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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-09-17
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
33
34 ** Gnus changes.
35
36 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
37 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
38 internationalization and mail-fetching.
39
40 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
41 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
42
43 If you used procmail like in
44
45 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
46 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
47 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
48 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
49
50 this now has changed to
51
52 (setq mail-sources
53 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
54 :suffix ".in")))
55
56 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
57 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
58
59 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
60 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
61
62 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too
63 many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables.
64
65 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
66 called to position point.
67
68 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
69 summary buffers and NOV files.
70
71 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
72 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
73
74 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
75 subtly different manner.
76
77 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
78 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
79 ever-changing layouts.
80
81 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
82
83 *** There is image support.
84
85 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
86 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
87 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
88 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
89 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
90 on.
91
92 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
93 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
94 file that is already visited under a different name.
95
96 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
97 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
98 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
99 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
100 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
101 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
102
103 +++
104 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
105 and displayes information about that.
106
107 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
108 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
109
110 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
111 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
112 Postscript files are included.
113
114 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
115 `dired-ref.tex'.
116
117 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
118 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
119
120 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
121 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
122 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
123 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
124 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
125 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
126
127 +++
128 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
129 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
130 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
131 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
132
133 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
134 a version-dependent component.
135
136 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
137 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
138 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
139 character is still bound as before.
140
141 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
142 using that menu.
143
144 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
145 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
146
147 +++
148 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
149 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
150 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
151 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
152 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
153 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
154 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
155
156 +++
157 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
158 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
159 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
160 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
161 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
162 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
163 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
164 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
165 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
166
167 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
168 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
169
170 +++
171 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
172 point in a pop-up window.
173
174 +++
175 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
176 displays all characters in that character set.
177
178 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
179 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
180
181 +++
182 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
183 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
184 defined on newcomment.el.
185
186 +++
187 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
188
189 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
190 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
191
192 +++
193 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
194 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
195 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
196 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
197
198 +++
199 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
200 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
201 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
202 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
203
204 +++
205 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
206 on the display using several methods
207
208 +++
209 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
210 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
211 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
212
213 +++
214 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
215 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
216
217 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
218
219 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
220 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
221
222 +++
223 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
224 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
225 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
226 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
227
228 +++
229 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
230 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
231 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
232
233 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
234 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
235
236 +++
237 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
238 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
239 this behavior.
240
241 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
242 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
243 Emacs dump core.
244
245 +++
246 ** New X resources recognized
247
248 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
249 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
250 is useful for debugging X problems.
251
252 Example:
253
254 emacs.synchronous: true
255
256 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
257 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
258 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
259 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
260 visual class names are
261
262 TrueColor
263 PseudoColor
264 DirectColor
265 StaticColor
266 GrayScale
267 StaticGray
268
269 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
270 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
271 meaning.
272
273 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
274 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
275 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
276 visual.
277
278 Example:
279
280 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
281
282 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
283 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
284 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
285 resource values are `true' or `on'.
286
287 Example:
288
289 emacs.privateColormap: true
290
291 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
292 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
293 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
294
295 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
296 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
297 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
298 be customized.
299
300 +++
301 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
302
303 +++
304 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
305 all frames except the selected one.
306
307 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
308 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
309
310 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
311 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
312 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
313 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
314
315 +++
316 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
317 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
318
319 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
320 read mail from the menu etc.
321
322 +++
323 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
324 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
325
326 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
327
328 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
329 macros
330
331 Key binding Macro
332 -------------------------
333 C-c C-c C-s @strong
334 C-c C-c C-e @emph
335 C-c C-c u @url
336 C-c C-c q @quotation
337 C-c C-c m @email
338
339 ** Changes in Outline mode.
340
341 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
342 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
343 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
344
345 ** Changes to Emacs Server
346
347 +++
348 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
349 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
350 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
351 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
352 buffers to kill, as before.
353
354 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
355 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
356 this way.
357
358 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
359
360 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
361 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
362 use. Default is 1000.
363
364 +++
365 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
366 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
367
368 +++
369 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
370 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
371 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
372 buffers.
373
374 +++
375 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
376 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
377 .emacs file.
378
379 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
380 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
381
382 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
383 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
384 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
385
386 ** Faces and frame parameters.
387
388 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
389 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
390 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
391 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
392 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
393 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
394 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
395
396 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
397 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
398 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
399 `default' face and vice versa.
400
401 +++
402 ** New face `menu'.
403
404 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
405 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
406 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
407
408 +++
409 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
410
411 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
412 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
413 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
414 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
415
416 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
417 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
418 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
419
420 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
421 `ScreenGamma'.
422
423 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
424
425 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
426 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
427 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
428 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
429 the text.
430
431 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
432
433 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
434 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
435 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
436 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
437 specify a font.
438
439 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
440 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
441 under Lisp changes, below.
442
443 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
444
445 +++
446 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
447 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
448 otherwise, it is hollow.
449
450 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
451 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
452 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
453 customizing face `fringe'.
454
455 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
456 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
457
458 ** LessTif support.
459
460 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
461 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
462
463 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
464
465 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
466 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
467 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
468 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
469 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
470 Emacs.
471
472 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
473 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
474 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
475 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
476 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
477 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
478
479 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
480 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
481 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
482 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
483 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
484 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
485
486 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
487 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
488 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
489 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
490 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
491
492 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
493
494 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
495 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
496 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
497
498 +++
499 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
500
501 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
502 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
503 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
504 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
505 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
506 whitespace.
507
508 +++
509 ** Busy-cursor.
510
511 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
512 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
513
514 +++
515 ** Blinking cursor
516
517 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
518 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
519 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
520 the group `cursor'.
521
522 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
523
524 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
525 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
526 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
527 details.
528
529 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
530 have to do anything to activate it.
531
532 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
533
534 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
535 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
536 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
537 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
538
539 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
540
541 +++
542 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
543
544 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
545
546 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
547 LessTif/Motif one.
548
549 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
550 LessTif and Motif.
551
552 +++
553 ** Hscrolling in C code.
554
555 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
556 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
557 customized.
558
559 ** Tool bar support.
560
561 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
562 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
563 Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is displayed.
564 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
565 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
566
567 +++
568 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
569
570 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
571 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
572 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
573 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
574 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
575
576 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
577
578 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
579 buffers.
580
581 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
582 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
583
584 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
585
586 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
587 `*') toggles the status.
588
589 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
590
591 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
592
593 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
594 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
595 non-nil.
596
597 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
598
599 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
600 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
601 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
602 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
603 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
604 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
605 on terminals.
606
607 ** Sound support
608
609 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
610 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
611 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
612
613 +++
614 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
615 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
616 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
617 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
618 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
619 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
620
621 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
622
623 +++
624 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
625
626 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
627 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
628 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
629
630 +++
631 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
632 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
633
634 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
635 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
636 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
637
638 +++
639 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
640
641 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
642 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
643 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
644 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
645
646 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
647 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
648 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
649 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
650
651 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
652 notably at the end of lines.
653
654 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
655 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
656
657 +++
658 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
659
660 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
661 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
662 after each match to get the replacement text.
663
664 +++
665 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
666 you edit the replacement string.
667
668 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
669 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
670 lisp-complete-symbol.
671
672 +++
673 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
674
675 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
676 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
677 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
678 window size by setting the following variable:
679
680 - User option: max-mini-window-height
681
682 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
683 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
684 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
685
686 Default is 0.25.
687
688 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
689
690 ** Changes to hideshow.el
691
692 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
693 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
694
695 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
696
697 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
698 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
699 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
700 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
701 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
702 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
703
704 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
705 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
706 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
707 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
708
709 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
710
711 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
712 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
713 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
714 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
715 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
716
717 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
718 something like this in your .emacs.
719
720 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
721 (lambda ()
722 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
723
724 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
725
726 +++
727 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
728 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
729 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
730
731 +++
732 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
733 buffer.
734
735 +++
736 New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries in
737 a log file.
738
739 +++
740 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
741 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
742
743 +++
744 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
745 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
746 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
747 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
748
749 ** Changes in Font Lock
750
751 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
752 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
753 mode.
754
755 ** Comint (subshell) changes
756
757 By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp' to
758 distiguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which parts of
759 the text were output by the process, and which entered by the user, and
760 attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use this information.
761 Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line, respect field
762 boundaries in a fairly natural manner.
763 To disable this feature, and use the old behavior, set the variable
764 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' to a non-nil value.
765
766 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
767 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
768
769 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
770 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
771 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
772
773 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
774 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
775 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
776
777 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and scheme-interaction-mode
778 now highlight user input and program prompts, and support choosing
779 previous input with mouse-2. To control these feature, see the
780 user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
781
782 ** Changes to Rmail mode
783
784 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
785 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
786 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
787 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
788 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
789 as correspondent.
790
791 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
792 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
793 regexp matching your mail addresses.
794
795 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
796 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
797 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
798 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
799 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
800
801 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
802 like `j'.
803
804 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
805 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
806 digest message.
807
808 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
809 in which folder to put messages automatically.
810
811 ** Changes to TeX mode
812
813 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
814 `latex-mode'.
815
816 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
817
818 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
819 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
820 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
821 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
822 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
823 can be edited from that buffer.
824
825 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
826 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
827 `A' to use all marked entries).
828
829 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
830 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
831
832 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
833 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
834 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
835 been cited.
836
837 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
838 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
839 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
840 in column 1 are always made leaves.
841
842 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
843 has the following new features:
844
845 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
846 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
847 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
848 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
849
850 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
851 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
852 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
853 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
854 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
855 defaults to 1.
856
857 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
858 file names.
859
860 +++
861 ** Tooltips.
862
863 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
864 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
865 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
866
867 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
868 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
869 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
870 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
871
872 +++
873 ** Customize changes
874
875 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
876 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
877 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
878
879 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
880 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
881 default).
882
883 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
884 between custom options. Example:
885
886 (defcustom default-input-method nil
887 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
888 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
889 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
890 :group 'mule
891 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
892 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
893
894 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
895 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
896 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
897
898 ** New features in evaluation commands
899
900 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
901 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
902 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
903 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
904 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
905
906 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
907 code when called with a prefix argument.
908
909 ** Ispell changes
910
911 +++
912 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
913 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
914 spell-checks the current buffer.
915
916 +++
917 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
918 added.
919
920 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
921 correction is made and re-checked.
922
923 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
924
925 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
926 cases.
927
928 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
929 on syntax errors.
930
931 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
932 end of the buffer.
933
934 ** Dired changes
935
936 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
937 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
938 is, delete only empty directories.
939
940 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
941 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
942 copy directories recursively.
943
944 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
945 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
946 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
947
948 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
949 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
950 directory.
951
952 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
953 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
954 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
955 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
956 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
957
958 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
959 from ls switches.
960
961 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
962 use the -f option when sending mail.
963
964 ** CC mode changes.
965
966 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
967 current user setups (although it's believed that these
968 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
969 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
970 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
971 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
972 release.
973
974 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
975 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
976 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
977 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
978 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
979 have to bother.
980
981 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
982 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
983 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
984 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
985 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
986 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
987
988 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
989 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
990 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
991 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
992 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
993 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
994 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
995 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
996
997 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
998 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
999 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1000 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1001 above.
1002
1003 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1004 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1005 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1006 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1007 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1008 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1009 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1010 function documentation for more info.
1011
1012 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1013 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1014 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1015 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1016 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1017 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1018 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1019 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1020
1021 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1022
1023 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1024 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1025
1026 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1027 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1028 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1029 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1030 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1031 style system.
1032
1033 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1034 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1035 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1036 as far as possible.
1037
1038 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1039 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1040 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1041 chapter about this in the manual.
1042
1043 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1044 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1045 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1046 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1047 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1048
1049 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1050 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1051 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1052
1053 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1054 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1055
1056 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1057 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1058 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1059 inside CC Mode.
1060
1061 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1062 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1063 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1064 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1065 cc-mode/).
1066
1067 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1068 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1069 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1070 literals.
1071
1072 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1073 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1074 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1075 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1076 this function.
1077
1078 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1079 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1080 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1081 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1082 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1083
1084 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1085 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1086 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1087
1088 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1089
1090 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1091 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1092 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1093 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1094
1095 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1096 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1097 the column specified by comment-column.
1098
1099 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1100 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1101 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1102 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1103 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1104 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1105
1106 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1107 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1108 arguments.
1109
1110 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1111
1112 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1113 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1114 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1115 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1116 Provan).
1117
1118 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1119
1120 ** Makefile mode changes
1121
1122 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1123
1124 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1125 Fontlock mode is active.
1126
1127 ** Isearch changes
1128
1129 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1130 so that searches can be resumed.
1131
1132 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1133 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1134 that started the search.
1135
1136 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1137 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1138
1139 +++
1140 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1141
1142 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1143 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1144 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1145 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1146 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1147 `secondary-selection'.
1148
1149 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1150 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1151 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1152 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1153 usual snappy response.
1154
1155 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1156 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1157 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1158 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1159
1160 +++
1161 ** Changes in sort.el
1162
1163 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1164 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1165 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1166 numeric base.
1167
1168 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1169
1170 +++
1171 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1172 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1173 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1174
1175 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1176 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1177
1178 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1179 output ^M at the end of lines.
1180
1181 ** Shell script mode changes.
1182
1183 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1184 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1185 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1186
1187 ** Etags changes.
1188
1189 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1190
1191 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1192 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1193 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1194 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1195 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1196
1197 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1198 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1199
1200 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1201 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1202
1203 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1204 types.
1205
1206 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1207
1208 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1209
1210 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1211 are now tagged.
1212
1213 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1214 variables are tagged.
1215
1216 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1217
1218 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1219 for PSWrap.
1220
1221 +++
1222 ** Changes in etags.el
1223
1224 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1225 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1226 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1227
1228 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1229 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1230
1231 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1232 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1233 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1234 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1235
1236 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1237
1238 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1239 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1240
1241 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1242
1243 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1244 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1245 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1246
1247 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1248 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1249
1250 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1251 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1252
1253 +++
1254 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1255 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1256 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1257
1258 +++
1259 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1260 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1261 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1262 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1263 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1264 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1265 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1266
1267 +++
1268 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1269 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1270 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1271
1272 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1273
1274 +++
1275 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1276
1277 +++
1278 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1279 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1280 expression from that list, are not checked.
1281
1282 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1283 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1284 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1285 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1286
1287 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1288
1289 +++
1290 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1291 displays local abbrevs, only.
1292
1293 ** VC Changes
1294
1295 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1296 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1297 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1298 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1299 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1300 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1301 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1302 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1303 file is registered in that backend.
1304
1305 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1306 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1307 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1308 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1309 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1310 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1311
1312 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1313 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1314 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1315 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1316 where it doesn't make sense.)
1317
1318 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1319 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1320 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1321
1322 *** General Changes
1323
1324 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1325 checks are always done now.
1326
1327 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1328 operations.
1329
1330 *** Changes for CVS
1331
1332 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1333 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1334 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1335 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1336 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1337 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1338 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1339
1340 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1341 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1342 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1343 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1344 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1345 entire directory tree.
1346
1347 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1348 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1349 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1350 "watched" by other developers.)
1351
1352 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1353
1354 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1355 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1356 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1357 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1358 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1359 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1360 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1361 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1362 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1363
1364 ** New modes and packages
1365
1366 +++
1367 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1368 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1369 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1370 on certain projects.
1371
1372 +++
1373 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1374 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1375
1376 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1377
1378 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1379 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1380 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1381 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1382 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1383 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1384 corresponding file is read.
1385
1386 +++
1387 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1388 Emacs is idle.
1389
1390 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1391 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1392
1393 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1394 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1395 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1396
1397 +++
1398 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1399 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1400 separate Texinfo file.
1401
1402 +++
1403 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1404 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1405 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1406 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1407 enter checkin log messages.
1408
1409 +++
1410 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1411 without invoking external programs.
1412
1413 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1414 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1415 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1416 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1417 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1418
1419 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1420 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1421
1422 +++
1423 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1424 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1425
1426 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1427 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1428 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1429 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1430 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1431 single step.
1432
1433 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1434 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1435 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1436 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1437
1438 +++
1439 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1440 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1441 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1442
1443 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1444 PostScript.
1445
1446 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1447
1448 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1449
1450 ; comment (until end of line)
1451 A non-terminal
1452 "C" terminal
1453 ?C? special
1454 $A default non-terminal
1455 $"C" default terminal
1456 $?C? default special
1457 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1458 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1459 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1460 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1461 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1462 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1463 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1464 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1465 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1466 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1467 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1468 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1469 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1470 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1471 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1472
1473 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1474
1475 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1476 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1477 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1478 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1479 equal signs of assignments.
1480
1481 +++
1482 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1483 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1484
1485 +++
1486 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1487 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1488 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1489 customize the package.
1490
1491 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1492
1493 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1494 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1495 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1496 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1497 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1498 which answers different needs.
1499
1500 +++
1501 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1502 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1503 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1504 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1505 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1506 to be enabled.
1507
1508 +++
1509 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1510 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1511
1512 +++
1513 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1514
1515 +++
1516 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1517
1518 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1519
1520 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1521 Pascal) language.
1522
1523 +++
1524 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1525 the text at point.
1526
1527 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1528
1529 +++
1530 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1531
1532 *** whitespace.el ???
1533
1534 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1535 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1536 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1537 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1538 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1539 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1540 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1541
1542 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1543
1544 Here is an example of columns:
1545
1546 horse apple bus
1547 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1548 porcupine strawberry airplane
1549
1550 Doing the following settings:
1551
1552 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1553 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1554 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1555 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1556
1557
1558 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1559
1560 M-x delimit-columns-region
1561
1562 It results:
1563
1564 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1565 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1566 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1567
1568 delim-col has the following options:
1569
1570 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1571 before all columns.
1572
1573 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1574 between each column.
1575
1576 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1577 after all columns.
1578
1579 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1580 each column.
1581
1582 delim-col has the following commands:
1583
1584 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1585 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1586
1587 +++
1588 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1589 were operated on recently.
1590
1591 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1592
1593 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1594 recentf at Emacs startup.
1595
1596 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1597 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1598 file list can be displayed:
1599
1600 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1601 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1602 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1603
1604 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1605 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1606
1607 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1608 text.
1609
1610 +++
1611 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1612 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1613 specific to Message mode.
1614
1615 +++
1616 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1617 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1618 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1619
1620 +++
1621 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1622 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1623 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1624
1625 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1626 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1627
1628 +++
1629 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1630
1631 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1632 minibuffer with completion.
1633
1634 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1635 with the diary features.
1636
1637 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1638 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1639
1640 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1641 Fill mode.
1642
1643 ** Withdrawn packages
1644
1645 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1646 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1647
1648 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1649
1650 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1651
1652 \f
1653 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1654 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1655
1656 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1657 with the more general `:mask' property.
1658
1659 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1660
1661 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1662 backslash.
1663
1664 +++
1665 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1666 is running in batch mode. For example,
1667
1668 (message "%s" (read t))
1669
1670 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1671 to standard output.
1672
1673 +++
1674 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1675 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1676
1677 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1678 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1679 frame or window.
1680
1681 +++
1682 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1683 were added
1684
1685 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1686
1687 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1688 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1689
1690 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1691
1692 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1693 comparison is done with `eq'.
1694
1695 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1696
1697 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1698 has been changed.
1699
1700 +++
1701 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1702 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1703 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1704
1705 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1706 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1707
1708 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1709 function was declared obsolete.
1710
1711 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1712 retained as an alias).
1713
1714 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1715 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1716 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1717
1718 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1719
1720 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1721
1722 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1723 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1724
1725 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1726
1727 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1728
1729 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1730
1731 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1732 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1733 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1734 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1735 returned.
1736
1737 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1738 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1739 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1740 minibuffer even if it is active.
1741
1742 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1743 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1744 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1745 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1746 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1747 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1748
1749 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1750 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1751 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1752 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1753 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1754 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1755 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1756
1757 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1758 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1759 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1760
1761 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1762 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1763 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1764 Default value is nil.
1765
1766 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1767 meaning no limit.
1768
1769 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1770 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1771 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1772
1773 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1774 of a primitive.
1775
1776 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1777 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1778 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1779 than replacing the local map.
1780
1781 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1782 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1783
1784 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1785
1786 +++
1787 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1788 promised long ago.
1789
1790 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1791 \f
1792 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1793
1794 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1795 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1796 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1797 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1798
1799 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
1800 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
1801 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
1802 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
1803
1804 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1805 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1806 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1807 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1808
1809 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1810 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1811 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1812
1813 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1814 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1815 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1816 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1817 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1818 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1819 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1820 eight-bit-graphic.
1821
1822 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1823
1824 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1825 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1826 character set as previously.
1827
1828 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1829 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1830 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1831
1832 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1833 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1834 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1835 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1836
1837 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1838 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1839
1840 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1841 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1842 "fontset-default".
1843
1844 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1845 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1846
1847 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1848 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1849 buffers and strings.
1850
1851 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1852 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1853 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1854 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1855 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1856 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1857 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1858 also been deleted.
1859
1860 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1861 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1862 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1863
1864 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1865 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1866 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1867 may differ between buffer and string text.
1868
1869 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1870 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1871
1872 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1873 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1874 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1875 `composition' from STRING.
1876
1877 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1878 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1879
1880 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1881 obsolete.
1882
1883 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1884 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1885 character set is not used.
1886
1887 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1888 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1889 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1890
1891 +++
1892 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1893 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1894 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1895
1896 +++
1897 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1898 that offset in the file before writing.
1899
1900 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1901 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1902
1903 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1904 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1905 from which the command was issued.
1906
1907 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1908 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1909 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1910 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1911 operate on.
1912
1913 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1914 to `window-buffer-height'.
1915
1916 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1917
1918 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1919 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1920 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1921
1922 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1923 respectively.
1924
1925 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1926 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1927
1928 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1929 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1930 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1931
1932 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1933 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1934 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1935 is currently displayed in some window.
1936
1937 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1938 argument function's results.
1939
1940 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1941 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1942
1943 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1944 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1945
1946 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1947 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1948
1949 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1950 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1951 as follows:
1952
1953 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1954 nil don't display a cursor
1955 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1956 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1957 others display a box cursor.
1958
1959 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1960 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1961 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1962 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1963
1964 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1965 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1966 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1967 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1968
1969 Example:
1970
1971 (string-to-syntax "()")
1972 => (4 . 41)
1973
1974 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1975 other than 10.
1976
1977 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1978 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1979
1980 #b1111
1981 => 15
1982 #b-1111
1983 => -15
1984
1985 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1986
1987 #o666
1988 => 438
1989
1990 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1991
1992 #xbeef
1993 => 48815
1994
1995 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1996
1997 #2R-111
1998 => -7
1999 #25rah
2000 => 267
2001
2002 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2003 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2004 and isn't a string.
2005
2006 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2007 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2008 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2009 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2010
2011 +++
2012 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2013
2014 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2015 for a regexp in a string.
2016
2017 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2018 `mouse-position-function'.
2019
2020 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2021 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2022
2023 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2024 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2025
2026 +++
2027 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2028 returns it.
2029
2030 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2031 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2032
2033 +++
2034 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2035 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2036 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2037 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2038 mode.
2039
2040 +++
2041 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2042 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2043
2044 +++
2045 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2046 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2047 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2048 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2049 been performed."
2050
2051 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2052 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2053 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2054 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2055
2056 +++
2057 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2058 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2059 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2060
2061 +++
2062 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2063 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2064 specified table.
2065
2066 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2067
2068 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2069 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2070 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2071 what BODY returns.
2072
2073 +++
2074 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2075 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2076
2077 +++
2078 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2079 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2080
2081 +++
2082 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2083 instead of being optional.
2084
2085 +++
2086 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2087 modify read-only text.
2088
2089 +++
2090 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2091
2092 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2093 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2094 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2095 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2096 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2097
2098 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2099 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2100 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2101 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2102 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2103 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2104 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2105
2106 +++
2107 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2108 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2109 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2110 start sequences.
2111
2112 +++
2113 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2114 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2115
2116 +++
2117 ** New function `propertize'
2118
2119 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2120 strings with text properties.
2121
2122 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2123
2124 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2125 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2126 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2127 specified value of that property. Example:
2128
2129 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2130
2131 +++
2132 ** push and pop macros.
2133
2134 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2135 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2136 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2137
2138 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2139 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2140 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2141
2142 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2143
2144 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2145 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2146
2147 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2148 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2149 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2150 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2151
2152 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2153 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2154 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2155 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2156
2157 +++
2158 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2159 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2160
2161 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2162 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2163 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2164 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2165 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2166 space, and DEL.
2167 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2168 and DEL.
2169 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2170 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2171 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2172 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2173 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2174 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2175 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2176 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2177 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2178 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2179 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2180 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2181 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2182 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2183 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2184
2185 +++
2186 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2187
2188 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2189
2190 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2191
2192 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2193 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2194
2195 :test TEST
2196
2197 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2198 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2199 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2200
2201 :size SIZE
2202
2203 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2204 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2205
2206 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2207
2208 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2209 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2210 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2211 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2212 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2213
2214 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2215
2216 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2217 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2218 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2219
2220 :weakness WEAK
2221
2222 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2223 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2224 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2225 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2226 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2227
2228 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2229
2230 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2231
2232 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2233
2234 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2235
2236 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2237
2238 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2239 values are shared.
2240
2241 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2242
2243 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2244
2245 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2246
2247 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2248
2249 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2250
2251 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2252
2253 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2254
2255 Returns the size of TABLE.
2256
2257 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2258
2259 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2260
2261 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2262
2263 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2264
2265 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2266
2267 Clear TABLE.
2268
2269 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2270
2271 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2272 not found.
2273
2274 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2275
2276 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2277 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2278
2279 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2280
2281 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2282
2283 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2284
2285 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2286 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2287
2288 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2289
2290 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2291
2292 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2293
2294 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2295 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2296 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2297 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2298 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2299
2300 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2301
2302 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2303 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2304 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2305
2306 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2307 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2308
2309 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2310 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2311
2312 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2313 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2314
2315 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2316 'case-fold-string-hash))
2317
2318 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2319
2320 +++
2321 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2322
2323 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2324 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2325 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2326
2327 +++
2328 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2329
2330 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2331 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2332
2333 +++
2334 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2335 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2336 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2337 is too short to reach that column.
2338
2339 +++
2340 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2341 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2342 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2343 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2344
2345 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2346 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2347 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2348
2349 +++
2350 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2351 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2352
2353 +++
2354 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2355 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2356
2357 +++
2358 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2359 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2360 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2361 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2362 temporary-file-directory instead.
2363
2364 +++
2365 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2366 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2367 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2368 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2369
2370 +++
2371 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2372 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2373
2374 +++
2375 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2376
2377 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2378 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2379 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2380
2381 +++
2382 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2383
2384 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2385 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2386 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2387 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2388 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2389 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2390
2391 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2392 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2393 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2394 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2395
2396 +++
2397 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2398
2399 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2400 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2401 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2402 result string.
2403
2404 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2405 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2406
2407 Example:
2408
2409 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2410 (s2 "world"))
2411 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2412 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2413 (format s1 s2))
2414
2415 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2416
2417 +++
2418 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2419
2420 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2421 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2422 argument in it.
2423
2424 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2425 (arg "world"))
2426 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2427 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2428 (message msg arg))
2429
2430 +++
2431 ** Sound support
2432
2433 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2434 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2435
2436 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2437 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2438 to enable sound support.
2439
2440 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2441 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2442 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2443 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2444 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2445
2446 The following sound properties are supported:
2447
2448 - `:file FILE'
2449
2450 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2451 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2452
2453 - `:data DATA'
2454
2455 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2456 may be present, but not both.
2457
2458 - `:volume VOLUME'
2459
2460 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2461 0..1. This property is optional.
2462
2463 Other properties are ignored.
2464
2465 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2466
2467 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2468 a keyword symbol.
2469
2470 ** Changes to garbage collection
2471
2472 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2473 of live and free strings.
2474
2475 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2476 strings that have been consed so far.
2477
2478 \f
2479 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2480 Lisp Manual
2481
2482 *** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2483
2484 +++
2485 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2486
2487 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2488 image.
2489
2490 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2491
2492 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2493
2494 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2495 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2496 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2497 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2498 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2499
2500 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2501 has a mask bitmap.
2502
2503 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2504
2505 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2506 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2507 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2508
2509 +++
2510 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2511 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2512
2513 +++
2514 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2515 optional.
2516
2517 +++
2518 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2519 below).
2520
2521 \f
2522 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2523
2524 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2525 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2526 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2527 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2528
2529 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2530 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2531
2532 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2533 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2534 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2535 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2536 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2537 just display it black instead.
2538
2539 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2540 a line like
2541
2542 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2543
2544 in your `.emacs'.
2545
2546 ** New face implementation.
2547
2548 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2549 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2550
2551 +++
2552 *** New faces.
2553
2554 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2555
2556 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2557
2558 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2559 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2560
2561 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2562
2563 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2564
2565 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2566
2567 6. Foreground color.
2568
2569 7. Background color.
2570
2571 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2572
2573 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2574
2575 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2576
2577 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2578
2579 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2580 color.
2581
2582 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2583 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2584
2585 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2586 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2587 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2588 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2589 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2590 attributes mentioned above.
2591
2592 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2593 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2594 created frames.
2595
2596 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2597 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2598 `fully-specified'.
2599
2600 +++
2601 *** Face merging.
2602
2603 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2604 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2605 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2606 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2607 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2608 results in a fully-specified face.
2609
2610 +++
2611 *** Face realization.
2612
2613 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2614 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2615 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2616 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2617 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2618 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2619
2620 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2621 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2622 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2623 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2624
2625 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2626 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2627 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2628 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2629 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2630
2631 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2632 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2633 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2634 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2635 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2636 Emacs.
2637
2638 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2639 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2640 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2641 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2642
2643 ++++
2644 **** Clearing face caches.
2645
2646 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2647 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2648 unused fonts.
2649
2650 +++
2651 *** Font selection.
2652
2653 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2654 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2655 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2656
2657 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2658 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2659 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2660 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2661 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2662
2663 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2664 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2665 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2666
2667 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2668
2669 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2670 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2671 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2672 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2673 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2674 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2675 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2676
2677 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2678 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2679 face doesn't exist.
2680
2681 +++
2682 **** Scalable fonts
2683
2684 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2685 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2686 servers.
2687
2688 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2689 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2690 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2691 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2692 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2693 that list. Example:
2694
2695 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2696
2697 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2698
2699 +++
2700 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2701
2702 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2703
2704 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2705 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2706 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2707
2708 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2709 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2710 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2711 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2712 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2713 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2714 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2715 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2716 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2717 of the face font sort order.
2718
2719 - Function: x-font-family-list
2720
2721 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2722 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2723 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2724 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2725
2726 - Variable: font-list-limit
2727
2728 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2729 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2730 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2731
2732 +++
2733 *** Setting face attributes.
2734
2735 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2736 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2737 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2738 `face-attribute'.
2739
2740 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2741 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2742
2743 The following attributes are recognized:
2744
2745 `:family'
2746
2747 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2748 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2749 and `?' are allowed.
2750
2751 `:width'
2752
2753 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2754 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2755 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2756 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2757
2758 `:height'
2759
2760 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2761 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2762 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2763 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2764
2765 `:weight'
2766
2767 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2768 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2769 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2770
2771 `:slant'
2772
2773 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2774 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2775 `reverse-oblique'.
2776
2777 `:foreground', `:background'
2778
2779 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2780
2781 `:underline'
2782
2783 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2784 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2785 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2786 don't underline.
2787
2788 `:overline'
2789
2790 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2791 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2792 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2793 overline.
2794
2795 `:strike-through'
2796
2797 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2798 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2799 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2800 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2801
2802 `:box'
2803
2804 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2805 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2806 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2807 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2808 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2809 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2810 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2811 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2812 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2813 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2814 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2815 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2816 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2817 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2818 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2819 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2820 box.
2821
2822 `:inverse-video'
2823
2824 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2825 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2826
2827 `:stipple'
2828
2829 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2830 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2831 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2832 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2833 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2834 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2835
2836 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2837 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2838
2839 `:font'
2840
2841 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2842 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2843 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2844 versions of Emacs.
2845
2846 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2847 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2848 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2849
2850 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2851 `defface'.
2852
2853 `:inherit'
2854
2855 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
2856 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
2857 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
2858
2859 *** Face attributes and X resources
2860
2861 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2862 from X resources:
2863
2864 Face attribute X resource class
2865 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2866 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2867 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2868 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2869 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2870 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2871 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2872 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2873 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2874 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2875 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2876 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2877 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2878 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2879 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2880 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2881 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2882 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2883 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2884 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2885
2886 +++
2887 *** Text property `face'.
2888
2889 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2890 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2891 specification can be
2892
2893 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2894
2895 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2896 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2897 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2898 for face attribute names.
2899
2900 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2901 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2902 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2903
2904 +++
2905 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2906
2907 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2908 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2909 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2910 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2911 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2912 used to clear the mapping table.
2913
2914 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2915
2916 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2917 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2918 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2919 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2920 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2921 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2922 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2923 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2924 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2925 modify their color-related behavior.
2926
2927 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2928 any frame type.
2929
2930 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2931
2932 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2933 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2934 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2935 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2936 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2937 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2938 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2939 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2940 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2941
2942 +++
2943 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2944
2945 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2946
2947 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2948 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2949 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2950
2951 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2952
2953 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2954 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2955 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
2956
2957 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2958 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2959 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2960 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2961 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2962 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2963 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2964 functions.
2965
2966 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2967 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2968 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2969
2970 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2971
2972 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
2973
2974 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2975
2976 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2977 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2978 constrained position if that is is different.
2979
2980 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2981 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2982 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2983 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
2984 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2985 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2986 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
2987 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
2988 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
2989
2990 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2991 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2992 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2993 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2994 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2995
2996 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
2997 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
2998
2999 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3000
3001 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3002
3003 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3004 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3005 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3006
3007 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3008
3009 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3010 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3011 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3012 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3013 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3014
3015 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3016
3017 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3018 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3019 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3020 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3021 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3022
3023 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3024
3025 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3026 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3027 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3028
3029 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3030
3031 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3032 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3033 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3034
3035 +++
3036 ** Image support.
3037
3038 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3039 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3040 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3041 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3042
3043 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3044 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3045 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3046 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3047 area.
3048
3049 IMAGE is an image specification.
3050
3051 *** Image specifications
3052
3053 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3054 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3055 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3056 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3057 described below are ignored.
3058
3059 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3060
3061 `:ascent ASCENT'
3062
3063 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3064 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3065 to use for its ascent.
3066
3067 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3068 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3069
3070 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3071 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3072 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3073 overlays that apply to the image.
3074
3075 `:margin MARGIN'
3076
3077 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3078 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3079
3080 `:relief RELIEF'
3081
3082 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3083 around an image.
3084
3085 `:algorithm ALGO'
3086
3087 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3088
3089 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3090 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3091
3092 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3093 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3094 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3095 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3096 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3097 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3098 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3099 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3100 below.
3101
3102 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3103 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
3104 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3105
3106 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3107 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3108 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3109 of the factors' absolute values.
3110
3111 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3112
3113 (1 0 0
3114 0 0 0
3115 9 9 -1)
3116
3117 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3118
3119 ( 2 -1 0
3120 -1 0 1
3121 0 1 -2)
3122
3123 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3124 ``disabled''.
3125
3126 `:mask MASK'
3127
3128 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3129 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3130 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3131 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3132 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3133 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3134 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3135 image.
3136
3137 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3138 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3139 `:mask nil'.
3140
3141 `:file FILE'
3142
3143 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3144 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3145 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3146 may be present in the image specification.
3147
3148 `:data DATA'
3149
3150 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3151 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3152 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3153 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3154
3155 *** Supported image types
3156
3157 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3158
3159 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3160 properties supported are
3161
3162 `:foreground FG'
3163
3164 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3165 is the frame's foreground.
3166
3167 `:background FG'
3168
3169 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3170 the frame's background color.
3171
3172 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3173 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3174 instead of a `:file' property.
3175
3176 `:width WIDTH'
3177
3178 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3179
3180 `:height HEIGHT'
3181
3182 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3183
3184 `:data DATA'
3185
3186 DATA must be either
3187
3188 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3189 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3190
3191 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3192
3193 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3194 bitmap.
3195
3196 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3197 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3198 in the file.
3199
3200 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3201
3202 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3203 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3204 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3205 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3206
3207 Additional image properties supported are:
3208
3209 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3210
3211 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3212 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3213 name.
3214
3215 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3216 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3217
3218 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3219 to display compressed images.
3220
3221 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3222
3223 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3224 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
3225 defined.
3226
3227 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3228
3229 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3230 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3231 are:
3232
3233 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3234
3235 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3236 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3237 properties defined.
3238
3239 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3240
3241 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3242 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3243
3244 Additional image properties supported are:
3245
3246 `:index INDEX'
3247
3248 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3249 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3250
3251 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3252 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3253 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3254 every 0.1 seconds.
3255
3256 (defun show-anim (file max)
3257 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3258 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3259
3260 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3261 (when (= idx max)
3262 (setq idx 0))
3263 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3264 (save-excursion
3265 (set-buffer buffer)
3266 (goto-char (point-min))
3267 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3268 (insert-image img "x"))
3269 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3270
3271 **** PNG, image type `png'
3272
3273 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3274 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3275 properties defined.
3276
3277 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3278
3279 Additional image properties supported are:
3280
3281 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3282
3283 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3284 integer. This is a required property.
3285
3286 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3287
3288 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3289 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3290
3291 `:bounding-box BOX'
3292
3293 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3294 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3295 files. This is an required property.
3296
3297 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3298 lisp/gs.el.
3299
3300 *** Lisp interface.
3301
3302 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3303 which are supported in the current configuration.
3304
3305 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3306 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3307 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3308 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3309 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3310
3311 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3312
3313 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3314 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3315 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3316 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3317 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3318 buffer.
3319
3320 +++
3321 ** Display margins.
3322
3323 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3324 and images.
3325
3326 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3327 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3328 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3329 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3330 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3331 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3332 of the display margins.
3333
3334 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3335 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3336 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3337 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3338 in this file).
3339
3340 +++
3341 ** Help display
3342
3343 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3344 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3345 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3346 that have a `help-echo' property.
3347
3348 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3349 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3350 the window in which the help was found.
3351
3352 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3353 `help-echo' text property was found.
3354
3355 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3356 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3357
3358 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3359 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3360 mouse.
3361
3362 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3363 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3364
3365 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3366 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3367 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3368 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3369 used as help string.
3370
3371 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3372 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3373 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3374
3375 +++
3376 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3377
3378 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3379 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3380
3381 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3382 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3383 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3384 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3385 used.
3386
3387 (global-set-key [A-down]
3388 #'(lambda ()
3389 (interactive)
3390 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3391 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3392 (global-set-key [A-up]
3393 #'(lambda ()
3394 (interactive)
3395 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3396 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3397
3398 +++
3399 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3400
3401 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3402 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3403 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3404 is called with one argument, POS.
3405
3406 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3407 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3408 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3409 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3410 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3411
3412 +++
3413 ** Tool bar support.
3414
3415 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3416 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3417 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3418 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3419 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3420 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3421
3422 *** Tool bar item definitions
3423
3424 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3425 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3426 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3427
3428 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3429 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3430 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3431 property (see below).
3432
3433 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3434 binding are currently ignored.
3435
3436 The following properties are recognized:
3437
3438 `:enable FORM'.
3439
3440 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3441 or disabled.
3442
3443 `:visible FORM'
3444
3445 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3446
3447 `:filter FUNCTION'
3448
3449 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3450 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3451 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3452
3453 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3454
3455 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3456 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3457
3458 `:image IMAGES'
3459
3460 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3461 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3462 meaning of each of the four elements:
3463
3464 Index Use when item is
3465 ----------------------------------------
3466 0 enabled and selected
3467 1 enabled and deselected
3468 2 disabled and selected
3469 3 disabled and deselected
3470
3471 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3472 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3473
3474 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3475
3476 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3477 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3478
3479 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3480 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3481 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3482 menu bar.
3483
3484 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3485
3486 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3487 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3488 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3489
3490 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3491 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3492
3493 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3494 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3495 pixels. Default is 1.
3496
3497 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3498 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3499
3500 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3501
3502 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3503 a tool bar item. If
3504
3505 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3506 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3507 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3508
3509 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3510
3511 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3512
3513 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3514 item.
3515
3516 ** Mode line changes.
3517
3518 +++
3519 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3520
3521 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3522 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3523 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3524
3525 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3526 a `local-map' text property.
3527
3528 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3529 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3530
3531 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3532 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3533 `local-map' property.
3534
3535 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3536 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3537 example.
3538
3539 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3540 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3541
3542 +++
3543 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3544 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3545
3546 +++
3547 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3548
3549 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3550 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3551 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3552 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3553 line.
3554
3555 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3556 `header-line'.
3557
3558 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3559 position in the header-line.
3560
3561 +++
3562 ** Text property `display'
3563
3564 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3565 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3566 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3567 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3568
3569 *** Variable width and height spaces
3570
3571 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3572 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3573 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3574 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3575 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3576 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3577 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3578
3579 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3580 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3581 properties described below.
3582
3583 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3584 characters having the `display' property.
3585
3586 - :width WIDTH
3587
3588 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3589 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3590
3591 - :relative-width FACTOR
3592
3593 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3594 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3595 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3596 width of that character by FACTOR.
3597
3598 - :align-to HPOS
3599
3600 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3601 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3602
3603 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3604
3605 - :height HEIGHT
3606
3607 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3608 normal line height.
3609
3610 - :relative-height FACTOR
3611
3612 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3613 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3614
3615 - :ascent ASCENT
3616
3617 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3618 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3619 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3620 equal to 100.
3621
3622 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3623
3624 *** Images
3625
3626 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3627 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3628 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3629 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3630 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3631 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3632 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3633 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3634 as display specification.
3635
3636 *** Other display properties
3637
3638 - :space-width FACTOR
3639
3640 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3641 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3642 integer or float.
3643
3644 - :height HEIGHT
3645
3646 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3647
3648 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3649 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3650 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3651 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3652 a font is available counts as a step.
3653
3654 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3655 as tall as the frame's default font.
3656
3657 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3658 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3659
3660 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3661 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3662
3663 - :raise FACTOR
3664
3665 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3666 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3667 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3668 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3669 `:height' subproperty.
3670
3671 *** Conditional display properties
3672
3673 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3674 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3675 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3676 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3677 the text having the `display' property.
3678
3679 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3680 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3681
3682 +++
3683 ** New menu separator types.
3684
3685 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3686 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3687 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3688 to specify other menu separator types.
3689
3690 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3691
3692 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3693 separator occurs.
3694
3695 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3696
3697 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3698
3699 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3700
3701 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3702
3703 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3704
3705 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3706
3707 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3708
3709 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3710
3711 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3712
3713 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3714 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3715
3716 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3717
3718 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3719
3720 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3721
3722 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3723
3724 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3725
3726 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3727
3728 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3729
3730 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3731
3732 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3733
3734 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3735
3736 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3737
3738 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3739
3740 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3741
3742 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3743
3744 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3745 the corresponding single-line separators.
3746
3747 +++
3748 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3749
3750 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3751 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3752 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3753 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3754 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3755 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3756 default foreground is black.
3757
3758 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3759 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3760 `ScrollBarBackground').
3761
3762 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3763 settings for scroll bar colors.
3764
3765 +++
3766 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3767 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3768
3769 ---
3770 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3771 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3772 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3773 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3774 the original window start.
3775
3776 ---
3777 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3778 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3779 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3780
3781 +++
3782 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3783
3784 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3785 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3786 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3787 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3788
3789 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3790 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3791
3792 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3793
3794 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3795 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3796 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3797 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3798 temporarily to nil, for example
3799
3800 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3801 (enlarge-window 10))
3802
3803 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3804 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3805
3806 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3807 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3808 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3809 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3810 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3811 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3812
3813
3814 ^L
3815 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3816
3817 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3818 input.
3819
3820 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3821
3822 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3823
3824 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3825 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3826 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3827 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3828 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3829
3830 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3831 been added.
3832
3833 ^L
3834 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3835
3836 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3837
3838 ^L
3839 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3840
3841 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3842 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3843 \f
3844 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3845
3846 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3847
3848 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3849 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3850 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3851
3852 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3853 is the one that is used.
3854
3855 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3856 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3857 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3858 separate from the command's regular output.
3859 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3860 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3861 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3862 the buffer name.
3863
3864 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3865 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3866 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3867 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3868
3869 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3870 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3871 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3872 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3873
3874 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3875 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3876 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3877 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3878
3879 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3880 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3881 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3882 they never ignore case.
3883
3884 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3885 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3886 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3887 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3888 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3889 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3890 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3891
3892 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3893 the same format that was used in the file before.
3894
3895 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3896 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3897
3898 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3899 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3900 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3901
3902 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3903 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3904 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3905 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3906 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3907 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3908 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3909
3910 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3911 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3912 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3913 format. You can now customize these variables.
3914
3915 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3916 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3917 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3918 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3919
3920 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3921 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3922 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3923
3924 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3925 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3926 doesn't have any effect.
3927
3928 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3929 not one per buffer.
3930
3931 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3932 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3933 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3934
3935 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3936 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3937 `auto-show-mode' command.
3938
3939 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3940 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3941 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3942 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3943 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3944
3945 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3946 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3947
3948 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3949 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3950 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3951
3952 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3953 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3954 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3955 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3956
3957 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3958
3959 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3960 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3961 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3962 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3963 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3964
3965 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3966 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3967
3968 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3969 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3970 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3971 `?' on other systems.
3972
3973 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3974 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3975 Unix.
3976
3977 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3978 current codepage when it starts.
3979
3980 ** Mail changes
3981
3982 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3983 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3984 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3985 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3986 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3987 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3988 latin-1:
3989
3990 MIME-version: 1.0
3991 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3992 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3993
3994 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3995 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3996 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3997 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3998 buffer-file-coding-system.
3999
4000 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4001 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4002 mail.
4003
4004 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4005 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4006 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4007 list of possible coding systems.
4008
4009 ** CC Mode changes
4010
4011 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4012 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4013 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4014 docstring for details.
4015
4016 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4017 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4018 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4019 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4020 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4021
4022 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4023 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4024
4025 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4026 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4027
4028 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4029 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4030 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4031 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4032 anonymous classes.
4033
4034 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4035 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4036
4037 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4038 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4039 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4040 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4041
4042 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4043 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4044 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4045 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4046 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4047
4048 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4049
4050 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4051
4052 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4053 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4054
4055 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4056
4057 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4058 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4059 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4060 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4061 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4062
4063 ** Gnus changes.
4064
4065 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4066 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4067 Gnus manual for the full story.
4068
4069 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4070 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4071 group, which is created automatically.
4072
4073 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4074 values.
4075
4076 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4077
4078 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4079 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4080
4081 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4082 `C-u C-c C-c'.
4083
4084 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4085
4086 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4087 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4088
4089 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4090
4091 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4092 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4093
4094 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4095 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4096
4097 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4098 control over simplification.
4099
4100 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4101
4102 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4103 limit.
4104
4105 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4106
4107 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4108
4109 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4110 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4111 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4112
4113 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4114 `a' forces normal posting method.
4115
4116 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4117 -- `W d'.
4118
4119 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4120 to a non-nil value.
4121
4122 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4123 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4124
4125 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4126 has been added.
4127
4128 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4129
4130 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4131
4132 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4133 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4134
4135 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4136 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4137
4138 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4139
4140 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4141 been added.
4142
4143 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4144 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4145
4146 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4147 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4148
4149 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4150
4151 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4152
4153 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4154
4155 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4156
4157 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4158 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4159 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4160
4161 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4162 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4163 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4164 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4165 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4166
4167 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4168 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4169 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4170 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4171
4172 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4173 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4174 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4175 mismatch.
4176
4177 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4178
4179 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4180 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4181
4182 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4183 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4184 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4185 removed from the label.
4186
4187 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4188 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4189
4190 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4191 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4192
4193 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4194 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4195 expressions.
4196
4197 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4198
4199 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4200
4201 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4202 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4203
4204 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4205 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4206 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4207
4208 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4209 changes with a special face.
4210
4211 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4212 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4213 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4214 \f
4215 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4216
4217 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4218 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4219 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4220 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4221 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4222
4223 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4224 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4225 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4226
4227 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4228 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4229 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4230 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4231 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4232 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4233 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4234 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4235 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4236
4237 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4238 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4239 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4240 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4241 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4242 program.
4243
4244 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4245 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4246 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4247 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4248 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4249 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4250
4251 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4252 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4253 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4254 was not documented clearly before.
4255
4256 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4257 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4258 \f
4259 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4260
4261 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4262 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4263 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4264 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4265
4266 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4267 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4268 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4269
4270 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4271
4272 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4273 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4274
4275 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4276 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4277 integers.
4278
4279 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4280 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4281 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4282 file names and attributes are returned.
4283
4284 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4285 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4286 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4287 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4288 returns the result.
4289
4290 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4291 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4292
4293 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4294
4295 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4296 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4297 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4298 optionally.
4299
4300 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4301 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4302
4303 **
4304 The new function process-running-child-p
4305 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4306 terminal to its own child process.
4307
4308 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4309 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4310 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4311 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4312
4313 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4314 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4315
4316 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4317 :included is an alias for :visible.
4318
4319 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4320 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4321 to move or copy menu entries.
4322
4323 ** Multibyte editing changes
4324
4325 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4326 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4327 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4328 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4329 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4330 (setq char (sref str idx)
4331 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4332 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4333
4334 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4335 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4336 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4337
4338 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4339 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4340 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4341
4342 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4343
4344 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4345 across the boundary.
4346
4347 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4348 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4349 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4350 contains 8-bit characters.
4351 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4352 contains invalid characters.
4353
4354 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4355 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4356 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4357 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4358 way.
4359
4360 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4361 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4362 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4363 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4364
4365 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4366 compose Thai characters in a string.
4367
4368 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4369 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4370 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4371 menus should always use the third argument.
4372
4373 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4374 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4375 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4376 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4377
4378 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4379 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4380 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4381 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4382
4383 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4384 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4385 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4386 echo area contents.
4387
4388 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4389
4390 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4391 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4392 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4393
4394 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4395 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4396 means to clear out that attribute.
4397
4398 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4399 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4400
4401 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4402 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4403 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4404 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4405
4406 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4407 the gap of the current buffer.
4408
4409 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4410 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4411 current buffer.
4412
4413 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4414 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4415 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4416 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4417 \f
4418 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4419
4420 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4421 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4422 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4423 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4424 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4425
4426 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4427 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4428 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4429 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4430 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4431
4432 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4433 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4434 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4435
4436 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4437 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4438 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4439 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4440 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4441 results.
4442
4443 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4444 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4445 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4446 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4447 \f
4448 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4449
4450 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4451 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4452 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4453 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4454
4455 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4456 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4457 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4458 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4459 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4460 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4461 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4462 region.
4463
4464 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4465 selective undo.
4466
4467 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4468 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4469 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4470 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4471 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4472
4473 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4474 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4475 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4476 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4477
4478 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4479 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4480 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4481 something that most users not do.
4482
4483 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4484 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4485 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4486 applications.
4487
4488 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4489 pasting operations.
4490
4491 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4492 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4493 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4494 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4495 `ps-printer-name'.
4496
4497 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4498 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4499 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4500 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4501 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4502 hits a new word.
4503
4504 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4505 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4506 to be confused by TeX commands.
4507
4508 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4509 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4510 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4511 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4512
4513 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4514 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4515 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4516 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4517 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4518
4519 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4520 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4521
4522 ** Changes in input method usage.
4523
4524 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4525 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4526 respectively.
4527
4528 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4529
4530 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4531 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4532
4533 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4534 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4535
4536 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4537
4538 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4539
4540 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4541 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4542
4543 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4544 given in the following case:
4545 o When you are using a complex input method.
4546 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4547
4548 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4549 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4550 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4551 setting it to t is helpful.
4552
4553 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4554
4555 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4556 keys:
4557 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4558 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4559 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4560 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4561 environment.
4562
4563 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4564 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4565 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4566 get
4567
4568 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4569
4570 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4571
4572 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4573 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4574
4575 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4576 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4577 its owner and group.
4578
4579 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4580 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4581
4582 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4583 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4584
4585 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4586 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4587 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4588 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4589
4590 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4591 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4592 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4593 for writing keyboard macros.
4594
4595 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4596 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4597 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4598 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4599 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4600 info.
4601
4602 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4603
4604 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4605 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4606 contents only.
4607
4608 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4609 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4610 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4611 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4612
4613 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4614 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4615 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4616
4617 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4618 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4619 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4620 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4621
4622 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4623 failure if the command produces no output.
4624
4625 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4626 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4627 the mouse.
4628
4629 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4630 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4631 function and variable names.
4632
4633 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4634 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4635 file-coding-system-alist.
4636
4637 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4638 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4639 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4640 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4641 according to the current fontset.
4642
4643 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4644
4645 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4646 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4647 nonascii-insert-offset.
4648
4649 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4650 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4651 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4652 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4653
4654 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4655 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4656
4657 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4658 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4659
4660 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4661 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4662 command keys.
4663
4664 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4665 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4666
4667 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4668 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4669 all variables that have documentation.
4670
4671 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4672 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4673 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4674 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4675 it should show; the default is 20.
4676
4677 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4678 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4679 of your input.
4680
4681 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4682 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4683 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4684 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4685 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4686 Newly added options are included as well.
4687
4688 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4689 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4690 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4691
4692 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4693 Customize menu.
4694
4695 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4696 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4697
4698 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4699 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4700 invoked.
4701
4702 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4703 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4704 The default is 1.
4705
4706 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4707 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4708 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4709 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4710 sensibly.
4711
4712 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4713
4714 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4715 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4716 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4717
4718 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4719 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4720 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4721 every night.
4722
4723 ** Desktop changes
4724
4725 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4726 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4727
4728 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4729 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4730
4731 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4732 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4733
4734 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4735 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4736 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4737 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4738 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4739 made invisible again.
4740
4741 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4742
4743 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4744 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4745 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4746 toggle.
4747
4748 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4749 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4750 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4751 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4752 rmail-default-body-file.
4753
4754 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4755 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4756 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4757
4758 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4759 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4760 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4761
4762 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4763 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4764 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4765 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4766 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4767 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4768
4769 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4770 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4771 provided by feedmail are:
4772
4773 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4774 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4775 there is also a queue for draft messages
4776
4777 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4778 be prompted for confirmation
4779
4780 **** does smart filling of address headers
4781
4782 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4783 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4784 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4785
4786 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4787 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4788 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4789 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4790
4791 ** Dired changes
4792
4793 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4794 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4795
4796 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4797 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4798
4799 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4800 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4801 for a specified regexp.
4802
4803 ** VC Changes
4804
4805 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4806 conveniently.
4807
4808 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4809 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4810 Dired.
4811
4812 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4813 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4814 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4815 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4816
4817 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4818 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4819 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4820 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4821 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4822
4823 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4824 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4825 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4826 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4827 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4828
4829 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4830 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4831 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4832 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4833
4834 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4835 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4836 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4837
4838 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4839 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4840 session to resolve them.
4841
4842 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4843 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4844 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4845 uses as well).
4846
4847 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4848 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4849 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4850 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4851 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4852 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4853 using ediff.
4854
4855 ** Changes in Font Lock
4856
4857 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4858 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4859 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4860 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4861 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4862
4863 ** Frame name display changes
4864
4865 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4866 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4867 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4868 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4869
4870 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4871 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4872 menu.
4873
4874 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4875
4876 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4877 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4878 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4879
4880 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4881
4882 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4883 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4884 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4885
4886 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4887 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4888 the following line.
4889
4890 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4891 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4892 previously sent input.
4893
4894 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4895 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4896 as the search string.
4897
4898 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4899 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4900
4901 ** C mode changes
4902
4903 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4904 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4905 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4906 definition.
4907
4908 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4909 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4910 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4911 style is still the default however.
4912
4913 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4914
4915 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4916 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4917 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4918
4919 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4920 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4921
4922 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4923 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4924
4925 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4926 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4927
4928 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4929 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4930
4931 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4932 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4933 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4934 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4935
4936 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4937
4938 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4939 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4940 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4941
4942 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4943 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4944 expanding dynamically.
4945
4946 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4947 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4948
4949 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4950 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4951 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4952 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4953
4954 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4955
4956 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4957
4958 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4959 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4960 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4961 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4962 against the first word in the title.
4963
4964 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4965 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4966 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4967 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4968 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4969 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4970
4971 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4972 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4973 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4974 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4975
4976 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4977
4978 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4979 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4980 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4981 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4982 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4983 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4984
4985 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4986 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4987
4988 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4989 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4990 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4991
4992 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4993 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4994
4995 ** Ispell changes.
4996
4997 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4998 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4999 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5000
5001 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5002 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5003 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5004 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5005 include:
5006
5007 o URLs are automatically skipped
5008 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5009
5010 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5011
5012 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5013
5014 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5015 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5016 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5017 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5018
5019 *** New recursive parser.
5020
5021 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5022 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5023 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5024
5025 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5026
5027 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5028 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5029 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5030
5031 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5032
5033 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5034
5035 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5036
5037 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5038
5039 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5040
5041 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5042 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5043
5044 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5045
5046 *** References to external documents.
5047
5048 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5049 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5050 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5051 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5052 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5053 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5054 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5055
5056 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5057
5058 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5059 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5060
5061 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5062 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5063
5064 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5065
5066 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5067 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5068
5069 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5070
5071 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5072 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5073 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5074 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5075 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5076 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5077 more.
5078
5079 *** Support for the varioref package
5080
5081 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5082
5083 *** New hooks
5084
5085 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5086 and citations are created. These hooks are
5087 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5088 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5089
5090 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5091
5092 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5093 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5094
5095 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5096
5097 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5098 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5099 fontified, use
5100
5101 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5102
5103 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5104 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5105 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5106 directories that contain the same file name.
5107
5108 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5109 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5110 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5111 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5112 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5113 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5114 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5115 directory.
5116
5117 ** New modes and packages
5118
5119 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5120 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5121 it, but some do not.
5122
5123 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5124 code.
5125
5126 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5127 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5128 around in a buffer.
5129
5130 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5131
5132 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5133 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5134 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5135 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5136
5137 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5138 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5139 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5140
5141 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5142 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5143 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5144 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5145 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5146 the like.
5147
5148 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5149 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5150
5151 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5152 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5153 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5154 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5155
5156 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5157
5158 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5159 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5160 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5161 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5162 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5163 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5164 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5165 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5166 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5167 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5168 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5169
5170 Platform-specific modes:
5171
5172 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5173 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5174 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5175 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5176 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5177 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5178 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5179 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5180 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5181 \f
5182 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5183
5184 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5185 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5186 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5187 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5188
5189 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5190 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5191 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5192
5193 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5194 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5195 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5196 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5197
5198 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5199 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5200 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5201 environment.
5202
5203 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5204 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5205 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5206 current input method for reading this one event.
5207
5208 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5209 now control whether to output certain characters as
5210 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5211 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5212 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5213 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5214 \f
5215 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5216
5217 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5218 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5219
5220 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5221 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5222 always increases point by 1.
5223
5224 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5225 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5226
5227 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5228
5229 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5230 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5231 default value changed. For example,
5232
5233 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5234 :type 'integer
5235 :group 'foo
5236 :version "20.3")
5237
5238 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5239 :version "20.3")
5240
5241 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5242 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5243 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5244 `:version' in the top level group.
5245
5246 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5247
5248 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5249 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5250
5251 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5252 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5253 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5254 to themselves.
5255
5256 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5257 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5258 values whatever.
5259
5260 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5261 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5262 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5263
5264 ** Frame-local variables.
5265
5266 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5267 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5268 local bindings for that variable.
5269
5270 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5271 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5272 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5273 parameter name.
5274
5275 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5276 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5277 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5278 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5279
5280 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5281 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5282 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5283 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5284
5285 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5286 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5287 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5288 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5289 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5290
5291 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5292 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5293 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5294 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5295
5296 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5297 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5298
5299 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5300 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5301 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5302
5303 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5304 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5305 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5306 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5307
5308 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5309 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5310 empty input.
5311
5312 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5313 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5314 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5315 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5316 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5317
5318 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5319 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5320 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5321 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5322
5323 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5324 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5325 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5326 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5327 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5328
5329 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5330 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5331 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5332 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5333
5334 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5335 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5336 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5337
5338 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5339 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5340 was directed to display this buffer.
5341
5342 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5343 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5344 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5345 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5346 set-window-configuration.
5347
5348 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5349 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5350 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5351 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5352
5353 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5354 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5355 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5356
5357 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5358 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5359 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5360
5361 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5362 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5363
5364 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5365 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5366
5367 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5368 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5369 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5370
5371 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5372 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5373 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5374 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5375
5376 ** Menu changes
5377
5378 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5379 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5380 better supported.
5381
5382 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5383 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5384 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5385 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5386 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5387
5388 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5389
5390 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5391 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5392 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5393 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5394
5395 The format is:
5396 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5397 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5398 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5399 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5400 The supported properties include
5401
5402 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5403 item is enabled.
5404 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5405 item should appear in the menu.
5406 :filter FILTER-FN
5407 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5408 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5409 It should return a binding to use instead.
5410 :keys DESCRIPTION
5411 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5412 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5413 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5414 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5415 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5416 keyboard binding.
5417 :key-sequence nil
5418 This means that the command normally has no
5419 keyboard equivalent.
5420 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5421 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5422 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5423 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5424 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5425
5426 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5427 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5428
5429 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5430
5431 ** New event types
5432
5433 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5434 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5435 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5436 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5437
5438 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5439
5440 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5441 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5442 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5443 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5444 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5445 forward, away from the user.
5446
5447 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5448
5449 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5450 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5451 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5452 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5453 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5454
5455 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5456
5457 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5458 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5459 that were dragged and dropped.
5460
5461 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5462
5463 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5464
5465 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5466 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5467 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5468
5469 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5470 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5471 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5472
5473 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5474 in Emacs 19 and before.
5475
5476 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5477 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5478
5479 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5480 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5481 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5482 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5483
5484 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5485 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5486 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5487 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5488 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5489
5490 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5491 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5492 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5493 consistent with the new representation.
5494
5495 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5496 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5497 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5498 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5499
5500 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5501 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5502 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5503
5504 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5505 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5506 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5507
5508 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5509 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5510 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5511
5512 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5513 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5514
5515 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5516 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5517
5518 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5519 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5520 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5521 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5522
5523 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5524 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5525
5526 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5527 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5528 buffer or string being searched.
5529
5530 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5531 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5532 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5533 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5534 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5535 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5536 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5537
5538 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5539
5540 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5541 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5542 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5543 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5544 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5545 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5546 define-coding-system-alias.
5547
5548 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5549 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5550 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5551 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5552 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5553 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5554 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5555 `iso-8859-1'.
5556
5557 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5558 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5559 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5560 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5561
5562 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5563 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5564 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5565 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5566
5567 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5568 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5569 This function requires a user interaction.
5570
5571 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5572 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5573 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5574 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5575 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5576 select-safe-coding-system.
5577
5578 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5579 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5580 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5581 was done.
5582
5583 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5584 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5585 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5586
5587 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5588 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5589 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5590 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5591
5592 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5593 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5594 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5595 converted.
5596
5597 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5598 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5599
5600 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5601 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5602 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5603 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5604 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5605 range of characters.
5606
5607 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5608 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5609
5610 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5611 in the current buffer at position POS.
5612
5613 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5614 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5615 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5616 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5617 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5618 binding input-method-function to nil.
5619
5620 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5621 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5622 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5623 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5624 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5625
5626 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5627 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5628
5629 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5630 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5631
5632 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5633 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5634 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5635 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5636 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5637 \f
5638 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5639
5640 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5641 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5642 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5643 tree structure.
5644
5645 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5646 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5647
5648 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5649 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5650 in your .emacs file.)
5651
5652 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5653 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5654
5655 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5656 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5657
5658 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5659 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5660 kills the region.
5661
5662 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5663 delete the character before point, as usual.
5664
5665 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5666 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5667 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5668
5669 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5670 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5671 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5672 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5673 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5674 past.)
5675
5676 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5677 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5678 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5679 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5680 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5681
5682 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5683 and is an alias for it.
5684
5685 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5686 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5687
5688 ** Scrolling changes
5689
5690 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5691 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5692
5693 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5694 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5695 where it started.
5696
5697 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5698 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5699 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5700 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5701
5702 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5703 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5704 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5705 recenters the window.
5706
5707 ** International character set support (MULE)
5708
5709 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5710 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5711 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5712 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5713 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5714 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5715
5716 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5717 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5718 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5719 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5720 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5721
5722 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5723 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5724 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5725 language, to make it possible to type them.
5726
5727 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5728 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5729
5730 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5731 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5732
5733 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5734
5735 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5736
5737 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5738 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5739 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5740 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5741 characters for their work until they want to change.
5742
5743 *** Input methods
5744
5745 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5746 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5747 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5748 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5749 support several input methods.
5750
5751 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5752 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5753 work.
5754
5755 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5756 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5757 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5758 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5759 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5760 letter.
5761
5762 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5763 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5764 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5765 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5766 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5767
5768 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5769 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5770 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5771 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5772
5773 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5774 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5775 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5776 the first guess is wrong.
5777
5778 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5779 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5780
5781 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5782 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5783 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5784 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5785
5786 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5787 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5788 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5789 translate automatically to and from either one.
5790
5791 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5792
5793 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5794 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5795 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5796 what you want.
5797
5798 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5799 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5800 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5801 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5802
5803 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5804 character conversion as well.
5805
5806 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5807
5808 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5809 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5810 requires using many fonts.
5811
5812 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5813 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5814
5815 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5816 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5817 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5818 you would use a font.
5819
5820 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5821 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5822 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5823
5824 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5825 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5826 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5827 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5828 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5829
5830 *** Defining fontsets.
5831
5832 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5833 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5834 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5835
5836 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5837 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5838 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5839 standard fontset are created automatically.
5840
5841 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5842 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5843 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5844 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5845 name is `fontset-startup'.
5846
5847 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5848 The resource value should have this form:
5849 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5850 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5851 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5852 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5853 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5854 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5855 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5856 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5857 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5858
5859 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5860 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5861 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5862
5863 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5864 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5865 following resource,
5866 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5867 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5868 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5869 Here is the substitution rule:
5870 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5871 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5872 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5873 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5874 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5875
5876 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5877 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5878 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5879
5880 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5881 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5882 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5883 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5884 fontsets.
5885
5886 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5887 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5888
5889 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5890 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5891 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5892 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5893 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5894 system for new files that you create.
5895
5896 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5897 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5898 whole Emacs session.
5899
5900 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5901 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5902 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5903
5904 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5905 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5906 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5907 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5908 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5909
5910 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5911 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5912 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5913 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5914 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5915
5916 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5917 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5918
5919 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5920 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5921
5922 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5923 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5924
5925 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5926 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5927 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5928 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5929 of the file.
5930
5931 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5932 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5933 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5934 translated into that character code.
5935
5936 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5937 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5938
5939 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5940
5941 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5942 the coding system for keyboard input.
5943
5944 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5945 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5946 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5947
5948 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5949
5950 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5951 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5952 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5953 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5954 designed to work with terminals.
5955
5956 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5957 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5958 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5959 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5960 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5961 in the corresponding buffer.
5962
5963 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5964
5965 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5966 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5967 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5968
5969 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5970 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5971 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5972 want to use.
5973
5974 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5975 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5976
5977 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5978 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5979 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5980 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5981
5982 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5983 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5984 related information.
5985
5986 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5987 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5988 scripts.
5989
5990 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5991 information about the support for a particular language.
5992 You specify the language as an argument.
5993
5994 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5995 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5996 first dash.
5997
5998 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5999 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6000 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6001 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6002
6003 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6004 B big5 (Chinese)
6005 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6006 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6007 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6008 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6009 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6010 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6011 K euc-korea (Korean)
6012 R koi8 (Russian)
6013 Q tibetan
6014 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6015 T lao
6016 T tis620 (Thai)
6017 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6018 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6019 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6020 v viqr (Vietnamese)
6021 z hz (Chinese)
6022
6023 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6024 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6025 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6026 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6027
6028 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6029 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6030
6031 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6032 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6033 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6034 Rmail files themselves.
6035
6036 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6037 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6038
6039 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6040 for sending mail:
6041
6042 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6043 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6044 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6045 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6046 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6047
6048 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6049 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6050 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6051 translations.
6052
6053 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6054 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6055 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6056 without any conversion.
6057
6058 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6059 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6060 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6061 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6062
6063 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6064 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6065
6066 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6067 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6068
6069 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6070 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6071
6072 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6073 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6074 in the buffer before point.
6075
6076 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6077 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6078 you are using.
6079
6080 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6081 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6082
6083 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6084
6085 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6086 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6087
6088 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6089 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6090 can become a bottleneck.
6091
6092 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6093 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6094 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6095 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6096 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6097 so useful that the change is worth while.
6098
6099 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6100 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6101 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6102 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6103
6104 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6105 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6106 show-paren-mode.
6107
6108 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6109 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6110 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6111
6112 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6113 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6114 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6115
6116 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6117 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6118 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6119
6120 ** Changes in View mode.
6121
6122 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6123 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6124
6125 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6126 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6127
6128 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6129 previous state.
6130
6131 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6132 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6133
6134 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6135 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6136 not just the selected window.
6137
6138 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6139 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6140 turns View mode on or off.
6141
6142 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6143 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6144 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6145
6146 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6147 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6148
6149 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6150 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6151 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6152 which version to compare with.
6153
6154 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6155 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6156
6157 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6158 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6159 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6160 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6161
6162 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6163 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6164 blocks, all of them or none.
6165
6166 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6167 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6168 confirmation first.
6169
6170 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6171 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6172 However, the mode will not be changed if
6173 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6174 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6175 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6176 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6177
6178 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6179
6180 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6181 these commands do not change the major mode.
6182
6183 ** M-x occur changes.
6184
6185 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6186 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6187
6188 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6189 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6190 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6191
6192 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6193 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6194 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6195 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6196 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6197
6198 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6199 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6200 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6201 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6202
6203 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6204 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6205 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6206
6207 ** Outline mode changes.
6208
6209 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6210
6211 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6212
6213 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6214 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6215 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6216 was already active.
6217
6218 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6219 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6220 get confused by it.
6221
6222 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6223 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6224
6225 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6226
6227 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6228 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6229 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6230 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6231
6232 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6233 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6234 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6235
6236 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6237 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6238 values.
6239
6240 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6241 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6242 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6243 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6244
6245 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6246 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6247 can be. The default value is 30.
6248
6249 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6250
6251 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6252 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6253 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6254 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6255 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6256 behavior.
6257
6258 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6259 compose-mail-other-frame.
6260
6261 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6262 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6263 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6264 buffer that shows the original message.
6265
6266 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6267 with separator lines around the contents.
6268
6269 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6270 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6271 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6272 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6273
6274 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6275
6276 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6277 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6278 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6279 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6280
6281 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6282 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6283 /etc/passwd.
6284
6285 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6286 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6287 /etc/passwd.
6288
6289 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6290 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6291 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6292 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6293
6294 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6295 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6296 be taken to be magic.
6297
6298 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6299 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6300 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6301
6302 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6303 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6304
6305 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6306 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6307
6308 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6309
6310 new key dired.el binding old key
6311 ------- ---------------- -------
6312 * c dired-change-marks c
6313 * m dired-mark m
6314 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6315 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6316 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6317 * u dired-unmark u
6318 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6319 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6320 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6321 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6322 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6323 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6324
6325 ** Rmail changes.
6326
6327 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6328 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6329 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6330 each time you run it.
6331
6332 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6333 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6334
6335 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6336 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6337 means to move in the opposite direction.
6338
6339 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6340 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6341
6342 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6343 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6344 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6345 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6346 for output.
6347
6348 ** Gnus changes.
6349
6350 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6351
6352 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6353 Gnus.
6354
6355 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6356 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6357
6358 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6359 article mode line.
6360
6361 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6362
6363 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6364
6365 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6366
6367 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6368 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6369 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6370
6371 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6372
6373 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6374
6375 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6376 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6377
6378 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6379 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6380 used to pick articles.
6381
6382 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6383 another have been added.
6384
6385 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6386
6387 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6388 generating lines in buffers.
6389
6390 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6391 `M-C-_'.
6392
6393 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6394
6395 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6396
6397 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6398
6399 *** Scores can be decayed.
6400
6401 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6402
6403 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6404 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6405
6406 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6407 the native server.
6408
6409 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6410
6411 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6412 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6413
6414 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6415
6416 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6417 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6418
6419 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6420 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6421
6422 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6423 a group.
6424
6425 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6426 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6427
6428 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6429
6430 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6431
6432 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6433
6434 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6435
6436 Use the `Y c' command.
6437
6438 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6439
6440 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6441
6442 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6443
6444 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6445 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6446
6447 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6448
6449 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6450
6451 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6452 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6453
6454 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6455
6456 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6457 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6458 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6459 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6460 this issue.)
6461
6462 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6463 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6464 particular news group. This can be done by:
6465
6466 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6467
6468 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6469 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6470 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6471 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6472 for reading and posting).
6473
6474 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6475 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6476 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6477 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6478 there.
6479
6480 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6481 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6482
6483 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6484 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6485 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6486 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6487 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6488
6489 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6490 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6491
6492 ** CC mode changes.
6493
6494 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6495 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6496 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6497 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6498 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6499 loaded.
6500
6501 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6502 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6503 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6504 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6505 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6506 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6507
6508 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6509 of the current buffer.
6510
6511 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6512 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6513 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6514
6515 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6516 style that the Python developers like.
6517
6518 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6519 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6520 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6521
6522 ** VC Changes [new]
6523
6524 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6525 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6526 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6527
6528 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6529 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6530 developers.
6531
6532 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6533 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6534
6535 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6536 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6537 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6538 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6539
6540 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6541 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6542
6543 ** Calendar changes.
6544
6545 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6546 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6547 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6548
6549 ** ps-print changes
6550
6551 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6552
6553 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6554
6555 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6556 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6557 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6558 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6559 It defaults to `letter'.
6560 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6561
6562 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6563 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6564 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6565
6566 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6567 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6568 It defaults to 1.
6569
6570 *** Horizontal layout
6571
6572 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6573 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6574 All are measured in points.
6575
6576 *** Vertical layout
6577
6578 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6579 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6580 All are measured in points.
6581
6582 *** Headers
6583
6584 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6585 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6586 margin above the text.
6587
6588 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6589 framing box is printed around the header.
6590
6591 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6592 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6593
6594 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6595 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6596 `ps-header-font-size'.
6597
6598 *** Font managing
6599
6600 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6601 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6602 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6603 elements to this alist.
6604
6605 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6606 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6607
6608 ** hideshow changes.
6609
6610 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6611 C++, ; for lisp).
6612
6613 *** Support for java-mode added.
6614
6615 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6616 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6617
6618 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6619 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6620 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6621
6622 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6623 robust and a lot faster.
6624
6625 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6626
6627 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6628 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6629 documentation for more details.
6630
6631 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6632
6633 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6634 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6635 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6636 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6637 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6638
6639 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6640 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6641 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6642 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6643
6644 ** Font Lock mode
6645
6646 *** Custom support
6647
6648 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6649 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6650 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6651 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6652 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6653 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6654
6655 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6656
6657 *** Maximum decoration
6658
6659 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6660 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6661 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6662 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6663 to get the old behavior.
6664
6665 *** New support
6666
6667 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6668
6669 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6670 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6671
6672 *** Configurable support
6673
6674 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6675 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6676 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6677 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6678 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6679 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6680 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6681
6682 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6683 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6684 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6685
6686 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6687
6688 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6689 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6690 for any mode.
6691
6692 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6693
6694 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6695
6696 in your ~/.emacs.
6697
6698 *** New faces
6699
6700 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6701 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6702 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6703 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6704
6705 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6706
6707 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6708 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6709 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6710
6711 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6712
6713 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6714 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6715 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6716 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6717 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6718 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6719 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6720
6721 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6722 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6723 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6724 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6725 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6726 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6727
6728 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6729
6730 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6731 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6732 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6733 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6734
6735 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6736 settings.
6737
6738 ** Ada mode changes.
6739
6740 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6741 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6742 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6743 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6744 stubs.
6745
6746 *** There are two new commands:
6747 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6748 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6749
6750 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6751 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6752 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6753
6754 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6755 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6756 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6757
6758 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6759 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6760 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6761 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6762
6763 ** Scheme mode changes.
6764
6765 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6766 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6767 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6768 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6769 have any effect.
6770
6771 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6772 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6773 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6774 variables as buffer-local variables.
6775
6776 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6777 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6778
6779 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6780
6781 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6782 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6783 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6784 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6785
6786 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6787 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6788 buffer in Emacs.
6789
6790 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6791 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6792 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6793 option takes precedence.
6794
6795 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6796 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6797 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6798
6799 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6800 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6801 the current defun.
6802
6803 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6804 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6805
6806 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6807 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6808 necessary).
6809
6810 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6811 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6812 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6813 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6814 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6815 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6816
6817 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6818 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6819 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6820 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6821
6822 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6823 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6824 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6825 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6826 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6827
6828 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6829 since it applies only to the current frame.
6830
6831 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6832 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6833 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6834
6835 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6836 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6837 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6838 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6839 instead of just the file you are editing.
6840
6841 ** RefTeX mode
6842
6843 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6844 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6845 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6846 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6847 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6848
6849 C-c ( reftex-label
6850 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6851 knows which kind of label is needed.
6852
6853 C-c ) reftex-reference
6854 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6855 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6856
6857 C-c [ reftex-citation
6858 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6859 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6860
6861 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6862 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6863
6864 C-c = reftex-toc
6865 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6866 can quickly jump to every section.
6867
6868 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6869 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6870 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6871 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6872 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6873
6874 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6875
6876 *** Info documentation is now available.
6877
6878 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6879 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6880
6881 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6882 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6883
6884 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6885 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6886
6887 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6888 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6889 appropriate functions.
6890
6891 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6892 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6893
6894 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6895 been cleaned.
6896
6897 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6898 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6899
6900 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6901 shall be delimited.
6902
6903 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6904 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6905 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6906
6907 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6908 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6909 prefixed with `ALT'.
6910
6911 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6912 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6913 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6914 documentation).
6915
6916 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6917 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6918 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6919
6920 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6921 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6922
6923 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6924 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6925 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6926
6927 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6928
6929 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6930
6931 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6932 from alien sources.
6933
6934 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6935 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6936 crossref entries.
6937
6938 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6939 region.
6940
6941 *** Added support for imenu.
6942
6943 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6944 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6945 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6946 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6947
6948 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6949 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6950
6951 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6952
6953 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6954
6955 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6956 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6957 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6958 as an argument.
6959
6960 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6961 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6962
6963 ** browse-url changes
6964
6965 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6966 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6967 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6968 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6969 customization variables.
6970
6971 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6972
6973 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6974 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6975 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6976
6977 ** Changes in Ediff
6978
6979 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6980 pops up the Info file for this command.
6981
6982 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6983 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6984 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6985 directories).
6986
6987 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6988 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6989 files in the same directory.
6990
6991 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6992 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6993 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6994
6995 ** Changes in Viper
6996
6997 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6998 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6999 instead of vip-.
7000 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
7001 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
7002 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
7003 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
7004 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
7005 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
7006 color when Viper is in insert state.
7007 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
7008 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
7009 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
7010
7011 ** Etags changes.
7012
7013 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
7014 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
7015 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
7016 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
7017 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
7018
7019 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
7020
7021 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
7022 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
7023
7024 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
7025 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
7026 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
7027
7028 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
7029 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
7030 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
7031 methods and protocols.
7032
7033 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
7034 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
7035 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
7036 paragraph name.
7037
7038 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
7039 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
7040 at least M times and as many as N times.
7041
7042 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
7043 in files has changed slightly.
7044
7045 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
7046 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
7047 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
7048 with old time-stamp-format values.
7049
7050 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7051 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7052 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7053 reasons.
7054
7055 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7056 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7057 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7058 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7059 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7060 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7061
7062 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7063 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7064 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7065
7066 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7067 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7068 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7069 recommended now will continue to work then.
7070
7071 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7072 details.
7073
7074 ** There are some additional major modes:
7075
7076 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7077 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7078 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7079
7080 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7081 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7082 into Emacs.
7083
7084 ** New Lisp packages include:
7085
7086 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7087
7088 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7089 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7090
7091 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7092
7093 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7094 in shell buffers.
7095
7096 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7097 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7098 and `elint-defun'.
7099
7100 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7101 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7102 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7103 strings or comments.
7104
7105 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7106 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7107 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7108 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7109 at these points.
7110
7111 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7112 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7113
7114 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7115 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7116
7117 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7118
7119 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7120 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7121
7122 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7123
7124 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7125
7126 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7127
7128 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7129 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7130
7131 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7132 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7133 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7134 original place after inserting the copy.
7135
7136 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7137 on the buffer.
7138
7139 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7140 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7141 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7142
7143 Enable mouse-drag with:
7144 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7145 -or-
7146 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7147
7148 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7149 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7150
7151 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7152 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7153
7154 *** ogonek
7155
7156 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7157 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7158 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7159 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7160 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7161 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7162 instance) and vice versa.
7163
7164 To use this package load it using
7165 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7166 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7167 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7168 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7169 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7170 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7171
7172 *** Interface to ph.
7173
7174 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7175
7176 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7177 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7178 these servers.
7179
7180 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7181
7182 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7183 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7184 while the real cursor does not move.
7185
7186 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7187 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7188
7189 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7190 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7191
7192 ** movemail change
7193
7194 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7195 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7196 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7197 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7198
7199 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7200 \f
7201 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7202
7203 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7204
7205 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7206 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7207 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7208 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7209 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7210
7211 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7212 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7213 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7214 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7215 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7216 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7217 \f
7218 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7219
7220 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7221 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7222 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7223 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7224
7225 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7226 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7227
7228 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7229 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7230 "win".
7231
7232 ** Basic Lisp changes
7233
7234 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7235 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7236
7237 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7238 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7239 or by the user.
7240
7241 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7242
7243 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7244
7245 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7246 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7247
7248 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7249 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7250 its argument.
7251
7252 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7253
7254 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7255
7256 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7257
7258 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7259 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7260 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7261 `format' function.
7262
7263 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7264 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7265 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7266
7267 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7268 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7269 adding one of these suffixes.
7270
7271 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7272 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7273 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7274
7275 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7276 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7277
7278 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7279
7280 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7281 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7282
7283 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7284 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7285
7286 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7287
7288 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7289 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7290
7291 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7292 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7293 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7294 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7295
7296 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7297 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7298 of the last form.
7299
7300 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7301 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7302 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7303 as the last form.
7304
7305 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7306 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7307 matches.
7308
7309 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7310
7311 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7312 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7313 Then it returns that string.
7314
7315 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7316
7317 (with-output-to-string
7318 (princ "The buffer is ")
7319 (princ (buffer-name)))
7320
7321 returns "The buffer is foo".
7322
7323 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7324 is non-nil.
7325
7326 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7327 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7328 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7329
7330 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7331 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7332
7333 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7334 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7335 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7336 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7337 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7338 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7339
7340 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7341 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7342 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7343 characters".
7344
7345 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7346 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7347 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7348 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7349 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7350
7351 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7352 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7353 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7354 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7355
7356 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7357 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7358
7359 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7360
7361 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7362 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7363 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7364 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7365 guaranteed.
7366
7367 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7368 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7369 character).
7370
7371 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7372
7373 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7374 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7375 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7376 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7377 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7378
7379 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7380
7381 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7382 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7383 more than the number of characters.
7384
7385 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7386 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7387 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7388 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7389 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7390 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7391
7392 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7393 and returns a string containing those characters.
7394
7395 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7396 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7397 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7398 character, sref signals an error.
7399
7400 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7401 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7402 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7403
7404 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7405 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7406 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7407
7408 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7409 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7410 to a vector of the characters in it.
7411
7412 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7413 of a string. You call it as follows:
7414
7415 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7416
7417 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7418 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7419 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7420 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7421 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7422
7423 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7424 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7425
7426 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7427 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7428
7429 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7430 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7431 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7432 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7433
7434 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7435
7436 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7437
7438 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7439 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7440 are not included in the resulting value.
7441
7442 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7443 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7444 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7445 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7446
7447 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7448 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7449 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7450 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7451 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7452 column START-COLUMN.
7453
7454 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7455 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7456 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7457 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7458 changed text, before the change.
7459
7460 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7461 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7462 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7463
7464 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7465
7466 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7467
7468 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7469 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7470
7471 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7472 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7473 which identify the character within that character set.
7474
7475 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7476 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7477 opposite of split-char.
7478
7479 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7480 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7481
7482 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7483 of all the characters in a string.
7484
7485 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7486 and specifying coding systems.
7487
7488 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7489 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7490 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7491 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7492 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7493 as what to do about code conversion.)
7494
7495 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7496 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7497
7498 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7499 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7500 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7501
7502 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7503 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7504 to match against a file name.
7505
7506 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7507 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7508 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7509 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7510 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7511 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7512
7513 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7514 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7515
7516 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7517 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7518
7519 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7520 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7521 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7522 service names.
7523
7524 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7525 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7526 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7527 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7528 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7529 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7530
7531 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7532 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7533
7534 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7535 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7536 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7537 start the subprocess.
7538
7539 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7540 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7541 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7542 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7543 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7544
7545 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7546 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7547 subprocess.
7548
7549 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7550 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7551 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7552 connection permanently or until overridden.
7553
7554 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7555 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7556 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7557 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7558 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7559 system for one operation at a time.
7560
7561 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7562 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7563
7564 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7565 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7566 The value is a cons cell,
7567 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7568 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7569 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7570 input to the subprocess.
7571
7572 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7573 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7574
7575 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7576 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7577 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7578
7579 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7580 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7581 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7582 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7583 customization.
7584
7585 Thus, instead of writing
7586
7587 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7588 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7589
7590 you would now write this:
7591
7592 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7593 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7594 :type 'boolean
7595 :group foo)
7596
7597 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7598 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7599 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7600 for a description of them.
7601
7602 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7603 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7604
7605 (defgroup ispell nil
7606 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7607 :group 'processes)
7608
7609 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7610 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7611 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7612 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7613 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7614
7615 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7616 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7617 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7618 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7619 first-level subgroups.
7620
7621 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7622
7623 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7624 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7625
7626 ** easy-mmode
7627
7628 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7629 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7630 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7631 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7632 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7633 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7634
7635 ** Text property changes
7636
7637 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7638 text property.
7639
7640 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7641 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7642 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7643 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7644 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7645
7646 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7647 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7648 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7649 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7650
7651 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7652 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7653 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7654
7655 ** Changes in invisibility features
7656
7657 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7658 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7659 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7660 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7661 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7662 make the overlay visible.
7663
7664 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7665 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7666 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7667 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7668 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7669 t when it should hide it.
7670
7671 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7672
7673 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7674 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7675 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7676 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7677 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7678 Here is an example of how to do this:
7679
7680 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7681 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7682 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7683 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7684
7685 ...
7686 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7687
7688 ...
7689 ;; When done with the overlays:
7690 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7691 ;; Or respectively:
7692 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7693
7694 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7695
7696 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7697 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7698 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7699 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7700
7701 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7702 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7703 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7704
7705 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7706 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7707
7708 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7709 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7710
7711 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7712 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7713 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7714
7715 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7716 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7717 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7718 determine the syntax type of the character.
7719
7720 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7721 of the current buffer.
7722
7723 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7724 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7725 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7726
7727 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7728 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7729 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7730 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7731 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7732
7733 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7734 text property.
7735
7736 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7737 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7738 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7739
7740 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7741 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7742 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7743 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7744 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7745
7746 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7747 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7748 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7749
7750 ** Changes in face features
7751
7752 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7753 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7754
7755 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7756 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7757
7758 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7759 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7760
7761 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7762 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7763
7764 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7765 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7766 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7767 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7768 overlay property).
7769
7770 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7771 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7772
7773 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7774
7775 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7776 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7777 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7778 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7779
7780 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7781 begins with ~.
7782
7783 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7784 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7785
7786 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7787 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7788
7789 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7790 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7791
7792 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7793 character code conversion as well as other things.
7794
7795 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7796 (formerly it did not).
7797
7798 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7799 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7800
7801 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7802 instead of constant strings.
7803
7804 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7805 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7806 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7807
7808 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7809 in the same way as before.
7810
7811 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7812 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7813 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7814
7815 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7816 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7817 else, and returns nil.
7818
7819 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7820 directory cannot be listed.
7821
7822 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7823
7824 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7825 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7826 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7827 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7828 ways:
7829
7830 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7831 It is available through the history command M-n.
7832
7833 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7834 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7835 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7836 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7837 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7838
7839 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7840 argument in this way.
7841
7842 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7843 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7844 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7845
7846 ** Echo area features
7847
7848 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7849 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7850 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7851 after the echo area is cleared.
7852
7853 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7854 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7855
7856 ** Keyboard input features
7857
7858 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7859 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7860
7861 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7862 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7863 by keyboard macros.
7864
7865 ** Frame-related changes
7866
7867 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7868 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7869 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7870
7871 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7872 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7873 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7874
7875 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7876 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7877 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7878 in the selected frame.
7879
7880 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7881 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7882 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7883
7884 ** X Windows features
7885
7886 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7887 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7888 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7889
7890 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7891 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7892
7893 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7894 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7895 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7896
7897 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7898 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7899
7900 ** Subprocess features
7901
7902 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7903 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7904 automatically.
7905
7906 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7907 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7908
7909 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7910 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7911
7912 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7913 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7914
7915 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7916 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7917 goes after the other menu items.
7918
7919 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7920 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7921 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7922 are in use.
7923
7924 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7925 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7926
7927 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7928 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7929 form.
7930
7931 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7932 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7933 but its hook is still run.
7934
7935 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7936 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7937
7938 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7939 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7940 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7941
7942 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7943 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7944 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7945 warned.
7946
7947 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7948 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7949
7950 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7951 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7952 functions like display-time.
7953
7954 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7955 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7956
7957 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7958 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7959 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7960
7961 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7962 if there is an error in compilation.
7963
7964 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7965 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7966 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7967 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7968
7969 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7970 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7971 the *scratch* buffer.
7972
7973 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7974 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7975 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7976 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7977
7978 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7979 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7980 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7981
7982 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7983 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7984 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7985 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7986
7987 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7988 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7989 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7990
7991 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7992 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7993 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7994 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7995 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7996 files at all.
7997
7998 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7999 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
8000 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
8001 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
8002
8003 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
8004 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
8005 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
8006 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
8007
8008 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
8009
8010 ** imenu.el changes.
8011
8012 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
8013 item from menu created by imenu.
8014
8015 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
8016 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
8017 select one of those items.
8018 \f
8019 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8020 \f
8021 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
8022
8023 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
8024 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
8025
8026 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
8027 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
8028 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
8029 \f
8030 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
8031
8032 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
8033 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
8034
8035 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8036 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
8037 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
8038 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
8039 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
8040 all caps.
8041
8042 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
8043 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
8044
8045 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
8046 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
8047 as in previous Emacs versions.
8048
8049 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
8050 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8051 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8052 frames.
8053
8054 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8055 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8056 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8057 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8058 accident.
8059
8060 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8061 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8062 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8063 line and then executing the macro.
8064
8065 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8066
8067 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8068 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8069 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8070 characters.
8071
8072 ** Font Lock mode
8073
8074 *** Font Lock support modes
8075
8076 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8077 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8078 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8079 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8080 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8081
8082 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8083
8084 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8085
8086 in your ~/.emacs.
8087
8088 *** lazy-lock
8089
8090 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8091 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8092 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8093 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8094 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8095 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8096 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8097
8098 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8099
8100 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8101
8102 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8103
8104 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8105
8106 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8107 paren and key.
8108
8109 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8110 supported.
8111
8112 ** Gnus changes.
8113
8114 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8115 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8116 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8117 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8118
8119 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8120 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8121
8122 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8123 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8124 obsolete.
8125
8126 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8127 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8128
8129 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8130
8131 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8132
8133 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8134
8135 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8136 referred.
8137
8138 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8139
8140 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8141
8142 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8143
8144 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8145
8146 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8147 buffers.
8148
8149 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8150
8151 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8152
8153 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8154
8155 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8156
8157 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8158
8159 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8160
8161 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8162
8163 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8164 is possible.
8165
8166 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8167
8168 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8169 groups of groups.
8170
8171 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8172
8173 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8174 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8175
8176 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8177
8178 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8179
8180 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8181
8182 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8183
8184 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8185 expiration times.
8186
8187 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8188
8189 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8190 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8191
8192 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8193 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8194 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8195
8196 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8197 articles with the `*' command.
8198
8199 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8200
8201 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8202
8203 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8204
8205 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8206
8207 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8208 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8209
8210 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8211 buffer.
8212
8213 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8214
8215 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8216
8217 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8218
8219 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8220
8221 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8222
8223 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8224
8225 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8226
8227 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8228
8229 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8230
8231 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8232 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8233
8234 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8235 refetching.
8236
8237 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8238
8239 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8240 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8241
8242 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8243
8244 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8245
8246 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8247
8248 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8249 articles.
8250
8251 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8252
8253 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8254
8255 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8256 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8257
8258 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8259
8260 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8261
8262 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8263
8264 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8265
8266 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8267
8268 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8269 in greater detail.
8270 \f
8271 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8272
8273 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8274 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8275 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8276 exists.
8277
8278 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8279 as well as lists.
8280
8281 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8282 of a given keymap.
8283
8284 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8285 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8286 keymap or nil.
8287
8288 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8289 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8290 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8291 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8292 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8293 alias.
8294 \f
8295 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8296
8297 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8298
8299 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8300 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8301 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8302 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8303 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8304
8305 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8306 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8307 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8308
8309 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8310
8311 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8312 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8313 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8314 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8315 chapter of the manual for details.
8316
8317 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8318 customization variables take effect.
8319
8320 ** Marking with the mouse.
8321
8322 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8323 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8324 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8325
8326 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8327
8328 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8329
8330 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8331 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8332
8333 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8334 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8335 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8336 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8337 applications, these problems are significant.
8338
8339 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8340 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8341 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8342 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8343 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8344
8345 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8346 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8347
8348 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8349 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8350 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8351 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8352 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8353 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8354
8355 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8356
8357 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8358 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8359 minibuffer contains.
8360
8361 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8362
8363 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8364 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8365 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8366 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8367
8368 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8369 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8370 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8371 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8372
8373 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8374 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8375
8376 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8377 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8378 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8379
8380 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8381 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8382 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8383 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8384
8385 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8386
8387 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8388 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8389
8390 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8391
8392 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8393 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8394 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8395 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8396 immediately after the selected one.
8397
8398 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8399 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8400
8401 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8402
8403 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8404 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8405 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8406 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8407 recover-session.
8408
8409 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8410 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8411 will not work.
8412
8413 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8414 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8415 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8416 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8417 now that the bug is fixed.
8418
8419 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8420
8421 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8422 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8423 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8424 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8425
8426 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8427 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8428 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8429 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8430
8431 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8432 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8433 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8434
8435 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8436 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8437 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8438 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8439 remain normal.
8440
8441 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8442 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8443
8444 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8445 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8446 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8447 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8448
8449 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8450 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8451 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8452 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8453 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8454 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8455
8456 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8457 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8458 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8459 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8460
8461 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8462 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8463 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8464
8465 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8466 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8467 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8468 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8469 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8470 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8471 to a limitation in font-lock).
8472
8473 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8474
8475 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8476 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8477 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8478 this example:
8479
8480 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8481 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8482
8483 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8484
8485 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8486
8487 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8488
8489 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8490
8491 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8492 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8493 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8494 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8495 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8496 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8497
8498 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8499 does the same job.
8500
8501 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8502 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8503
8504 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8505 text.
8506
8507 ** Font Lock mode
8508
8509 *** Global Font Lock mode
8510
8511 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8512 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8513 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8514 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8515 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8516
8517 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8518
8519 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8520
8521 in your ~/.emacs.
8522
8523 *** Local Refontification
8524
8525 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8526 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8527 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8528 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8529
8530 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8531 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8532 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8533 above and below point.
8534
8535 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8536
8537 ** Follow mode
8538
8539 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8540 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8541 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8542 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8543 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8544 follow-mode.
8545
8546 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8547
8548 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8549 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8550
8551 ** hide-show changes.
8552
8553 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8554 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8555 normal hooks.
8556
8557 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8558 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8559
8560 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8561 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8562 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8563
8564 ** MSDOS Changes
8565
8566 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8567 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8568
8569 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8570 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8571
8572 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8573
8574 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8575 pressing both mouse buttons.
8576
8577 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8578 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8579 are:
8580
8581 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8582 now works.
8583
8584 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8585
8586 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8587 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8588
8589 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8590
8591 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8592
8593 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8594
8595 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8596
8597 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8598 \f
8599 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8600
8601 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8602 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8603 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8604 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8605 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8606
8607 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8608
8609 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8610 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8611 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8612 be different.
8613
8614 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8615 than `system-type'.
8616
8617 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8618
8619 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8620 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8621
8622 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8623 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8624
8625 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8626 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8627 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8628
8629 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8630 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8631 like this:
8632
8633 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8634
8635 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8636 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8637 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8638
8639 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8640 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8641 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8642
8643 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8644 up if too much time passes.
8645
8646 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8647
8648 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8649 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8650 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8651 form in BODY.
8652
8653 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8654 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8655 call looks like this:
8656
8657 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8658
8659 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8660 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8661 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8662 ARGS.
8663
8664 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8665 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8666 command.
8667
8668 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8669 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8670 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8671 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8672
8673 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8674 idle for SECS seconds.
8675
8676 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8677 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8678 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8679 instead.
8680
8681 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8682 there is no answer within a certain time.
8683
8684 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8685
8686 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8687 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8688 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8689
8690 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8691 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8692 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8693 arguments in between are ignored.
8694
8695 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8696 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8697
8698 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8699 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8700 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8701 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8702 version.
8703
8704 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8705 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8706 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8707 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8708 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8709 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8710
8711 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8712 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8713 systems with limited file name syntax.
8714
8715 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8716 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8717 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8718 completions.el:
8719
8720 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8721 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8722 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8723
8724 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8725 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8726 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8727 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8728 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8729
8730 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8731 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8732 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8733
8734 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8735 marker from its buffer position.
8736
8737 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8738 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8739 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8740
8741 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8742 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8743 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8744 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8745 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8746 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8747
8748 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8749 errors that happen often during editing.
8750
8751 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8752 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8753 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8754
8755 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8756 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8757
8758 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8759 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8760 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8761 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8762 and not get-buffer-window.
8763
8764 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8765 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8766 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8767
8768 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8769 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8770 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8771 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8772 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8773 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8774 over and over for the same text.
8775
8776 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8777
8778 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8779 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8780
8781 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8782 ;; $HEADER: text $
8783
8784 in addition to the normal
8785
8786 ;; HEADER: text
8787
8788 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8789 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8790 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8791
8792
8793 \f
8794 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
8795
8796 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8797 Copyright information:
8798
8799 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8800
8801 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8802 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8803 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8804 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8805
8806 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8807 of this document, or of portions of it,
8808 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8809 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8810 \f
8811 Local variables:
8812 mode: outline
8813 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8814 end: