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