Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
For older news, see the file ONEWS
+You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
+`view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
Temporary note:
+++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
\f
* Installation Changes in Emacs 21.4
+** Emacs includes now support for loading image libraries on demand.
+(Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
+the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
+setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
+
---
** A Bulgarian translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
\f
* Changes in Emacs 21.4
+** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
+You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
+existing values. For example:
+
+ emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
+
+will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
+irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
+
+** New features in evaluation commands
+
++++
+*** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
+the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
+
+*** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
+in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
+by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
+function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
+`eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
+
+** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
+characters.
+
+** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
+in the current input method to input a character at point.
+
+** Convenient commands to switch buffers in a cyclic order are C-x <left>
+(prev-buffer) and C-x <right> (next-buffer).
+
+** Commands winner-redo and winner-undo, from winner.el, are now bound to
+C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an incompatible change.
+
+** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
+arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
+default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
+`help-default-arg-highlight'.
+
+---
+** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
+option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
+except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
+controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
+overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
+
+The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
+support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
+
+`comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
+read-only and field properties. Hence, it will always kill entire
+lines, including any prompts.
+
+`comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
+read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
+part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
+and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
+not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
+`kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
+kill-ring, but does not delete it.
+
+** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
+the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
+
+** Telnet will now prompt you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
+
++++
+** New command line option -Q.
+
+This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
+the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, the blinking
+cursor, and the fancy startup screen.
+
+** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
+variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
+
** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
mode.
-** The URL package is now part of Emacs.
-
** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
+** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
+resync points in both windows.
+
** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
using strokes as an input method.
++++
+** Desktop package
+
+*** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, desktop-save-mode. Variable
+desktop-enable is obsolete. Customize desktop-save-mode to enable desktop
+saving.
+
+*** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
+buffer list.
+
+*** New commands:
+ - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
+ - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
+ - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
+ it was loaded.
+
+*** New customizable variables:
+ - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
+ killed.
+ - desktop-file-name-format.
+ - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
+ - desktop-locals-to-save.
+ - desktop-globals-to-clear.
+ - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp.
+
+*** New command line option --no-desktop
+
+*** New hooks:
+ - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
+ - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
+
---
** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
your .emacs will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
`sql-product' to accomplish this.
+ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
+
*** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
all identifiers ending in "_t" under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
(sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
- '("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face))
+ '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
*** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i. Most
SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
called with the -E command line argument to use the operating system
credentials to authenticate the user.
+*** Postgres support is enhanced.
+Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
+the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
+
+*** MySQL support is enhanced.
+Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
+
*** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
defaults.
** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
+** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
+`insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
+
+** A prefix argument of C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-printifies the
+list starting after point.
+
+** Dired mode:
+
+*** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
+dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
+introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
+
+*** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
+with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
+
++++
+*** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
+of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
+
++++
+*** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
+control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
+by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
+too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
+doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
+special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
+
++++
+*** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
+types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
+what external viewers to use and when.
+
+*** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
+into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
+
++++
+** Dired-x:
+
+*** Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode. The mode toggling
+command is bound to M-o. A new command dired-mark-omitted, bound to M-O,
+marks omitted files. The variable dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the
+mode toggling function instead.
+
+** Info mode:
+
+*** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
+with the number appended to the *info* buffer name.
+
+*** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
+
+*** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
+from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
+
+*** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
+Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
+possible matches.
+
+*** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
+the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
+arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
+
+*** New command `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S).
+
+*** New command `Info-search-next' (unbound) repeats the last search
+without prompting for a new search string.
+
+*** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
+and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
+
+*** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
+references and following them calls `browse-url'.
+
+++
-** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
+*** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
`Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
+*** Images in Info pages are supported.
+Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
+Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
+version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
+
++++
+*** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
+
+---
+*** Info-index offers completion.
+
** Support for the SQLite interpreter has been added to sql.el by calling
'sql-sqlite'.
** BibTeX mode:
+*** The new command bibtex-entry-update (bound to C-c C-u) updates
+an existing BibTeX entry.
*** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
*** bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries can take values `plain',
`crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
latter is used by GNU locales.
** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
-By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences (mostly representing CJK
-characters) are simply composed into single quasi-characters. User
-option `utf-translate-cjk' arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK
-character sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the
-Mule-UCS system. This uses significant space, so is not the default.
+By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
+single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
+turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
+sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
+system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
+interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
`ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
-window and cursor position do not changes when you click on a frame
+window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
to give it focus.
+++
** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
description various information about a character, including its
-encodings and syntax, its text properties, overlays, and widgets at
-point. You can get more information about some of them, by clicking
-on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
+encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
+widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
+clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
+++
** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
also disable mouse highlighting.
+** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
+shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
+variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
+
+++
** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
in a directory or in a file. See the documentation of the user option
`display-time-mail-directory'.
-+++
-** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
-
---
** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
----
-** Info-index offers completion.
-
---
** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
automatically.
Minor Improvements
+*** The STARTTLS elisp wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
+instead of the OpenSSL based "starttls" tool. For backwards
+compatibility, it will prefer "starttls", but you can toggle
+`starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
+"starttls" tool).
+
*** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
+++
to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
-+++
-** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
-control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
-by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
-too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
-doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
-special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
-
-+++
-** Dired's v command now runs external viewers to view certain
-types of files. The variable `dired-view-command-alist' controls
-what external viewers to use and when.
-
+++
** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
paragraphs.
-** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
-into the kill ring.
-
+++
** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
`appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
appt-issue-message, appt-visible, and appt-msg-window.
+** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
+and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
+from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
+`diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
+formats.
+
+
** VC Changes
*** The key C-x C-q no longer checks files in or out, it only changes
** F90 mode has new navigation commands `f90-end-of-block',
`f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block', `f90-previous-block'.
+** F90 mode now has support for hs-minor-mode (hideshow).
+It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
+majority.
+
---
** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
to support use of font-lock.
to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
it remains unchanged.
+** Enhanced visual feedback in *Completions* buffer.
+
+Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
+have in common and where they begin to differ.
+
+The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
+`completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
+same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
+`completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
+`completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
+`completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
+parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
+parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
+
+++
** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
-against.
+against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
---
** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
L: shows the log of the revision at line
W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
+
++++
+** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
+between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
+in the repository.
+
\f
* New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
+** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
+source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
+
+** The library tree-widget.el provides a new widget to display a set
+of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
+well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
+
+** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on dired
+buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
+
+** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
+
+** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
+
+++
** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
or local keymaps.
++++
** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
\f
* Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
+** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
+enables Transient Mark mode for the following command, only.
+
++++
+** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
+
+You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
+same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
+example,
+
+(kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
+
+** The sentinel is now called when a network process is deleted with
+delete-process. The status message passed to the sentinel for a
+deleted network process is "deleted". The message passed to the
+sentinel when the connection is closed by the remote peer has been
+changed to "connection broken by remote peer".
+
+** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
+undo-outer-limit, garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
+it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
+
+---
+** New function quail-find-key returns a list of keys to type in the
+current input method to input a character.
+
++++
+** New functions posn-at-point and posn-at-x-y return
+click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
+position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
+
+** skip-chars-forward and skip-chars-backward now handle
+character classes such as [:alpha:], along with individual characters
+and ranges.
+
+** Function pos-visible-in-window-p now returns the pixel coordinates
+and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
+arg is non-nil.
+
+** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
+
++++
+** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
+modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
+operation.
+
** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
supported on text terminals.
+** Support for displaying image slices
+
+*** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) may be used with
+an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
+
+*** Function insert-image has new optional fourth arg to
+specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
+
+*** New function insert-sliced-image inserts a given image as a
+specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
+
+** New line-height and line-spacing properties for newline characters
+
+A newline may now have line-height and line-spacing text or overlay
+properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
+
+If the line-height property value is 0, the newline does not
+contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
+newline glyph is reduced. Also, a line-spacing property on this
+newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
+slices without adding blank areas between the images.
+
+If the line-height property value is a positive integer, the value
+specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
+height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
+
+If the line-height property value is a float, the minimum line height
+is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by the
+given value.
+
+If the line-height property value is a cons (RATIO . FACE), the
+minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
+RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
+
+If the line-spacing property value is an positive integer, the value
+is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
+overrides the default frame line-spacing and any buffer local value of
+the line-spacing variable.
+
+If the line-spacing property may be a float or cons, the line spacing
+is calculated as specified above for the line-height property.
+
+If the line-spacing value is a cons (total . SPACING) where SPACING is
+any of the forms described above, the value of SPACING is used as the
+total height of the line, i.e. a varying number of pixels are inserted
+after each line to make each line exactly that many pixels high.
+
+
+** The buffer local line-spacing variable may now have a float value,
+which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
+
** Enhancements to stretch display properties
The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
variable `sentence-end-without-space' which contains such characters
that end a sentence without following spaces.
+** The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of
+the variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil,
+then this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
+`sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
+`sentence-end-without-space'.
+
+++
** The flags, width, and precision options for %-specifications in function
`format' are now documented. Some flags that were accepted but not
implemented (such as "*") are no longer accepted.
+** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
+It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
+One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
+if no expansion is done, which may be tested using `eq'.
+
+++
** New function `delete-dups' destructively removes `equal' duplicates
from a list. Of several `equal' occurrences of an element in the list,
** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
of one coding system from another coding system.
----
++++
** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
defined with defface.
+** The function face-differs-from-default-p now truly checks whether the
+given face displays differently from the default face or not (previously
+it did only a very cursory check).
+
+++
** face-attribute, face-foreground, face-background, and face-stipple now
accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how face
** New functions face-attribute-relative-p and merge-face-attribute
help with handling relative face attributes.
+** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face-list is reversed.
+If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
+faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous releases
+of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made so that
+:inherit face-lists operate identically to face-lists in text `face'
+properties.
+
+++
** Enhancements to process support
** New function x-send-client-message sends a client message when
running under X.
+** Arguments for remove-overlays are now optional, so that you can remove
+all overlays in the buffer by just calling (remove-overlay).
+
** New packages:
*** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
with Custom.
** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
-as mule-utf-8. Coding system `utf-16-le-dos' is useful as the value
-of `selection-coding-system' in MS Windows, allowing you to paste
-multilingual text from the clipboard. Set it interactively with
-C-x RET x or in .emacs with `(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-16-le-dos)'.
+as mule-utf-8.
** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
in UTF-8 locales).