8410 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
8411 menus should always use the third argument.
8412
8413 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
8414 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
8415 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
8416 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
8417
8418 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
8419 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
8420 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
8421 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
8422
8423 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
8424 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
8425 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
8426 echo area contents.
8427
8428 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
8429
8430 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
8431 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
8432 requested feature cannot be loaded.
8433
8434 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
8435 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
8436 means to clear out that attribute.
8437
8438 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
8439 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
8440
8441 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
8442 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
8443 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
8444 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
8445
8446 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
8447 the gap of the current buffer.
8448
8449 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
8450 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
8451 current buffer.
8452
8453 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
8454 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
8455 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
8456 it back in after any modifications have been made.
8457 \f
8458 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
8459
8460 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
8461 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
8462 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
8463 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
8464 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
8465
8466 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
8467 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
8468 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
8469 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
8470 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
8471
8472 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
8473 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
8474 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
8475
8476 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
8477 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
8478 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
8479 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
8480 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
8481 results.
8482
8483 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
8484 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
8485 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
8486 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
8487 \f
8488 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
8489
8490 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
8491 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
8492 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
8493 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
8494
8495 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
8496 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
8497 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
8498 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
8499 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
8500 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
8501 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
8502 region.
8503
8504 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
8505 selective undo.
8506
8507 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
8508 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
8509 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
8510 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
8511 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
8512
8513 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
8514 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
8515 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
8516 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
8517
8518 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
8519 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
8520 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
8521 something that most users not do.
8522
8523 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
8524 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
8525 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
8526 applications.
8527
8528 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
8529 pasting operations.
8530
8531 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
8532 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
8533 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
8534 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
8535 `ps-printer-name'.
8536
8537 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
8538 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
8539 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
8540 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
8541 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
8542 hits a new word.
8543
8544 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
8545 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
8546 to be confused by TeX commands.
8547
8548 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
8549 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
8550 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
8551 of various alternative replacements and actions.
8552
8553 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
8554 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
8555 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
8556 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
8557 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
8558
8559 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
8560 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
8561
8562 ** Changes in input method usage.
8563
8564 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
8565 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
8566 respectively.
8567
8568 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
8569
8570 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
8571 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
8572
8573 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
8574 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
8575
8576 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
8577
8578 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
8579
8580 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
8581 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
8582
8583 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
8584 given in the following case:
8585 o When you are using a complex input method.
8586 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
8587
8588 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
8589 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
8590 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
8591 setting it to t is helpful.
8592
8593 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
8594
8595 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
8596 keys:
8597 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
8598 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
8599 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
8600 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
8601 environment.
8602
8603 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
8604 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
8605 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
8606 get
8607
8608 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
8609
8610 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
8611
8612 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
8613 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
8614
8615 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
8616 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
8617 its owner and group.
8618
8619 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
8620 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
8621
8622 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
8623 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
8624
8625 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
8626 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
8627 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
8628 by the left edge of the rectangle.
8629
8630 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
8631 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
8632 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
8633 for writing keyboard macros.
8634
8635 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
8636 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
8637 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
8638 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
8639 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
8640 info.
8641
8642 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
8643
8644 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
8645 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
8646 contents only.
8647
8648 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
8649 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
8650 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
8651 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
8652
8653 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
8654 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
8655 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
8656
8657 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
8658 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
8659 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
8660 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
8661
8662 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
8663 failure if the command produces no output.
8664
8665 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
8666 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
8667 the mouse.
8668
8669 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
8670 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
8671 function and variable names.
8672
8673 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
8674 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
8675 file-coding-system-alist.
8676
8677 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
8678 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
8679 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
8680 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
8681 according to the current fontset.
8682
8683 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
8684
8685 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
8686 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
8687 nonascii-insert-offset.
8688
8689 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
8690 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
8691 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
8692 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
8693
8694 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
8695 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
8696
8697 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
8698 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
8699
8700 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
8701 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
8702 command keys.
8703
8704 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
8705 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
8706
8707 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
8708 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
8709 all variables that have documentation.
8710
8711 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
8712 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
8713 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
8714 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
8715 it should show; the default is 20.
8716
8717 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
8718 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
8719 of your input.
8720
8721 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
8722 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
8723 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
8724 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
8725 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
8726 Newly added options are included as well.
8727
8728 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
8729 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
8730 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
8731
8732 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
8733 Customize menu.
8734
8735 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
8736 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
8737
8738 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
8739 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
8740 invoked.
8741
8742 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
8743 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
8744 The default is 1.
8745
8746 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
8747 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
8748 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
8749 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
8750 sensibly.
8751
8752 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
8753
8754 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
8755 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
8756 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
8757
8758 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
8759 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
8760 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
8761 every night.
8762
8763 ** Desktop changes
8764
8765 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
8766 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
8767
8768 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
8769 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
8770
8771 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
8772 read and post multi-lingual articles.
8773
8774 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
8775 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
8776 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
8777 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
8778 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
8779 made invisible again.
8780
8781 ** Mail reading and sending changes
8782
8783 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
8784 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
8785 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
8786 toggle.
8787
8788 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
8789 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
8790 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
8791 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
8792 rmail-default-body-file.
8793
8794 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
8795 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
8796 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
8797
8798 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
8799 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
8800 is evaluated to insert the signature.
8801
8802 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
8803 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
8804 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
8805 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
8806 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
8807 especially interested in trying feedmail.
8808
8809 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
8810 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
8811 provided by feedmail are:
8812
8813 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
8814 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
8815 there is also a queue for draft messages
8816
8817 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
8818 be prompted for confirmation
8819
8820 **** does smart filling of address headers
8821
8822 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
8823 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
8824 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
8825
8826 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
8827 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
8828 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
8829 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
8830
8831 ** Dired changes
8832
8833 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
8834 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
8835
8836 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
8837 run Dired on the directory name at point.
8838
8839 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
8840 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
8841 for a specified regexp.
8842
8843 ** VC Changes
8844
8845 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
8846 conveniently.
8847
8848 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
8849 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
8850 Dired.
8851
8852 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
8853 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
8854 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
8855 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
8856
8857 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
8858 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
8859 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
8860 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
8861 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
8862
8863 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
8864 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
8865 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
8866 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
8867 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
8868
8869 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
8870 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
8871 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
8872 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
8873
8874 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
8875 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
8876 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
8877
8878 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
8879 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
8880 session to resolve them.
8881
8882 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
8883 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
8884 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
8885 uses as well).
8886
8887 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
8888 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
8889 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
8890 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
8891 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
8892 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
8893 using ediff.
8894
8895 ** Changes in Font Lock
8896
8897 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
8898 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
8899 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
8900 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
8901 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
8902
8903 ** Frame name display changes
8904
8905 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
8906 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
8907 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
8908 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
8909
8910 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
8911 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
8912 menu.
8913
8914 ** Comint (subshell) changes
8915
8916 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
8917 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
8918 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
8919
8920 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
8921
8922 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
8923 that is, the line after the last line you got.
8924 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
8925
8926 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
8927 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
8928 the following line.
8929
8930 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
8931 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
8932 previously sent input.
8933
8934 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
8935 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
8936 as the search string.
8937
8938 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
8939 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
8940
8941 ** C mode changes
8942
8943 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
8944 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
8945 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
8946 definition.
8947
8948 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
8949 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
8950 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
8951 style is still the default however.
8952
8953 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
8954
8955 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
8956 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
8957 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
8958
8959 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
8960 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
8961
8962 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
8963 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
8964
8965 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
8966 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
8967
8968 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
8969 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
8970
8971 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
8972 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
8973 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
8974 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
8975
8976 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
8977
8978 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
8979 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
8980 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
8981
8982 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
8983 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
8984 expanding dynamically.
8985
8986 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
8987 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
8988
8989 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
8990 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
8991 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
8992 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
8993
8994 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
8995
8996 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8997
8998 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
8999 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
9000 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
9001 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
9002 against the first word in the title.
9003
9004 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
9005 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
9006 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
9007 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
9008 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
9009 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
9010
9011 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
9012 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
9013 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
9014 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
9015
9016 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
9017
9018 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
9019 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
9020 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
9021 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
9022 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
9023 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
9024
9025 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
9026 Editing group once the package is loaded.
9027
9028 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
9029 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
9030 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
9031
9032 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
9033 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
9034
9035 ** Ispell changes.
9036
9037 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
9038 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
9039 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
9040
9041 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
9042 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
9043 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
9044 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
9045 include:
9046
9047 o URLs are automatically skipped
9048 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
9049
9050 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
9051
9052 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
9053
9054 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
9055 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
9056 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
9057 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
9058
9059 *** New recursive parser.
9060
9061 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
9062 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
9063 recursive parser scans the individual files.
9064
9065 *** Parsing only part of a document.
9066
9067 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
9068 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
9069 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
9070
9071 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
9072
9073 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
9074
9075 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
9076
9077 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
9078
9079 *** Using multiple selection buffers
9080
9081 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
9082 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
9083
9084 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
9085
9086 *** References to external documents.
9087
9088 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
9089 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
9090 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
9091 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
9092 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
9093 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
9094 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
9095
9096 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
9097
9098 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
9099 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
9100
9101 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
9102 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
9103
9104 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
9105
9106 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
9107 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
9108
9109 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
9110
9111 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
9112 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
9113 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
9114 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
9115 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
9116 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
9117 more.
9118
9119 *** Support for the varioref package
9120
9121 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
9122
9123 *** New hooks
9124
9125 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
9126 and citations are created. These hooks are
9127 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
9128 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
9129
9130 *** Citations outside LaTeX
9131
9132 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
9133 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
9134
9135 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
9136
9137 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
9138 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
9139 fontified, use
9140
9141 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
9142
9143 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
9144 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
9145 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
9146 directories that contain the same file name.
9147
9148 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
9149 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
9150 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
9151 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
9152 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
9153 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
9154 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
9155 directory.
9156
9157 ** New modes and packages
9158
9159 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
9160 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
9161 it, but some do not.
9162
9163 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
9164 code.
9165
9166 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
9167 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
9168 around in a buffer.
9169
9170 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
9171
9172 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
9173 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
9174 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
9175 established system of notation similar to Chess.
9176
9177 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
9178 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
9179 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
9180
9181 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
9182 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
9183 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
9184 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
9185 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
9186 the like.
9187
9188 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
9189 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
9190
9191 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
9192 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
9193 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
9194 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
9195
9196 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
9197
9198 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
9199 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
9200 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
9201 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
9202 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
9203 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
9204 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
9205 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
9206 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
9207 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
9208 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
9209
9210 Platform-specific modes:
9211
9212 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
9213 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
9214 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
9215 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
9216 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
9217 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
9218 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
9219 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
9220 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
9221 \f
9222 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9223
9224 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
9225 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
9226 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
9227 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
9228
9229 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
9230 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
9231 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
9232
9233 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
9234 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
9235 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
9236 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
9237
9238 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
9239 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
9240 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
9241 environment.
9242
9243 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
9244 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
9245 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
9246 current input method for reading this one event.
9247
9248 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
9249 now control whether to output certain characters as
9250 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
9251 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
9252 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
9253 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
9254 \f
9255 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
9256
9257 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
9258 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
9259
9260 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
9261 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
9262 always increases point by 1.
9263
9264 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
9265 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
9266
9267 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
9268
9269 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
9270 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
9271 default value changed. For example,
9272
9273 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
9274 :type 'integer
9275 :group 'foo
9276 :version "20.3")
9277
9278 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
9279 :version "20.3")
9280
9281 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
9282 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
9283 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
9284 `:version' in the top level group.
9285
9286 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
9287
9288 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
9289 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
9290
9291 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
9292 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
9293 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
9294 to themselves.
9295
9296 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
9297 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
9298 values whatever.
9299
9300 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
9301 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
9302 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
9303
9304 ** Frame-local variables.
9305
9306 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
9307 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
9308 local bindings for that variable.
9309
9310 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
9311 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
9312 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
9313 parameter name.
9314
9315 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
9316 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
9317 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
9318 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
9319
9320 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
9321 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
9322 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
9323 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
9324
9325 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
9326 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
9327 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
9328 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
9329 See the documentation in sregex.el.
9330
9331 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
9332 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
9333 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
9334 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
9335
9336 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
9337 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
9338
9339 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
9340 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
9341 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
9342
9343 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
9344 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
9345 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
9346 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
9347
9348 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
9349 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
9350 empty input.
9351
9352 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
9353 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
9354 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
9355 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
9356 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
9357
9358 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
9359 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
9360 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
9361 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
9362
9363 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
9364 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
9365 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
9366 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
9367 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
9368
9369 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
9370 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
9371 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
9372 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
9373
9374 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
9375 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
9376 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
9377
9378 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
9379 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
9380 was directed to display this buffer.
9381
9382 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
9383 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
9384 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
9385 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
9386 set-window-configuration.
9387
9388 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
9389 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
9390 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
9391 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
9392
9393 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
9394 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
9395 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
9396
9397 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
9398 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
9399 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
9400
9401 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
9402 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
9403
9404 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
9405 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
9406
9407 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
9408 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
9409 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
9410
9411 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
9412 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
9413 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
9414 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
9415
9416 ** Menu changes
9417
9418 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
9419 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
9420 better supported.
9421
9422 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
9423 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
9424 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
9425 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
9426 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
9427
9428 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
9429
9430 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
9431 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
9432 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
9433 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
9434
9435 The format is:
9436 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
9437 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
9438 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
9439 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
9440 The supported properties include
9441
9442 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9443 item is enabled.
9444 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
9445 item should appear in the menu.
9446 :filter FILTER-FN
9447 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
9448 which will be REAL-BINDING.
9449 It should return a binding to use instead.
9450 :keys DESCRIPTION
9451 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
9452 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
9453 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
9454 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
9455 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
9456 keyboard binding.
9457 :key-sequence nil
9458 This means that the command normally has no
9459 keyboard equivalent.
9460 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
9461 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
9462 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
9463 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
9464 value says whether this button is currently selected.
9465
9466 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
9467 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
9468
9469 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
9470
9471 ** New event types
9472
9473 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
9474 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
9475 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
9476 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
9477
9478 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
9479
9480 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9481 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
9482 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
9483 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
9484 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
9485 forward, away from the user.
9486
9487 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9488
9489 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
9490 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
9491 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
9492 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
9493 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
9494
9495 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
9496
9497 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
9498 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
9499 that were dragged and dropped.
9500
9501 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
9502
9503 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
9504
9505 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
9506 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
9507 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
9508
9509 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
9510 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
9511 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
9512
9513 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
9514 in Emacs 19 and before.
9515
9516 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
9517 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
9518
9519 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
9520 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
9521 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
9522 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
9523
9524 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
9525 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
9526 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
9527 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
9528 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
9529
9530 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
9531 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
9532 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
9533 consistent with the new representation.
9534
9535 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
9536 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
9537 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
9538 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9539
9540 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
9541 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
9542 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
9543
9544 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
9545 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
9546 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
9547
9548 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
9549 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
9550 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
9551
9552 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9553 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
9554
9555 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
9556 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
9557
9558 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
9559 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
9560 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
9561 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
9562
9563 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
9564 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
9565
9566 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
9567 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
9568 buffer or string being searched.
9569
9570 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
9571 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
9572 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
9573 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
9574 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
9575 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
9576 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
9577
9578 *** Structure of coding system changed.
9579
9580 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
9581 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
9582 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
9583 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
9584 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
9585 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
9586 define-coding-system-alias.
9587
9588 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
9589 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
9590 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
9591 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
9592 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
9593 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
9594 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
9595 `iso-8859-1'.
9596
9597 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
9598 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
9599 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
9600 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
9601
9602 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
9603 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
9604 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
9605 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
9606
9607 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
9608 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
9609 This function requires a user interaction.
9610
9611 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
9612 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
9613 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
9614 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
9615 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
9616 select-safe-coding-system.
9617
9618 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
9619 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
9620 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
9621 was done.
9622
9623 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
9624 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
9625 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
9626
9627 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
9628 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
9629 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
9630 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
9631
9632 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
9633 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
9634 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
9635 converted.
9636
9637 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
9638 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
9639
9640 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
9641 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
9642 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
9643 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
9644 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
9645 range of characters.
9646
9647 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
9648 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
9649
9650 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
9651 in the current buffer at position POS.
9652
9653 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
9654 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
9655 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
9656 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
9657 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
9658 binding input-method-function to nil.
9659
9660 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
9661 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
9662 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
9663 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
9664 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
9665
9666 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
9667 subsequent events of a key sequence.
9668
9669 *** You can customize any language environment by using
9670 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
9671
9672 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
9673 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
9674 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
9675 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
9676 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
9677 \f
9678 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
9679
9680 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
9681 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
9682 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
9683 tree structure.
9684
9685 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
9686 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
9687
9688 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
9689 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
9690 in your .emacs file.)
9691
9692 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
9693 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
9694
9695 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
9696 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
9697
9698 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
9699 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
9700 kills the region.
9701
9702 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
9703 delete the character before point, as usual.
9704
9705 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
9706 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
9707 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
9708
9709 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
9710 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
9711 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
9712 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
9713 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
9714 past.)
9715
9716 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
9717 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
9718 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
9719 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
9720 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
9721
9722 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
9723 and is an alias for it.
9724
9725 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
9726 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
9727
9728 ** Scrolling changes
9729
9730 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
9731 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
9732
9733 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
9734 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
9735 where it started.
9736
9737 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
9738 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
9739 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
9740 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
9741
9742 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
9743 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
9744 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
9745 recenters the window.
9746
9747 ** International character set support (MULE)
9748
9749 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
9750 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
9751 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
9752 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
9753 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
9754 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
9755
9756 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
9757 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
9758 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
9759 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
9760 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
9761
9762 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
9763 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
9764 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
9765 language, to make it possible to type them.
9766
9767 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
9768 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
9769
9770 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
9771 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
9772
9773 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
9774
9775 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
9776
9777 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
9778 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
9779 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
9780 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
9781 characters for their work until they want to change.
9782
9783 *** Input methods
9784
9785 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
9786 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
9787 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
9788 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
9789 support several input methods.
9790
9791 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
9792 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
9793 work.
9794
9795 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
9796 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
9797 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
9798 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
9799 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
9800 letter.
9801
9802 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
9803 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
9804 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
9805 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
9806 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
9807
9808 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
9809 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
9810 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
9811 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
9812
9813 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
9814 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
9815 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
9816 the first guess is wrong.
9817
9818 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
9819 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
9820
9821 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
9822 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
9823 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
9824 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
9825
9826 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
9827 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
9828 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
9829 translate automatically to and from either one.
9830
9831 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
9832
9833 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
9834 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
9835 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
9836 what you want.
9837
9838 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
9839 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
9840 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
9841 multibyte characters in that buffer.
9842
9843 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
9844 character conversion as well.
9845
9846 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
9847
9848 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
9849 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
9850 requires using many fonts.
9851
9852 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
9853 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
9854
9855 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
9856 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
9857 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
9858 you would use a font.
9859
9860 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
9861 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
9862 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
9863
9864 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
9865 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
9866 characters).
9867
9868 *** Defining fontsets.
9869
9870 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
9871 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
9872 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
9873
9874 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
9875 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
9876 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
9877 standard fontset are created automatically.
9878
9879 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
9880 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
9881 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
9882 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
9883 name is `fontset-startup'.
9884
9885 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
9886 The resource value should have this form:
9887 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
9888 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
9889 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
9890 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
9891 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
9892 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
9893 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
9894 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
9895 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
9896
9897 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
9898 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
9899 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
9900
9901 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
9902 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
9903 following resource,
9904 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
9905 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
9906 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
9907 Here is the substitution rule:
9908 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
9909 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
9910 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
9911 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
9912 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
9913
9914 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
9915 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
9916 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
9917
9918 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
9919 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
9920 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
9921 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
9922 fontsets.
9923
9924 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
9925 defaults for a particular choice of language.
9926
9927 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
9928 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
9929 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
9930 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
9931 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
9932 system for new files that you create.
9933
9934 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
9935 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
9936 whole Emacs session.
9937
9938 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
9939 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
9940 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
9941
9942 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
9943 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
9944 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
9945 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
9946 coding systems that Emacs supports.
9947
9948 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
9949 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
9950 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
9951 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
9952 is used for *the immediately following command*.
9953
9954 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
9955 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
9956
9957 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
9958 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
9959
9960 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
9961 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
9962
9963 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
9964 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
9965 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
9966 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
9967 of the file.
9968
9969 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
9970 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
9971 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
9972 translated into that character code.
9973
9974 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
9975 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
9976
9977 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
9978
9979 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
9980 the coding system for keyboard input.
9981
9982 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
9983 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
9984 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
9985
9986 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
9987
9988 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
9989 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
9990 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
9991 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
9992 designed to work with terminals.
9993
9994 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
9995 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
9996 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
9997 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
9998 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
9999 in the corresponding buffer.
10000
10001 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
10002
10003 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
10004 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
10005 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
10006
10007 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
10008 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
10009 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
10010 want to use.
10011
10012 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
10013 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
10014
10015 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
10016 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
10017 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
10018 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
10019
10020 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
10021 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
10022 related information.
10023
10024 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
10025 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
10026 scripts.
10027
10028 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
10029 information about the support for a particular language.
10030 You specify the language as an argument.
10031
10032 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
10033 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
10034 first dash.
10035
10036 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
10037 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
10038 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
10039 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
10040
10041 A alternativnyj (Russian)
10042 B big5 (Chinese)
10043 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
10044 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
10045 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
10046 E euc-japan (Japanese)
10047 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10048 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
10049 K euc-korea (Korean)
10050 R koi8 (Russian)
10051 Q tibetan
10052 S shift_jis (Japanese)
10053 T lao
10054 T tis620 (Thai)
10055 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
10056 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
10057 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
10058 v viqr (Vietnamese)
10059 z hz (Chinese)
10060
10061 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
10062 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
10063 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
10064 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
10065
10066 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
10067 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
10068
10069 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
10070 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
10071 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
10072 Rmail files themselves.
10073
10074 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
10075 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
10076
10077 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
10078 for sending mail:
10079
10080 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
10081 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
10082 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
10083 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
10084 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
10085
10086 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
10087 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
10088 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
10089 translations.
10090
10091 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
10092 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
10093 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
10094 without any conversion.
10095
10096 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
10097 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
10098 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
10099 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
10100
10101 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
10102 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
10103
10104 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
10105 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
10106
10107 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
10108 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
10109
10110 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
10111 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
10112 in the buffer before point.
10113
10114 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
10115 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
10116 you are using.
10117
10118 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
10119 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
10120
10121 ** File locking works with NFS now.
10122
10123 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
10124 in the same directory as FILENAME.
10125
10126 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
10127 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
10128 can become a bottleneck.
10129
10130 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
10131 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
10132 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
10133 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
10134 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
10135 so useful that the change is worth while.
10136
10137 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
10138 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
10139 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
10140 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
10141
10142 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
10143 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
10144 show-paren-mode.
10145
10146 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
10147 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
10148 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
10149
10150 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
10151 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
10152 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
10153
10154 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
10155 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
10156 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
10157
10158 ** Changes in View mode.
10159
10160 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
10161 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
10162
10163 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
10164 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
10165
10166 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
10167 previous state.
10168
10169 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
10170 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
10171
10172 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
10173 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
10174 not just the selected window.
10175
10176 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
10177 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
10178 turns View mode on or off.
10179
10180 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
10181 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
10182 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
10183
10184 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
10185 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
10186
10187 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
10188 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
10189 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
10190 which version to compare with.
10191
10192 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
10193 blocks if a match is inside the block.
10194
10195 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
10196 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
10197 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
10198 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
10199
10200 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
10201 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
10202 blocks, all of them or none.
10203
10204 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
10205 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
10206 confirmation first.
10207
10208 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
10209 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
10210 However, the mode will not be changed if
10211 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
10212 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
10213 not suitable for ordinary files, or
10214 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
10215
10216 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
10217
10218 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
10219 these commands do not change the major mode.
10220
10221 ** M-x occur changes.
10222
10223 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
10224 it performs a case-sensitive search.
10225
10226 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
10227 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
10228 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
10229
10230 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
10231 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
10232 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
10233 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
10234 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
10235
10236 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
10237 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
10238 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
10239 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
10240
10241 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
10242 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
10243 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
10244
10245 ** Outline mode changes.
10246
10247 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
10248
10249 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
10250
10251 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
10252 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
10253 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
10254 was already active.
10255
10256 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
10257 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
10258 get confused by it.
10259
10260 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
10261 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
10262
10263 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
10264
10265 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
10266 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
10267 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
10268 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
10269
10270 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
10271 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
10272 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
10273
10274 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
10275 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
10276 values.
10277
10278 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
10279 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
10280 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
10281 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
10282
10283 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
10284 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
10285 can be. The default value is 30.
10286
10287 ** Changes in Mail mode.
10288
10289 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
10290 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
10291 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
10292 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
10293 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
10294 behavior.
10295
10296 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
10297 compose-mail-other-frame.
10298
10299 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
10300 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
10301 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
10302 buffer that shows the original message.
10303
10304 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
10305 with separator lines around the contents.
10306
10307 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
10308 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
10309 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
10310 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
10311
10312 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
10313
10314 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
10315 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
10316 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
10317 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
10318
10319 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
10320 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
10321 /etc/passwd.
10322
10323 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
10324 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
10325 /etc/passwd.
10326
10327 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
10328 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
10329 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
10330 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
10331
10332 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
10333 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
10334 be taken to be magic.
10335
10336 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
10337 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
10338 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
10339
10340 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
10341 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
10342
10343 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
10344 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
10345
10346 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
10347
10348 new key dired.el binding old key
10349 ------- ---------------- -------
10350 * c dired-change-marks c
10351 * m dired-mark m
10352 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
10353 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
10354 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
10355 * u dired-unmark u
10356 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
10357 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
10358 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
10359 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
10360 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
10361 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
10362
10363 ** Rmail changes.
10364
10365 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
10366 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
10367 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
10368 each time you run it.
10369
10370 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
10371 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
10372
10373 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
10374 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
10375 means to move in the opposite direction.
10376
10377 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
10378 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
10379
10380 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
10381 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
10382 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
10383 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
10384 for output.
10385
10386 ** Gnus changes.
10387
10388 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
10389
10390 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
10391 Gnus.
10392
10393 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
10394 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
10395
10396 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
10397 article mode line.
10398
10399 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
10400
10401 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
10402
10403 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
10404
10405 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
10406 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
10407 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
10408
10409 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
10410
10411 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
10412
10413 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
10414 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
10415
10416 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
10417 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
10418 used to pick articles.
10419
10420 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
10421 another have been added.
10422
10423 `M-x gnus-change-server'
10424
10425 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
10426 generating lines in buffers.
10427
10428 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
10429 `C-M-_'.
10430
10431 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
10432
10433 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
10434
10435 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
10436
10437 *** Scores can be decayed.
10438
10439 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
10440
10441 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
10442 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
10443
10444 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
10445 the native server.
10446
10447 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
10448
10449 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
10450 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
10451
10452 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
10453
10454 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
10455 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
10456
10457 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
10458 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
10459
10460 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
10461 a group.
10462
10463 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
10464 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
10465
10466 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
10467
10468 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
10469
10470 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
10471
10472 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
10473
10474 Use the `Y c' command.
10475
10476 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
10477
10478 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
10479
10480 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
10481
10482 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
10483 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
10484
10485 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
10486
10487 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
10488
10489 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
10490 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
10491
10492 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
10493
10494 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
10495 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
10496 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
10497 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
10498 this issue.)
10499
10500 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
10501 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
10502 particular news group. This can be done by:
10503
10504 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
10505
10506 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
10507 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
10508 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
10509 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
10510 for reading and posting).
10511
10512 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
10513 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
10514 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
10515 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
10516 there.
10517
10518 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
10519 default. Here are some of these default settings:
10520
10521 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
10522 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
10523 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
10524 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
10525 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
10526
10527 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
10528 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
10529
10530 ** CC mode changes.
10531
10532 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
10533 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
10534 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
10535 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
10536 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
10537 loaded.
10538
10539 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
10540 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
10541 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
10542 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
10543 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
10544 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
10545
10546 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
10547 of the current buffer.
10548
10549 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
10550 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
10551 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
10552
10553 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
10554 style that the Python developers like.
10555
10556 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
10557 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
10558 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
10559
10560 ** VC Changes [new]
10561
10562 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
10563 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
10564 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
10565
10566 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
10567 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
10568 developers.
10569
10570 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
10571 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
10572
10573 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
10574 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
10575 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
10576 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
10577
10578 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
10579 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
10580
10581 ** Calendar changes.
10582
10583 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
10584 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
10585 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
10586 following/previous years.
10587
10588 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
10589 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
10590 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
10591 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
10592 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
10593 supposed attribute of God.
10594
10595 ** ps-print changes
10596
10597 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
10598 layout.
10599
10600 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
10601
10602 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
10603 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
10604 printer system has this behavior, set variable
10605 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
10606
10607 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
10608 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
10609 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
10610
10611 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
10612 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
10613
10614 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
10615 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
10616 printing for your printer.
10617
10618 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
10619 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10620
10621 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
10622 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
10623
10624 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
10625 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
10626 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
10627 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
10628 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
10629 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
10630 The default value is nil.
10631
10632 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
10633 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
10634
10635 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
10636 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
10637 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
10638 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
10639 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
10640 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
10641 color). The default is 0 ("black").
10642
10643 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
10644 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
10645
10646 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
10647 The default is 0 ("black").
10648
10649 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
10650 The default is 0 ("black").
10651
10652 border-width Specify the border width.
10653 The default is 0.4.
10654
10655 Any other property is ignored.
10656
10657 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
10658 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
10659 documentation).
10660
10661 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
10662 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
10663 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
10664 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
10665 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
10666 controlling headers.
10667
10668 *** Color management (subgroup)
10669
10670 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
10671 color.
10672
10673 *** Face Management (subgroup)
10674
10675 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
10676 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
10677 background should be used. Valid values are:
10678
10679 t always use face background color.
10680 nil never use face background color.
10681 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
10682
10683 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
10684
10685 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
10686 sheet of paper.
10687
10688 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
10689 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
10690
10691 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
10692 each page.
10693
10694 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
10695 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
10696 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
10697
10698 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
10699 5 6 7 8 5 6 7 8
10700 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4
10701
10702 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
10703 8 7 6 5 8 7 6 5
10704 12 11 10 9 4 3 2 1
10705
10706 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
10707 2 5 8 11 2 5 8 11
10708 3 6 9 12 1 4 7 10
10709
10710 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
10711 11 8 5 2 11 8 5 2
10712 12 9 6 3 10 7 4 1
10713
10714 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
10715
10716 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
10717
10718 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
10719 RGB color.
10720
10721 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
10722 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
10723 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
10724
10725 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
10726 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10727 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10728 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10729 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10730 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 +
10731 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 +
10732 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 +
10733 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10734 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10735 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10736 10 + 10 +
10737 11 + 11 +
10738 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10739 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10740 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
10741 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
10742 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
10743 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10744 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10745 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
10746 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
10747 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
10748 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
10749 21 + 21 XXXXXXXX +
10750 22 + 22 +
10751 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
10752
10753 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
10754
10755
10756 *** Printer management (subgroup)
10757
10758 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
10759 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
10760 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
10761 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
10762 to "-P".
10763
10764 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
10765 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
10766 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
10767
10768 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
10769 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
10770 do so.
10771
10772 *** Page settings (subgroup)
10773
10774 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
10775 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
10776 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
10777 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
10778 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
10779 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
10780 `setpagedevice'.
10781
10782 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
10783 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
10784 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
10785
10786 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
10787 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
10788 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
10789 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
10790 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
10791 its TO, are ignored.
10792
10793 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
10794 pages. Valid values are:
10795
10796 nil print all pages.
10797
10798 `even-page' print only even pages.
10799
10800 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
10801
10802 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
10803 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10804 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
10805 print only the even sheet of paper.
10806
10807 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
10808 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
10809 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
10810 only the odd sheet of paper.
10811
10812 Any other value is treated as nil.
10813
10814 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
10815 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
10816 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
10817
10818 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
10819
10820 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
10821 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
10822
10823 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
10824 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10825 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
10826 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10827 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10828 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
10829 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
10830
10831 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
10832 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
10833 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
10834 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
10835 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
10836 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
10837 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
10838
10839 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
10840
10841 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
10842 messages should be sent.
10843
10844 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
10845 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
10846 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
10847
10848 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
10849
10850 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
10851 points for line numbers.
10852
10853 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
10854 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
10855
10856 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
10857 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
10858 to 2, the printing will look like:
10859
10860 1 one line
10861 one line
10862 3 one line
10863 one line
10864 5 one line
10865 one line
10866 ...
10867
10868 Valid values are:
10869
10870 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
10871 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
10872 is used.
10873
10874 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
10875 zebra stripe is to be printed.
10876
10877 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
10878
10879 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
10880 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
10881 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
10882 3, the output will look like:
10883
10884 one line
10885 one line
10886 3 one line
10887 one line
10888 one line
10889 6 one line
10890 one line
10891 one line
10892 9 one line
10893 one line
10894 ...
10895
10896 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
10897 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
10898
10899 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
10900 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10901 `ps-font-size').
10902
10903 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
10904 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
10905 `ps-font-size').
10906
10907 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
10908
10909 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
10910 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
10911
10912 ** hideshow changes.
10913
10914 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
10915 C++, ; for lisp).
10916
10917 *** Support for java-mode added.
10918
10919 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
10920 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
10921
10922 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
10923 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
10924 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
10925
10926 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
10927 robust and a lot faster.
10928
10929 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
10930
10931 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
10932 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
10933 documentation for more details.
10934
10935 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
10936
10937 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
10938 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
10939 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
10940 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
10941 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
10942
10943 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
10944 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
10945 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
10946 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
10947
10948 ** Font Lock mode
10949
10950 *** Custom support
10951
10952 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
10953 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
10954 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
10955 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
10956 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
10957 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
10958
10959 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
10960
10961 *** Maximum decoration
10962
10963 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
10964 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
10965 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
10966 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
10967 to get the old behavior.
10968
10969 *** New support
10970
10971 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
10972
10973 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
10974 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
10975
10976 *** Configurable support
10977
10978 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
10979 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
10980 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
10981 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
10982 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
10983 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
10984 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
10985
10986 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
10987 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
10988 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
10989
10990 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
10991
10992 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
10993 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
10994 for any mode.
10995
10996 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
10997
10998 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
10999
11000 in your ~/.emacs.
11001
11002 *** New faces
11003
11004 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
11005 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
11006 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
11007 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
11008
11009 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
11010
11011 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
11012 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
11013 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
11014
11015 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
11016
11017 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
11018 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
11019 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
11020 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
11021 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
11022 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
11023 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
11024
11025 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
11026 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
11027 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
11028 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
11029 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
11030 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
11031
11032 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
11033
11034 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
11035 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
11036 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
11037 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
11038
11039 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
11040 settings.
11041
11042 ** Ada mode changes.
11043
11044 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
11045 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
11046 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
11047 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
11048 stubs.
11049
11050 *** There are two new commands:
11051 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
11052 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
11053
11054 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
11055 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
11056 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
11057
11058 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
11059 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
11060 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
11061
11062 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
11063 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
11064 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
11065 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
11066
11067 ** Scheme mode changes.
11068
11069 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
11070 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
11071 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
11072 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
11073 have any effect.
11074
11075 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
11076 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
11077 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
11078 variables as buffer-local variables.
11079
11080 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
11081 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
11082
11083 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
11084
11085 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
11086 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
11087 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
11088 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
11089
11090 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
11091 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
11092 buffer in Emacs.
11093
11094 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
11095 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
11096 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
11097 option takes precedence.
11098
11099 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
11100 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
11101 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
11102
11103 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
11104 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
11105 the current defun.
11106
11107 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
11108 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
11109
11110 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
11111 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
11112 necessary).
11113
11114 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
11115 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
11116 these register values no longer become completely useless.
11117 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
11118 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
11119 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
11120
11121 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
11122 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
11123 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
11124 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
11125
11126 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
11127 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
11128 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
11129 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
11130 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
11131
11132 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
11133 since it applies only to the current frame.
11134
11135 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
11136 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
11137 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
11138
11139 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
11140 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
11141 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
11142 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
11143 instead of just the file you are editing.
11144
11145 ** RefTeX mode
11146
11147 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
11148 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
11149 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
11150 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
11151 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
11152
11153 C-c ( reftex-label
11154 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
11155 knows which kind of label is needed.
11156
11157 C-c ) reftex-reference
11158 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
11159 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
11160
11161 C-c [ reftex-citation
11162 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
11163 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
11164
11165 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
11166 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
11167
11168 C-c = reftex-toc
11169 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
11170 can quickly jump to every section.
11171
11172 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
11173 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
11174 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
11175 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
11176 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
11177
11178 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
11179
11180 *** Info documentation is now available.
11181
11182 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
11183 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
11184
11185 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
11186 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
11187
11188 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
11189 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
11190
11191 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
11192 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
11193 appropriate functions.
11194
11195 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
11196 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
11197
11198 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
11199 been cleaned.
11200
11201 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
11202 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
11203
11204 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
11205 shall be delimited.
11206
11207 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
11208 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
11209 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
11210
11211 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
11212 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
11213 prefixed with `ALT'.
11214
11215 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
11216 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
11217 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
11218 documentation).
11219
11220 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
11221 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
11222 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
11223
11224 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
11225 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
11226
11227 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
11228 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
11229 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
11230
11231 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
11232
11233 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
11234
11235 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
11236 from alien sources.
11237
11238 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
11239 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
11240 crossref entries.
11241
11242 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
11243 region.
11244
11245 *** Added support for imenu.
11246
11247 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
11248 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
11249 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
11250 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
11251
11252 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
11253 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
11254
11255 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
11256
11257 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
11258
11259 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
11260 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
11261 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
11262 as an argument.
11263
11264 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
11265 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
11266
11267 ** browse-url changes
11268
11269 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
11270 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
11271 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
11272 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
11273 customization variables.
11274
11275 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
11276
11277 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
11278 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
11279 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
11280
11281 ** Changes in Ediff
11282
11283 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
11284 pops up the Info file for this command.
11285
11286 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
11287 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
11288 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
11289 directories).
11290
11291 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
11292 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
11293 files in the same directory.
11294
11295 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
11296 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
11297 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
11298
11299 ** Changes in Viper
11300
11301 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
11302 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
11303 instead of vip-.
11304 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
11305 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
11306 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
11307 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
11308 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
11309 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
11310 color when Viper is in insert state.
11311 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
11312 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
11313 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
11314
11315 ** Etags changes.
11316
11317 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
11318 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
11319 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
11320 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
11321 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
11322
11323 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
11324
11325 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
11326 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
11327
11328 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
11329 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
11330 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
11331
11332 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
11333 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
11334 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
11335 methods and protocols.
11336
11337 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
11338 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
11339 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
11340 paragraph name.
11341
11342 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
11343 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
11344 at least M times and as many as N times.
11345
11346 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
11347 in files has changed slightly.
11348
11349 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
11350 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
11351 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
11352 with old time-stamp-format values.
11353
11354 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
11355 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
11356 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
11357 reasons.
11358
11359 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
11360 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
11361 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
11362 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
11363 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
11364 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
11365
11366 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
11367 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
11368 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
11369
11370 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
11371 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
11372 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
11373 recommended now will continue to work then.
11374
11375 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
11376 details.
11377
11378 ** There are some additional major modes:
11379
11380 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
11381 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
11382 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
11383
11384 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
11385 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
11386 into Emacs.
11387
11388 ** New Lisp packages include:
11389
11390 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
11391
11392 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
11393 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
11394
11395 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
11396
11397 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
11398 in shell buffers.
11399
11400 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
11401 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
11402 and `elint-defun'.
11403
11404 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
11405 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
11406 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
11407 strings or comments.
11408
11409 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
11410 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
11411 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
11412 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
11413 at these points.
11414
11415 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
11416 can visit them by short forms of their names.
11417
11418 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
11419 Emacs Lisp function at point.
11420
11421 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
11422
11423 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
11424 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
11425
11426 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
11427
11428 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
11429
11430 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
11431
11432 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
11433 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
11434
11435 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
11436 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
11437 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
11438 original place after inserting the copy.
11439
11440 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
11441 on the buffer.
11442
11443 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
11444 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
11445 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
11446
11447 Enable mouse-drag with:
11448 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
11449 -or-
11450 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
11451
11452 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
11453 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
11454
11455 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
11456 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
11457
11458 *** ogonek
11459
11460 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
11461 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
11462 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
11463 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
11464 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
11465 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
11466 instance) and vice versa.
11467
11468 To use this package load it using
11469 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
11470 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
11471 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
11472 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
11473 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
11474 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
11475
11476 *** Interface to ph.
11477
11478 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
11479
11480 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
11481 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
11482 these servers.
11483
11484 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
11485
11486 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
11487 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
11488 while the real cursor does not move.
11489
11490 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
11491 for visiting your favorite web sites.
11492
11493 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
11494 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
11495
11496 ** movemail change
11497
11498 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
11499 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
11500 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
11501 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
11502
11503 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
11504 \f
11505 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
11506
11507 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
11508
11509 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
11510 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
11511 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
11512 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
11513 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
11514
11515 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
11516 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
11517 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
11518 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
11519 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
11520 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
11521 \f
11522 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
11523
11524 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
11525 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
11526 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
11527 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
11528
11529 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
11530 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
11531
11532 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
11533 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
11534 "win".
11535
11536 ** Basic Lisp changes
11537
11538 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
11539 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
11540
11541 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
11542 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
11543 or by the user.
11544
11545 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
11546
11547 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
11548
11549 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
11550 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
11551
11552 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
11553 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
11554 its argument.
11555
11556 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
11557
11558 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
11559
11560 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
11561
11562 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
11563 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
11564 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
11565 `format' function.
11566
11567 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
11568 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
11569 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
11570
11571 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
11572 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
11573 adding one of these suffixes.
11574
11575 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
11576 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
11577 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
11578
11579 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
11580 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
11581
11582 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
11583
11584 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
11585 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
11586
11587 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
11588 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
11589
11590 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
11591
11592 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
11593 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
11594
11595 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
11596 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
11597 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
11598 works using `save-current-buffer'.
11599
11600 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
11601 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
11602 of the last form.
11603
11604 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
11605 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
11606 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
11607 as the last form.
11608
11609 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
11610 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
11611 matches.
11612
11613 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
11614
11615 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
11616 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
11617 Then it returns that string.
11618
11619 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
11620
11621 (with-output-to-string
11622 (princ "The buffer is ")
11623 (princ (buffer-name)))
11624
11625 returns "The buffer is foo".
11626
11627 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
11628 is non-nil.
11629
11630 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
11631 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
11632 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
11633
11634 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
11635 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
11636
11637 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
11638 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
11639 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
11640 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
11641 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
11642 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
11643
11644 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
11645 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
11646 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
11647 characters".
11648
11649 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
11650 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
11651 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
11652 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
11653 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
11654
11655 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
11656 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
11657 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
11658 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
11659
11660 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
11661 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
11662
11663 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
11664
11665 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
11666 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
11667 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
11668 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
11669 guaranteed.
11670
11671 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
11672 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
11673 character).
11674
11675 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
11676
11677 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
11678 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
11679 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
11680 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
11681 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
11682
11683 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
11684
11685 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
11686 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
11687 more than the number of characters.
11688
11689 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
11690 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
11691 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
11692 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
11693 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
11694 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
11695
11696 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
11697 and returns a string containing those characters.
11698
11699 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
11700 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
11701 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
11702 character, sref signals an error.
11703
11704 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
11705 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
11706 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11707
11708 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
11709 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
11710 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
11711
11712 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
11713 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
11714 to a vector of the characters in it.
11715
11716 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
11717 of a string. You call it as follows:
11718
11719 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
11720
11721 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
11722 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
11723 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
11724 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
11725 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
11726
11727 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
11728 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11729
11730 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
11731 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
11732
11733 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
11734 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
11735 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
11736 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
11737
11738 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
11739
11740 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
11741
11742 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
11743 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
11744 are not included in the resulting value.
11745
11746 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
11747 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
11748 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
11749 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
11750
11751 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
11752 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
11753 character extends across that column), then the padding character
11754 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
11755 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
11756 column START-COLUMN.
11757
11758 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
11759 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
11760 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
11761 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
11762 changed text, before the change.
11763
11764 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
11765 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
11766 one character set for each script, not for each language.
11767
11768 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
11769
11770 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
11771
11772 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
11773 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
11774
11775 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
11776 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
11777 which identify the character within that character set.
11778
11779 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
11780 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
11781 opposite of split-char.
11782
11783 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
11784 of all the characters between BEG and END.
11785
11786 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
11787 of all the characters in a string.
11788
11789 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
11790 and specifying coding systems.
11791
11792 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
11793 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
11794 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
11795 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
11796 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
11797 as what to do about code conversion.)
11798
11799 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
11800 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
11801
11802 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11803 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11804 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
11805
11806 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11807 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
11808 to match against a file name.
11809
11810 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11811 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11812 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11813 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11814 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11815 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11816
11817 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11818 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11819
11820 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
11821 the coding system to use for network sockets.
11822
11823 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
11824 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
11825 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
11826 service names.
11827
11828 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
11829 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
11830 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
11831 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
11832 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
11833 specifies the coding system for encoding.
11834
11835 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
11836 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
11837
11838 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
11839 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
11840 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
11841 start the subprocess.
11842
11843 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
11844 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
11845 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
11846 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
11847 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
11848
11849 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
11850 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
11851 subprocess.
11852
11853 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
11854 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
11855 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
11856 connection permanently or until overridden.
11857
11858 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
11859 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
11860 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
11861 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
11862 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
11863 system for one operation at a time.
11864
11865 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
11866 files, subprocesses or network connections.
11867
11868 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
11869 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
11870 The value is a cons cell,
11871 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
11872 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
11873 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
11874 input to the subprocess.
11875
11876 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
11877 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
11878
11879 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
11880 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
11881 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
11882
11883 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
11884 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
11885 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
11886 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
11887 customization.
11888
11889 Thus, instead of writing
11890
11891 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
11892 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
11893
11894 you would now write this:
11895
11896 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
11897 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
11898 :type 'boolean
11899 :group foo)
11900
11901 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
11902 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
11903 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
11904 for a description of them.
11905
11906 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
11907 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
11908
11909 (defgroup ispell nil
11910 "Spell checking using Ispell."
11911 :group 'processes)
11912
11913 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
11914 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
11915 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
11916 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
11917 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
11918
11919 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
11920 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
11921 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
11922 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
11923 first-level subgroups.
11924
11925 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
11926
11927 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
11928 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
11929
11930 ** easy-mmode
11931
11932 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
11933 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
11934 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
11935 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
11936 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
11937 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
11938
11939 ** Text property changes
11940
11941 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
11942 text property.
11943
11944 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
11945 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
11946 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
11947 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
11948 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
11949
11950 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
11951 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
11952 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
11953 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
11954
11955 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
11956 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
11957 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
11958
11959 ** Changes in invisibility features
11960
11961 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
11962 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
11963 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
11964 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
11965 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
11966 make the overlay visible.
11967
11968 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
11969 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
11970 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
11971 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
11972 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
11973 t when it should hide it.
11974
11975 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
11976
11977 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
11978 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
11979 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
11980 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
11981 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
11982 Here is an example of how to do this:
11983
11984 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
11985 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11986 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
11987 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11988
11989 ...
11990 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
11991
11992 ...
11993 ;; When done with the overlays:
11994 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
11995 ;; Or respectively:
11996 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
11997
11998 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
11999
12000 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
12001 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
12002 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
12003 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
12004
12005 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
12006 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
12007 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
12008
12009 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
12010 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
12011
12012 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
12013 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
12014
12015 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
12016 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
12017 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
12018
12019 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
12020 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
12021 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
12022 determine the syntax type of the character.
12023
12024 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
12025 of the current buffer.
12026
12027 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
12028 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
12029 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
12030
12031 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
12032 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
12033 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
12034 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
12035 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
12036
12037 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
12038 text property.
12039
12040 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
12041 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
12042 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
12043
12044 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
12045 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
12046 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
12047 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
12048 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
12049
12050 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
12051 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
12052 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
12053
12054 ** Changes in face features
12055
12056 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
12057 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
12058
12059 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
12060 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
12061
12062 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
12063 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
12064
12065 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
12066 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
12067
12068 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
12069 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
12070 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
12071 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
12072 overlay property).
12073
12074 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
12075 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
12076
12077 ** Changes in file-handling functions
12078
12079 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
12080 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
12081 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
12082 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
12083
12084 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
12085 begins with ~.
12086
12087 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
12088 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
12089
12090 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
12091 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
12092
12093 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
12094 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
12095
12096 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
12097 character code conversion as well as other things.
12098
12099 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
12100 (formerly it did not).
12101
12102 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
12103 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
12104
12105 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
12106 instead of constant strings.
12107
12108 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
12109 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
12110 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
12111
12112 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
12113 in the same way as before.
12114
12115 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
12116 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
12117 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
12118
12119 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
12120 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
12121 else, and returns nil.
12122
12123 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
12124 directory cannot be listed.
12125
12126 ** Changes in minibuffer input
12127
12128 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
12129 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
12130 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
12131 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
12132 ways:
12133
12134 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
12135 It is available through the history command M-n.
12136
12137 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
12138 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
12139 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
12140 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
12141 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
12142
12143 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
12144 argument in this way.
12145
12146 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
12147 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
12148 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
12149
12150 ** Echo area features
12151
12152 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
12153 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
12154 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
12155 after the echo area is cleared.
12156
12157 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
12158 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
12159
12160 ** Keyboard input features
12161
12162 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
12163 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
12164
12165 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
12166 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
12167 by keyboard macros.
12168
12169 ** Frame-related changes
12170
12171 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
12172 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
12173 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
12174
12175 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
12176 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
12177 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
12178
12179 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12180 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
12181 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
12182 in the selected frame.
12183
12184 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
12185 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
12186 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
12187
12188 ** X Windows features
12189
12190 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
12191 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
12192 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
12193
12194 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
12195 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
12196
12197 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
12198 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
12199 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
12200
12201 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
12202 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
12203
12204 ** Subprocess features
12205
12206 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
12207 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
12208 automatically.
12209
12210 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
12211 and returns the output from the command as a string.
12212
12213 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
12214 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
12215
12216 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
12217 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
12218
12219 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
12220 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
12221 goes after the other menu items.
12222
12223 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
12224 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
12225 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
12226 are in use.
12227
12228 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
12229 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
12230
12231 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
12232 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
12233 form.
12234
12235 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
12236 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
12237 but its hook is still run.
12238
12239 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
12240 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
12241
12242 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
12243 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
12244 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
12245
12246 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
12247 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
12248 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
12249 warned.
12250
12251 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
12252 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
12253
12254 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
12255 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
12256 functions like display-time.
12257
12258 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
12259 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
12260
12261 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
12262 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
12263 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
12264
12265 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
12266 if there is an error in compilation.
12267
12268 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
12269 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
12270 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
12271 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
12272
12273 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
12274 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
12275 the *scratch* buffer.
12276
12277 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
12278 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
12279 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
12280 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
12281
12282 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
12283 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
12284 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
12285
12286 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
12287 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
12288 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
12289 and compose-mail-other-frame.
12290
12291 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
12292 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
12293 full name of the specified user will be returned.
12294
12295 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
12296 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
12297 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
12298 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
12299 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
12300 files at all.
12301
12302 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
12303 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
12304 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
12305 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
12306
12307 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
12308 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
12309 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
12310 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
12311
12312 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
12313
12314 ** imenu.el changes.
12315
12316 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
12317 item from menu created by imenu.
12318
12319 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
12320 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
12321 select one of those items.
12322 \f
12323 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
12324
12325 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
12326 Copyright information:
12327
12328 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
12329
12330 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
12331 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
12332 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
12333 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
12334
12335 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
12336 of this document, or of portions of it,
12337 under the above conditions, provided also that they
12338 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
12339 \f
12340 Local variables:
12341 mode: outline
12342 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
12343 end:
12344
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