020aa2f26a0e5278c97c42c56a09f22f503f0478
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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
26
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
29
30 ---
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
33
34 ---
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
39
40 ---
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
44 --without-gconf.
45
46 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
47 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
48 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
49
50 ---
51 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
52 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
53 automatically select it.
54
55 \f
56 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
57
58 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
59 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
60 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
61
62 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
63 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
64
65 \f
66 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
67
68 ** emacsclient changes
69
70 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
71 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
72 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
73
74 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
75 error, its exit status is 1.
76
77 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
78
79 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
80
81 +++
82 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
83
84 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
85 initial documentation.
86
87 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
88 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
89
90 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
91 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
92 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
93 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
94 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
95 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
96
97 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
98 value of paragraph base direction at point.
99
100 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
101 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
102 Algorithm.
103
104 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
105 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
106 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
107
108 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
109 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
110
111 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
112 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
113 is taken from the desktop settings.
114
115 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
116 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
117 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
118 for this.
119
120 ** ImageMagick support.
121 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
122 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
123 libraries if they are present at build time. To disable this, use
124 the configure option `--without-imagemagick'.
125
126 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
127 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
128 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
129 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
130
131 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
132
133 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
134 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
135
136 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
137 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
138
139 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
140 with Xft. To change font, use X resource faceName, for example:
141 Emacs.pane.menubar.faceName: Courier-12
142 Set faceName to none and use font to use the old X fonts.
143
144 +++
145 ** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts
146 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
147 default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
148 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
149 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
150 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
151 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
152
153 On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
154 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
155
156 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
157
158 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
159 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
160
161 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
162 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
163 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
164 context in their return values.
165
166 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
167 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
168
169 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
170 for remote machines which support SELinux.
171
172 +++
173 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
174 higher-resolution time stamps.
175
176 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
177 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
178
179 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
180
181 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
182 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
183 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
184 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
185
186 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
187 scroll a line instead of full screen.
188
189 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
190 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
191
192 ** Trash changes
193
194 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
195 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
196
197 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
198 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
199
200 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
201 for `list-colors-display'.
202
203 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
204 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
205 from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.
206
207 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
208 selected for installation.
209
210 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
211
212 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
213 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
214 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
215 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
216
217 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
218 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
219 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
220
221 ** Custom Themes
222
223 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
224
225 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
226 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
227 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
228 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
229
230 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
231 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
232 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
233 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
234
235 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
236 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
237
238 ** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
239 replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
240
241 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
242
243 \f
244 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
245
246 +++
247 ** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.
248
249 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
250
251 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
252
253 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
254 also deletes newlines around point.
255
256 ** Deletion changes
257
258 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
259 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
260 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
261 kill instead.
262
263 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
264 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
265 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
266
267 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
268 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
269 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
270 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
271
272 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
273
274 ** Selection changes.
275
276 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
277 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
278 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
279 use the primary selection.
280
281 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
282 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
283
284 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
285 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
286 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
287 the kill-ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
288 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
289
290 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
291 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
292 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
293 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
294 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
295
296 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
297 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
298 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
299
300 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
301 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
302 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
303 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
304
305 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
306 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
307
308 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
309 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
310 between applications.
311
312 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
313
314 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
315 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
316 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
317 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
318
319 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
320
321 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
322 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
323 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
324
325 \f
326 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
327
328 ** The compile.el mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
329 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
330
331 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
332
333 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
334 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricty, support for
335 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
336
337 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
338 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
339
340 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
341
342 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
343
344 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
345
346 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
347
348 ** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
349 `browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.
350
351 ** ERC changes
352
353 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
354 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
355 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
356 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
357 after connecting.
358
359 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
360 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
361 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
362 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
363
364 ** Eshell changes
365
366 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
367 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
368 exists, that is used instead.
369
370 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
371 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
372
373 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
374 You can get a comparable behavior with:
375 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
376 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
377
378 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
379
380 ** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.
381
382 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
383
384 ---
385 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
386 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
387
388 ---
389 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
390 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
391 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
392
393 ---
394 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
395 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
396
397 ** Customize
398
399 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
400 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
401 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
402
403 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
404 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
405
406 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
407
408 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
409 choose a color via list-colors-display.
410
411 ** Dired-x
412
413 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
414 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
415
416 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
417 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
418 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
419
420 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
421
422 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables. The
423 variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', `sql-database' and
424 `sql-port' can now be safely used as local variables.
425
426 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
427
428 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
429 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
430 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
431 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
432 to a non-zero value.
433
434 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
435 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
436 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
437 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
438 creating the session.
439
440 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
441 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
442 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
443 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
444 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
445
446 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
447 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
448 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
449 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
450 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
451 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
452 `sql-send-*' functions.
453
454 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
455 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
456 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
457 connection is established.
458
459 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
460 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
461 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
462 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
463 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
464 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
465 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
466 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
467 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
468 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
469 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
470 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
471
472 (user :default DEF)
473 (database :default DEF
474 :file FILEPAT
475 :completion COMPLETE)
476 (server :default DEF
477 :file FILEPAT
478 :completion COMPLETE)
479
480 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
481 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
482 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
483
484 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
485 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
486 possible values or a function returning such a list).
487
488 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
489 An alist for recording different username, database and server
490 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
491 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
492
493 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
494
495 (setq sql-connection-alist
496 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
497 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
498 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
499 (sql-user "mmaug")
500 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
501
502 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
503
504 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
505 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
506 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
507 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
508
509 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
510 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
511 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
512 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
513 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
514
515 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
516 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
517 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
518 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
519 have been defined.
520
521 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
522 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
523 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
524 session and save them as a new connection.
525
526 *** List database objects and details.
527 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
528 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
529 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
530
531 **** List all objects.
532 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
533 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
534 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceeding the command by
535 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
536 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
537 separate window in view-mode.
538
539 **** List Table details.
540 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
541 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
542 the list of columns in the relation. Preceeding the comand with the
543 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
544 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
545
546 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
547 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
548 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
549
550 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
551 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
552 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
553 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
554 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
555
556 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
557 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
558 listing object name completions when being sent text via
559 `sql-send-*' functions.
560
561 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
562
563 ** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
564
565 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
566 enabled by default in 23.1.
567
568 ** gdb-mi
569
570 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
571 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
572 threads simultaneously.
573
574 ** D-Bus
575
576 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
577 system or session bus.
578
579 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
580 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
581 names anymore.
582
583 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
584 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
585
586 ** Tramp
587
588 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
589
590 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
591 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old" and "fish".
592
593 ** VC and related modes
594
595 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
596 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
597 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
598 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
599
600 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
601
602 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
603
604 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
605 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
606 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
607 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
608
609 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
610
611 ** Miscellaneous
612
613 ---
614 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
615
616 \f
617 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
618
619 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
620 and electric-layout-mode.
621
622 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
623
624 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
625 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
626 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
627 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
628 secrets.
629
630 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
631 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
632
633 \f
634 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
635
636 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
637 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
638 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
639 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
640
641 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
642 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
643 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
644 of the header line.
645
646 ** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
647
648 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
649
650 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
651 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
652 programmer-visible consequences.
653
654 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
655 ON unconditionally.
656
657 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
658 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and
659 `initial-frame-alist'. With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame'
660 checks the value of the variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to
661 determine whether to create a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.
662 If the alist entries are added, they override the value of
663 `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
664
665 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
666 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
667 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
668 has now been removed.
669
670 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
671
672 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
673 have been removed:
674 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
675 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
676 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
677 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
678 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
679 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
680 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
681 make-local-hook
682
683 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
684 have been removed:
685 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
686 font-lock-defaults-alist
687
688 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
689 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
690
691 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
692
693 \f
694 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
695
696 ** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
697 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
698 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
699 jumping all the way to the top-level.
700
701 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
702 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
703
704 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
705 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
706 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
707 obsolete alias.
708
709 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
710 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
711 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
712 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
713 Together with this new variable come a new hook
714 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
715 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
716 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
717 syntactic rules.
718
719 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
720
721 +++
722 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
723 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
724 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
725 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
726
727 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
728 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
729 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
730 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
731
732 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
733
734 ** New completion style `substring'.
735
736 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
737 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
738 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
739 input.
740
741 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
742 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
743 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
744
745 ** Image API
746
747 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
748 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
749 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
750 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
751 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
752 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
753
754 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
755
756 ** XML and HTML parsing
757
758 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
759 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
760 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
761 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
762 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
763
764 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
765
766 ** FIXME GnuTLS
767
768 ** Isearch
769
770 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
771
772 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
773 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
774 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
775 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
776 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
777 displayed with a "spinning bar".
778
779 \f
780 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
781
782 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds emacs with extra
783 runtime checks.
784
785 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
786 included in binary distribution
787
788 ** New make target `dist' to create binary disttribution for Windows
789 platform
790
791 \f
792 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
793 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
794
795 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
796 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
797 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
798 (at your option) any later version.
799
800 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
801 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
802 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
803 GNU General Public License for more details.
804
805 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
806 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
807
808 \f
809 Local variables:
810 mode: outline
811 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
812 end: