GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
-Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end of the file for license conditions.
Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
+** Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
+backends. This requires the freetype and fontconfig libraries, and
+supports local fonts (fonts installed on the machine where Emacs is
+running). Additionally, the Xft library can be used for antialiasing
+support, the otf library for complex text layout by OpenType fonts,
+and the m17n library for text shaping. Fontconfig-like font names
+(e.g. monospace-12) are accepted. The old font handling code can
+be used by passing the configure option `--disable-font-backend'
+(also available as a run-time option).
+
+** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
+bindings for Emacs.
+
** The Mac Carbon port is no longer supported.
-Instead, use... [what?]
+Instead, use... [FIXME what?]
** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
a GIF library.
** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
+** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
+See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
+
** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
-** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
-bindings for Emacs.
+** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
+Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
+you need control over which C compiler is used.
+
+** The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
+default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
\f
* Changes in Emacs 23.1
+** Operations like C-x b and C-x C-f which use switch-to-buffer do not fail
+any more when used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they
+fallback on using pop-to-buffer which will use some other window.
+
** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
-You can also use any number of different ttys.
+Start the server (M-x server-start). Then `emacsclient -t' creates a
+tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can also use any
+number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11 frame on
+the current $DISPLAY or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set.
You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
-** Emacs comes with a new set of icons for Mac OS X.
-OS-X-style icons (an application icon and a relevant document icon)
-were contributed by Kentaro Ohkouchi.
-Source files for these icons can be found in Emacs.app/Contents/Resources.
-PNG versions are available as etc/images/icons/emacs*_mac.png.
+** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
+(It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
+
+The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
+Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'. utf-8-emacs is backwards
+compatible with the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. The `emacs-mule'
+coding system can still read and write data in the old internal encoding.
+
+Since the internal encoding is also used by default for byte-compiled
+files -- i.e. the normal coding system for byte-compiled Lisp files is
+now utf-8-Emacs -- Lisp containing non-ASCII characters which is
+compiled by Emacs 23 can't be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files
+compiled by Emacs 20, 21, or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule
+(whether or not they contain multibyte characters), which makes loading
+them somewhat slower than Emacs 23-compiled files. Thus it may be worth
+recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared with older
+Emacsen.
+
+** There are assorted new coding systems/aliases -- see M-x list-coding-systems.
+
+** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
+See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
+as tables of unicodes.
+
+The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of each
+dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
+
+A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
+characters for display.
+
+** There are new Chinese-GBK, Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali,
+Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Sinhala, and TaiViet language
+environments.
+
+** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
+You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line option
+--parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
+http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
+for details about XEmbed.
+
+** Emacs comes with a new set of default icons.
+Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
+The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
** Built-in functions (subr) can now have an interactive specification
that is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
+** C-SPC C-SPC in transient-mark-mode pushes a mark without activating it.
+
** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.
recenter the visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example,
0 for top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
+** New command recenter-top-bottom moves the current line to window
+center, top and bottom on successive invokations.
+
+** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
+
** The mode-line displays a `@' if the default-directory for the current buffer
is on a remote machine, or a hyphen otherwise.
** The new command `display-time-world' starts an updating time display
using several time zones, in a buffer.
+
+** The new function `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a
+readable string of days, hours, etc.
+
+** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
+value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
+
+** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
+
+** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
+Emacs initialization.
+
+** The new face `mode-line-emphasis' is used to highlight certain mode-line
+information; for example while waiting for a VC command to finish.
+
+** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode
+are obsolete.
+
\f
* Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
following arguments.
+** The new command-line option `--disable-font-backend' disables the
+new font backend code at runtime. This option is not available if
+Emacs was compiled without font-backend support.
+
** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
\f
* Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
* New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
** FIXME add details of new packages imported from lisp/gnus.
+[Maybe some information from doc/misc/gnus-coding.texi can be reused]
** The package doc-view.el has been added. It supports viewing of PDF,
PostScript and DVI documents inside an Emacs buffer by converting the
regular expression in the document. The commentary of the file explains
its usage.
-** The nXML package has been added.
-[FIXME someone who uses this, please write a brief description.]
+** The nXML package has been added. It is a new mode for editing XML
+documents. nXML mode allows a schema to be associated with the XML
+document being edited. nXML mode uses Relax NG as its schema
+language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
+
+*** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
+any invalid parts of your document.
-** A new game called `bubbles' has been added.
+*** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
+attribute name or data value by using information about what is
+allowed by the schema in that context.
+
+** A new game called `bubbles' has been added. This is a version of
+the "Same Game" with configurable difficulty level.
** minibuffer-indicate-depth-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
dbus.el and by extensions to the C modules of Emacs. D-Bus is an
inter-process communication mechanism for applications residing on the
same host, based on messages. See the manual for further details.
+
+** EasyPG is now part of the Emacs distribution. It is an all-in-one
+GnuPG interface which includes GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic
+operations on regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg
+files. See the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual for further details.
+
+** json.el is now included with Emacs. It is a library for parsing
+and generating JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). JSON is a
+lightweight data-interchange format.
+
+** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
+automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
+It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
+
+** The package linum.el is now included with Emacs. It it a new minor
+mode to display line numbers for the current buffer.
+
\f
* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
+** A new `whitespace' package has been installed, and the pre-existing one
+renamed to `old-whitespace'.
+[FIXME someone explain why this is good, if it is...]
+
+** In Change Log mode, the new function `change-log-find-file', bound to
+C-c C-f, finds the file associated with the current log entry.
+
** abbrev was rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
*** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
abbrev-table-p.
This is enabled if isearch-buffers-multi is non-nil.
+*** The part of an isearch that failed to match is highlighted in `isearch-fail'
+face.
+
** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see smerge-auto-refine.
-** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
-It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see diff-auto-refine.
+** Diff mode
+
+*** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
+It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
+diff-auto-refine. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
+
+*** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
+buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
+It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
** archive-mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
** eldoc highlights the function argument under point
with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
+** hide-ifdef-mode permits to shadow ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
+See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
+
+++
** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, and
-Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems
+Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems
as a single changeset.
*** In VC Annotate mode, you can type V to toggle the annotation visibility.
+*** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
+the current line.
+
** log-edit now has a command bound to C-c C-d to show the diff for
the files involved.
** BibTeX mode:
+*** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
+
*** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
`string', disabled by default.
*** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
-*** Command `bibtex-url' now allows multiple URLs per entry.
+*** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
+++
** Tramp
*** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
+*** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
+debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
+the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
+way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
+
*** The variable `fortran-line-length' can change the fixed-form line-length.
*** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
*** The Gnus package has been updated
+*** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
+saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
+correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
+versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
+
*** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
*** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
+*** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
+
+*** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
+search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
+
+*** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
+directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
+
+*** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
+It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
+
\f
* Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
---
** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
-of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. Previously IPv6 was
+of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. Previously IPv6 was
supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
-w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
+w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
for the list of extra keys that are available.
\f
* Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
+** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
+specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
+that range have the same value.
+
+** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
+
+** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
+have been removed.
+
+** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically. The
+functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to enable
+support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
+
+++
** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
-meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
+meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
-only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
+only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
`byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
`byte-compile-enable-warning.'
-** shell.el no longer defines the aliases `dirtrack-toggle' and
-`dirtrack-mode' for `shell-dirtrack-mode'. These names were removed
-because they clash with commands provided by dirtrack.el. Use
-`shell-dirtrack-mode' instead.
+** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
+Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
+
+** The following features have been removed. They were used for
+displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
+needed now that OpenType font support is available:
+
+*** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
+dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
+
+*** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
+functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
+
+*** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
+mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
+
+*** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
+functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
\f
* Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
+** The new `buffer-swap-text' function can swap the text between two buffers.
+This can be useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
+
+** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
+
+** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
+
** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count
- given to `beginning-of-defun'.
+ given to `beginning-of-defun'.
** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents the
search and match primitives from changing the match data.
** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
`replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
+** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
+property, then `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from
+the local value of the hook variable. This means it remains
+even if you change major modes.
+
+++
** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
** The new function `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
+** The new function `face-all-attributes' returns an alist
+describing all the basic attributes of a given face.
+
** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
strings on the kill ring.
+** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
+
+The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF with no gap.
+Characters of code 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the same code points.
+Characters of code 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit bytes.
+
+Generic characters no longer exist.
+
+In buffer and string, characters are represented by UTF-8 byte
+sequence in a multibyte buffer/string.
+
+The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may belong to
+multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets unicode,
+iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
+
+*** The new function `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument
+is a character. This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
+
+*** The new function `max-char' returns the maximum character code
+(currently it is #x3FFFFF).
+
+*** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
+
+*** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
+form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
+
+*** The new function `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
+
+*** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
+priorities of charsets.
+
+*** The new function `charset-priority-list' returns the list of
+charsets ordered by priority.
+
+*** The new function `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
+
+*** The new function `unibyte-charset' returns the current unibyte
+charset. The unibyte charset determines how unibyte/multibyte
+conversion is done.
+
+*** The new function `set-unibyte-charset' sets the unibyte charset.
+
+*** The new function `unibyte-string' make a unibyte string from bytes.
+
+*** The new function `define-char-code-property' defines a character
+code property.
+
+*** The new function `char-code-property-description' returns the
+description string of a character code property.
+
+*** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
+character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
+`canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
+`decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
+`old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
+`titlecase'.
+
+*** The new variable `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a
+char-table of functions to search for a word boundary.
+
+*** The new variable `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
+
+*** The new variable `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
+
+*** The new variable `print-charset-text-property' controls how to
+handle `charset' text property on printing a string.
+
+*** The new variable `printable-chars' is a char-table defining if a
+character is printable or not.
+
+*** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
+accepts a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
+entries in that range of characters.
+
+** Code conversion changes.
+
+*** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
+coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
+
+*** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
+have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
+conversion should go.
+
+*** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
+have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
+of conversion.
+
+*** The new function `with-coding-priority' executes the body part with
+the specified coding system priority order.
+
+*** The new function `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text
+in the region is encodable by the specified coding systems.
+
+*** The new function `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases
+of a coding system.
+
+*** The new function `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of
+charsets supported by a coding system.
+
+*** The new function `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of
+coding systems ordered by their priorities.
+
+*** The new function `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of
+coding systems.
+
+*** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
+
+** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
+It has three functionalities:
+ i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
+ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
+iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
+robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
+
+*** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
+
+*** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
+
+*** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
+as an input method.
+
+** Changes related to the new font backend.
+
+Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource "FontBackend".
+For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
+
+Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
+
+If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
+available on your graphic device.
+
+*** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
+font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
+currently `x' and `xft'.
+
+*** New function `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
+
+*** New function `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
+
+*** New function `font-get' returns a font property value.
+
+*** New function `font-put' sets a font property value.
+
+*** New function `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching
+the given specification.
+
+*** New function `list-families' returns a list of family names of
+available fonts.
+
+*** New function `font-font' returns a font-entity best matching with
+the given specification.
+
+*** New function `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font
+(font-spec, font-entity, or font-object).
+
+*** New function `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
+
+*** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
+second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
+set the font.
+
** Changes related to multiple tty support.
*** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
*** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
-*** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local. The new
+*** The `window-system' variable has been made frame-local. The new
`initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
for the first frame.