\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.
+** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the following
+ languages: Brasilian, Bulgarian, Chinese (both with simplified and
+ traditional characters), French, and Italian. Type `C-u C-h t' to
+ choose one of them in case your language setup doesn't automatically
+ select the right one.
** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
---
-** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
\f
* Changes in Emacs 21.4
+** global-whitespace-mode is a new alias for whitespace-global-mode.
+
++++
+** There are now two new regular expression operators, \_< and \_>,
+for matching the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
+non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
+specified by the syntax table.
+
** 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:
** 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.
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
+read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
lines, including any prompts.
`comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
** 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.
+** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
+++
** New command line option -Q.
** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
-displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it will stay at
+displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
-just put point at the end of the buffer and it will stay there. This
+just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior may
be mode dependent.
other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
-mode will only revert a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
+mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
`revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
** M-x grep has been adapted to new compile
Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
-can be saved and will again be loaded with the new `grep-mode'.
+can be saved and automatically revisited with the new Grep mode.
** M-x diff uses diff-mode instead of compilation-mode.
** Enhancements to apropos commands:
-*** The apropos commands will now accept a list of words to match.
+*** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
available.
** 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' to mark files with
-different file attributes in two dired buffers.
+*** 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
what external viewers to use and when.
*** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
-into the kill ring.
+into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
+++
** Dired-x:
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.
If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
`Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
-*** The 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.
-
*** 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
`file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
-Emacs will prompt her for confirmation.
+Emacs prompts her for confirmation.
** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
** MH-E changes.
-Upgraded to MH-E version 7.3. There have been major changes since
+Upgraded to MH-E version 7.82. There have been major changes since
version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
+++
+++
** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
-want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you will in fact be able
-to alter the file.)
+want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
+file.)
** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
`buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
-If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories will be
+If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
mule-unicode-... ones.
-By default this translation will happen automatically on encoding.
+By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
possible.
will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
-hscrolling will scroll the window when point gets too close to the
+hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
+** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
+been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
+in Indented-Text mode.
+
+** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
+`query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
+a match if part of it has a read-only property.
+
+** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
+`replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
+where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
+time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
+`query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
+to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
+All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
+replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
+can be edited for each replacement.
+
+++
** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
++++
+** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
+Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
+and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
+
++++
+** M-% and C-M-% typed in isearch mode invoke `query-replace' and
+`query-replace-regexp' with the current search string inserted
+in the minibuffer as initial input for the string to replace.
+
+++
** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
+++
** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
-by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep will automatically
-detect whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
+by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
+detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
command lines to be used than was possible before.
*** 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
+compatibility, it prefers "starttls", but you can toggle
`starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
"starttls" tool).
+++
** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
-C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
-each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
-for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
-bind that to a key.
+C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region extends each time, so
+you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC, for example.
+This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to
+a key.
+++
** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
+++
** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
-previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... will cycle through the
+previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
+++
*** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
-will read from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
+reads from standard input and mark the produced tags as belonging to
the file FILE.
+++
+++
** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
-When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
-start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
+When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
+starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
+++
** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
+*** There's a new separate package grep.el.
+
*** Grep commands now have their own submenu and customization group.
*** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
---
** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
-The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in
-much the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now
-adds these colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu
-for the default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground),
-and uses some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
-`list-colors-display' will show the list of System color names if you
-wish to use them in other faces.
+The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
+the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
+colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
+default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
+some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
+`list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
+you wish to use them in other faces.
+++
** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
in the repository.
++++
+** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
+anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
+"checkout", "update" or "commit". That means using cvs diff options
+-rBASE -rHEAD.
+
\f
* New modes and packages in Emacs 21.4
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
+** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
+** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
+and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
+
** 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.
kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
-C-x C-k SPC will step through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
+C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
---
** New package benchmark.el contains simple support for convenient
timing measurements of code (including the garbage collection component).
-** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
-been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
-in Indented-Text mode.
-
-** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
-`query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
-a match if part of it has a read-only property.
-
-** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the apperance of fringes.
+** The new Lisp library fringe.el controls the appearance of fringes.
** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
configuration files.
\f
* Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.4
++++
+** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
+been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
+`disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
+
+** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
+width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
+the usable window height and width is used.
+
++++
+** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
+a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
+
+** If a command sets transient-mark-mode to `only', that
+enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
+During that following command, the value of transient-mark-mode
+is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
+it changes to nil.
+
++++
+** 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
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 returns
++++
+** 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.
modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
operation.
+** file-remote-p now returns an identifier for the remote system,
+if the file is indeed remote. (Before, the return value was t in
+this case.)
+
** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
supported on text terminals.
** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by lisp code
to override the internal read-file-name function.
+
+** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
+whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
+`read-file-name' function.
+
+++
** The new function `read-directory-name' can be used instead of
`read-file-name' to read a directory name; when used, completion
The new low-level functions process-plist and set-process-plist are
used to access and replace the entire property list of a process.
-???
+*** Function accept-process-output now has an optional fourth arg
+`just-this-one'. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
+is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
+integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
+recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
+speech synthesis.
+
*** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
properties from surrounding text.
++++
+** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
+element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
+accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
+
+++
** New function `buffer-local-value'.