Document `rectangle-mark-mode'.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2014 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 Temporary note:
18 +++ indicates that all necessary documentation updates are complete.
19 (This means all relevant manuals in doc/ AND lisp doc-strings.)
20 --- means no change in the manuals is needed.
21 When you add a new item, use the appropriate mark if you are sure it applies,
22 otherwise leave it unmarked.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.4
26
27 ---
28 ** Emacs can now be compiled with ACL support.
29 This happens by default if a suitable support library is found at
30 build time, like libacl on GNU/Linux. To prevent this, use the
31 configure option `--disable-acl'. See below for related features.
32
33 ---
34 ** Emacs can now be compiled with file notification support.
35 This happens by default if a suitable system library is found at
36 build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
37 `--without-file-notification'. See below for file-notify features.
38 This feature is not available for the Nextstep port.
39
40 ---
41 ** Emacs can now be compiled with zlib support.
42 This happens by default if zlib is present, which it normally is.
43 To prevent this, use the configure option `--without-zlib'.
44 This provides the function `zlib-decompress-region'; see below for details.
45
46 ---
47 ** The configure option `--without-compress-info' has been generalized,
48 and renamed to `--without-compress-install'. It now prevents compression
49 of _any_ files during installation.
50
51 ---
52 ** The configure option `--with-crt-dir' has been removed.
53 It is no longer needed, as the crt*.o files are no longer linked specially.
54
55 ---
56 ** Directories passed to configure option `--enable-locallisppath' are
57 no longer created during installation.
58
59 ---
60 ** Emacs for NS (Mac OS X, GNUstep) can be built with ImageMagick support.
61 This requires pkg-config to be available at build time.
62
63 \f
64 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.4
65
66 +++
67 ** When initializing `load-path', an empty element in the EMACSLOADPATH
68 environment variable (either leading, e.g., ":/foo"; trailing, e.g.,
69 "/foo:"; or embedded, e.g., "/foo::/bar") is replaced with the default
70 load-path (the one that would have been used if EMACSLOADPATH was unset).
71 This makes it easier to _extend_ the load-path via EMACSLOADPATH
72 (previously, EMACSLOADPATH had to specify the complete load-path,
73 including the defaults). (In older versions of Emacs, an empty element
74 was replaced by ".", so use an explicit "." now if that is what you want.)
75
76 +++
77 ** The -L option, which normally prepends its argument to load-path,
78 will instead append, if the argument begins with `:' (or `;' on MS Windows;
79 i.e., `path-separator').
80
81 +++
82 ** If you use either site-load.el or site-init.el to customize the dumped
83 Emacs executable, any changes to `load-path' that these files make
84 will no longer be present after dumping. To affect a permanent change
85 to `load-path', use the `--enable-locallisppath' option of `configure'.
86
87 +++
88 ** The user option `initial-buffer-choice' can now specify a function
89 to set up the initial buffer.
90
91 \f
92 * Changes in Emacs 24.4
93
94 +++
95 ** New function `zlib-decompress-region', which decompresses gzip- and
96 zlib-format compressed data using built-in zlib support, if available.
97
98 +++
99 ** New option `gnutls-verify-error', if non-nil, means that Emacs
100 should reject SSL/TLS certificates that GnuTLS determines as invalid.
101 (This option defaults to nil at present, but this is expected to change
102 in a future release.)
103
104 +++
105 ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.
106 If the terminal supports a mouse, clicking on the menu bar, or on
107 sensitive portions of the mode line or header line, will drop down the
108 menu defined at that position. Likewise, clicking C-mouse-2 or
109 C-mouse-2 or C-mouse-3 on the text area will pop up the menus defined
110 for those locations.
111
112 If the text terminal does not support a mouse, you can activate the
113 first menu-bar menu by typing F10, which invokes `menu-bar-open'.
114
115 If you want the previous behavior, whereby F10 invoked `tmm-menubar',
116 customize the option `tty-menu-open-use-tmm' to a non-nil value.
117 (Typing M-` always invokes `tmm-menubar', even if `tty-menu-open-use-tmm'
118 is nil.)
119
120 +++
121 ** The *Messages* buffer is created in `messages-buffer-mode',
122 a new major mode, with read-only status. Any code that might create
123 the *Messages* buffer should call the function `messages-buffer' to do
124 so and set up the mode.
125
126 +++
127 ** Emacs can now support ACLs (access control lists).
128 This requires a suitable support library to be found at build time.
129 On GNU/Linux, the POSIX ACL interface is used via libacl.
130 On MS-Windows, the NT Security APIs are used to emulate the POSIX interface.
131
132 +++
133 *** Emacs preserves the ACL entries of files when backing up.
134 +++
135 *** New functions `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' get and set the ACL
136 entries of a file.
137
138 ** Multi-monitor support has been added.
139
140 +++
141 *** New functions `display-monitor-attributes-list' and
142 `frame-monitor-attributes' can be used to obtain information about
143 each physical monitor on multi-monitor setups.
144
145 *** The functions `display-pixel-width' and `display-pixel-height' now
146 behave consistently among the platforms: they return the pixel width
147 or height for all physical monitors associated with the given display
148 as if they were on X11. To get information for each physical
149 monitor, use the new functions above. Similar notes also apply to
150 `x-display-pixel-width', `x-display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
151 `display-mm-height', `x-display-mm-width', and `x-display-mm-height'.
152
153 +++
154 ** The cursor stops blinking after 10 blinks (by default) on X and NS.
155 You can change the default by customizing `blink-cursor-blinks'.
156
157 +++
158 ** In keymaps where SPC scrolls forward, S-SPC now scrolls backward.
159 This affects View mode, etc.
160
161 ** Help changes
162
163 +++
164 *** The command `apropos-variable' is renamed to `apropos-user-option'.
165 `apropos-user-option' shows all user options while `apropos-variable'
166 shows all variables. When called with a universal prefix argument,
167 the two commands swap their behaviors. When `apropos-do-all' is
168 non-nil, they output the same results.
169
170 +++
171 *** The key `?' now describes prefix bindings, like `C-h'.
172
173 ---
174 *** The command `describe-function' has been extended for EIEIO.
175 Running it on constructors will show a full description of the
176 generated class. For generic functions, it will show all
177 implementations together with links to the source. The old commands
178 `describe-class', `describe-constructor' and `describe-generic' were
179 removed.
180
181 ---
182 *** The function `quail-help' is no longer an interactive command.
183 Use `C-h C-\' (`describe-input-method') instead.
184
185 ** ImageMagick
186
187 +++
188 *** ImageMagick images now support the :max-width and :max-height keywords.
189
190 +++
191 *** When using `create-image' with image data, you can pass a :format
192 attribute (via the property-list argument) in order to help
193 ImageMagick detect the image type. The value should be a MIME
194 content-type that is found in the new variable `image-format-suffixes'.
195
196 ** Frame and window changes
197
198 +++
199 *** New commands `toggle-frame-fullscreen' and `toggle-frame-maximized',
200 bound to <f11> and M-<f10>, respectively.
201
202 +++
203 *** New hooks `focus-in-hook', `focus-out-hook'.
204 These are normal hooks run when an Emacs frame gains or loses input focus.
205
206 *** Emacs can now change frame sizes in units of pixels, rather than
207 text rows or columns. When maximizing a frame or making it fullscreen,
208 remaining extra pixels are no longer given to the minibuffer, the rightmost
209 fringe, or other unusable space, but are distributed among the text
210 areas of the frame's windows. If the new option `frame-resize-pixelwise'
211 is non-nil, all frame size changes happen pixelwise and set the
212 corresponding size hints for the window manager.
213
214 *** Emacs can now change window sizes in units of pixels.
215 Mouse-dragging a mode line or window divider now changes the size of
216 adjacent windows pixelwise. If the new option `window-resize-pixelwise'
217 is non-nil, functions like `balance-windows-area' and `fit-window-to-buffer'
218 resize windows pixelwise. Most functions for changing or accessing
219 window sizes now have an additional argument that allows changes to apply,
220 or values to be returned, in pixels instead of lines/columns.
221
222 *** Emacs can now draw dividers between adjacent windows. To put
223 dividers between side-by-side/vertically stacked windows customize the
224 frame parameters `right-divider-width' and `bottom-divider-width' to
225 some positive integer. You can drag dividers with the mouse (they show
226 a corresponding cursor when the mouse hovers over them). You can change
227 the appearance of dividers by customizing the faces `window-divider',
228 `window-divider-first-pixel', and `window-divider-last-pixel'. The last
229 two are useful to provide a 3D effect, or to better distinguish dividers
230 from surrounding display objects.
231
232 *** New functions are provided to return the pixel sizes of window
233 components, namely `window-scroll-bar-width', `window-mode-line-height'
234 `window-header-line-height', `window-right-divider-width' and
235 `window-bottom-divider-width'.
236
237 *** The new function `window-text-pixel-size' returns the size of the
238 text of a window's buffer in pixels. This allows functions like
239 `fit-frame-to-buffer' and `fit-window-to-buffer' to accurately fit a
240 window to its buffer as it will be displayed.
241
242 *** `fit-window-to-buffer' can now resize windows horizontally.
243 This behavior is controlled by the new option
244 `fit-window-to-buffer-horizontally'.
245
246 *** `fit-frame-to-buffer' can now fit frames in both directions.
247 This behavior is controlled by the option `fit-frame-to-buffer' which
248 tells in which direction(s) the frame shall be fit. The new options
249 `fit-frame-to-buffer-margins' and `fit-frame-to-buffer-sizes' allow to
250 control the size of the frame and its position on screen.
251
252 *** Temp Buffer Resize Mode can now adjust height and width of windows
253 and frames. `temp-buffer-resize-mode' is now able to adjust the height
254 and the width of a window displaying a temporary buffer. The new option
255 `temp-buffer-max-width' allows to control the width of temporary buffer
256 windows. Moreover, if the new option `fit-frame-to-buffer' is non-nil
257 and the buffer appears in the root window of a frame, Temp Buffer Resize
258 Mode will try to adjust width and/or height of the frame.
259
260 ---
261 *** `split-window' is now a non-interactive function, not a command.
262 As a command, it was a special case of `C-x 2' (`split-window-below'),
263 and as such superfluous. After being reimplemented in Lisp, its
264 interactive form was mistakenly retained.
265
266 +++
267 *** The functions `window-size' and `window-total-size' now have an
268 optional argument to return a rounded size value.
269
270 +++
271 *** `window-state-put' now allows to put a window state into internal
272 windows too.
273
274 +++
275 *** New option `scroll-bar-adjust-thumb-portion'.
276 Available only on X, this option allows to control over-scrolling
277 using the scroll bar (i.e. dragging the thumb down even when the end
278 of the buffer is visible).
279
280 +++
281 *** New basic action function `display-buffer-in-previous-window' has
282 `display-buffer' display a buffer in a window previously showing that
283 buffer.
284
285 +++
286 *** New basic action function `display-buffer-at-bottom' has
287 `display-buffer' choose or make a window at the bottom of the selected
288 frame.
289
290 *** New display action function `display-buffer-no-window' to not
291 display the buffer in a window.
292
293 *** New display action alist entry `allow-no-window' to indicate the
294 caller of `display-buffer' is ready to handle the case of not
295 displaying the buffer in a window.
296
297 ** Lisp evaluation changes
298 +++
299 *** `eval-defun' on an already defined defcustom calls the :set function,
300 if there is one.
301
302 +++
303 *** The commands `eval-expression' (`M-:'), `eval-last-sexp' (`C-x C-e'),
304 and `eval-print-last-sexp' (`C-j' in Lisp Interaction mode) can take a
305 zero prefix argument. This disables truncation of lists in the output,
306 equivalent to setting `(eval-expression-)print-length' and
307 `(eval-expression-)print-level' to nil. Additionally, it causes integers
308 to be printed in other formats (octal, hexadecimal, and character).
309
310 ---
311 *** New hook `eval-expression-minibuffer-setup-hook' run by
312 `eval-expression' on entering the minibuffer.
313
314 ---
315 ** `write-region-inhibit-fsync' now defaults to t in batch mode.
316
317 +++
318 ** `cache-long-line-scans' is now non-nil, and renamed to `cache-long-scans',
319 because it affects caching of paragraph scanning results as well.
320 There is no reason to set this to nil except for debugging purposes.
321
322 ---
323 ** The option `set-mark-default-inactive' has been deleted.
324 This unfinished feature was introduced by accident in Emacs 23.1;
325 simply disabling Transient Mark mode does the same thing.
326
327 ---
328 ** The default value of `comment-use-global-state' is now t,
329 and this variable has been marked obsolete.
330
331 ---
332 ** `emacs-bzr-version' has been renamed to `emacs-repository-version',
333 and works for git too, if you fetch the repository notes.
334
335 +++
336 ** New option `load-prefer-newer' affects how the `load' function chooses
337 the file to load. If this is non-nil, then when both .el and .elc
338 versions of a file exist, and the caller did not explicitly specify
339 which one to load, then the newer file is loaded. The default, nil,
340 means to always load the .elc file.
341
342 \f
343 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.4
344
345 ** Indentation changes
346
347 +++
348 *** The behavior of `C-x TAB' (`indent-rigidly') has changed.
349 When invoked without a prefix argument, it now activates a transient
350 mode in which typing <left>, <right>, <S-left>, and <S-right> adjusts
351 the text indentation in the region. Typing any other key resumes
352 normal editing behavior.
353
354 *** `electric-indent-mode' is enabled by default.
355
356 +++
357 *** `tab-stop-list' is now implicitly extended to infinity by repeating
358 the last step. Its default value is changed to nil, which means a tab
359 stop every `tab-width' columns.
360
361 +++
362 ** New command `cycle-spacing' acts like a smarter `just-one-space'.
363 When called in succession, it cycles between spacing conventions:
364 one space, no spaces, original spacing.
365
366 +++
367 ** The new function `fill-single-char-nobreak-p' can stop fill from breaking
368 a line after a one-letter word, which is an error in some typographical
369 conventions. To use it, add it to the `fill-nobreak-predicate' hook.
370
371 +++
372 ** Uniquify is enabled by default, with `post-forward-angle-brackets' style.
373
374 +++
375 ** New command `C-x SPC' (`rectangle-mark-mode') makes a rectangular region.
376 Most commands are still unaware of it, but kill/yank do work on the rectangle.
377
378 +++
379 ** New option `visual-order-cursor-movement'.
380 If this is non-nil, cursor motion with arrow keys will follow the
381 visual order of characters on the screen: <left> always moves to the
382 left, <right> always moves to the right, disregarding the surrounding
383 bidirectional context.
384
385 ** Register changes
386
387 +++
388 *** All interactive commands that read a register (`copy-to-register', etc.)
389 now display a temporary window after `register-preview-delay' seconds
390 that summarizes existing registers. To disable this, set that option to nil.
391 Interactive commands that read registers and want to make use of this
392 should use `register-read-with-preview' to read register names.
393
394 +++
395 *** New command `frameset-to-register' bound to `C-x r f', replacing
396 `frame-configuration-to-register'. It offers similar functionality,
397 plus enhancements like the ability to restore deleted frames.
398 (`frame-configuration-to-register' still exists, but no longer has a
399 key binding.)
400
401 +++
402 *** New command `C-x C-k x' (`kmacro-to-register') stores keyboard
403 macros in registers.
404
405 +++
406 ** New command `delete-duplicate-lines'.
407 This searches the region for identical lines, and removes all but one
408 copy of each repeated line. The lines need not be sorted.
409
410 \f
411 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
412
413 +++
414 ** More packages look for ~/.emacs.d/<foo> additionally to ~/.<foo>.
415 Affected files:
416 ~/.emacs.d/timelog replaces ~/.timelog
417 ~/.emacs.d/vip replaces ~/.vip
418 ~/.emacs.d/viper replaces ~/.viper
419 ~/.emacs.d/ido.last replaces ~/.ido.last
420 ~/.emacs.d/kkcrc replaces ~/.kkcrc
421 ~/.emacs.d/quickurls replaces ~/.quickurls
422 ~/.emacs.d/idlwave/ replaces ~/.idlwave/
423 ~/.emacs.d/bdfcache.el replaces ~/.bdfcache.el
424 ~/.emacs.d/places replaces ~/.emacs-places
425 ~/.emacs.d/shadows replaces ~/.shadows
426 ~/.emacs.d/shadow_todo replaces ~/.shadow_todo
427 ~/.emacs.d/strokes replaces ~/.strokes
428 ~/.emacs.d/notes replaces ~/.notes
429 ~/.emacs.d/type-break replaces ~/.type-break
430 Also the following files used by the now obsolete otodo-mode.el:
431 ~/.emacs.d/todo-do replaces ~/.todo-do
432 ~/.emacs.d/todo-done replaces ~/.todo-done
433 ~/.emacs.d/todo-top replaces ~/.todo-top
434
435 ** Backtrace and debugger
436
437 +++
438 *** New Lisp debugger command `v' (`debugger-toggle-locals') toggles the
439 display of local variables of the current stack frame.
440
441 +++
442 *** The Lisp debugger's `e' command (`debugger-eval-expression') now includes
443 the lexical environment when evaluating the code in the context at point
444 (and so allows you to access lexical variables).
445
446 ---
447 *** New minor mode `jit-lock-debug-mode' helps you debug code run via JIT Lock.
448
449 ---
450 ** Battery information can now be retrieved from BSD's `apm' utility.
451
452 ---
453 ** In the Buffer Menu, `M-s a C-o' shows matches for a regexp in marked buffers.
454
455 ** Calendar and Diary
456
457 ---
458 *** New faces `calendar-weekday-header', `calendar-weekend-header',
459 and `calendar-month-header'.
460
461 +++
462 *** New option `calendar-day-header-array'.
463
464 +++
465 *** New variable `diary-from-outlook-function', used by the command
466 `diary-from-outlook'.
467
468 ---
469 *** The variable `calendar-font-lock-keywords' is obsolete.
470
471 ** Calc
472
473 +++
474 *** Calc by default now uses the Gregorian calendar for all dates, and
475 uses January 1, 1 AD as its day number 1. Previously Calc used the
476 Julian calendar for dates before September 14, 1752, and it used
477 December 31, 1 BC as its day number 1; the new scheme is more
478 consistent with Calendar's calendrical system and day numbering.
479
480 +++
481 *** The new option `calc-gregorian-switch' lets you configure if
482 (and when) Calc switches from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
483
484 +++
485 *** Support for ISO 8601 dates.
486
487 ** CEDET
488
489 *** EDE
490
491 **** The cpp-root project now supports executing a compile command.
492 It can be set through the new :compile-command slot or the
493 buffer-local variable `compile-command'.
494
495 **** Better selection of include directories for the 'linux' project.
496 Include directories now support out-of-tree build directories and
497 target architecture auto-detection.
498
499 *** Semantic
500
501 **** Improved detection of used namespaces in current scope in C++.
502
503 **** Parsing of default values for variables and function arguments in C/C++.
504 They are also displayed by the summarize feature in the mode line.
505
506 **** Improved parsing of function pointers in C/C++.
507 This also includes parsing of function pointers as function arguments.
508
509 **** Parsing of C/C++ preprocessor macros that open new scope.
510 For example, this enables parsing of macros that open new namespaces.
511
512 **** Support for 'this' pointer in inline member functions in C++.
513
514 ** cl-lib
515
516 +++
517 *** New macro `cl-tagbody'.
518 This executes statements while allowing for control transfer to labels.
519
520 +++
521 *** letf is now just an alias for cl-letf.
522
523 ** CUA mode
524
525 +++
526 *** CUA mode now uses `delete-selection-mode' and `shift-select-mode'.
527 Hence, you can now enable it independently from those modes, and from
528 `transient-mark-mode'.
529
530 ---
531 *** `cua-highlight-region-shift-only' is now obsolete.
532 You can disable `transient-mark-mode' to get the same result.
533
534 +++
535 *** CUA's rectangles can now be used without CUA by calling the command
536 `cua-rectangle-mark-mode'.
537
538 ** CFEngine mode
539
540 ---
541 *** Support for completion, ElDoc, and Flycheck has been added.
542
543 ---
544 *** The current CFEngine syntax is parsed from "cf-promises -s json".
545 There is a fallback syntax available if you don't have cf-promises or
546 if your version doesn't support that option. See option `cfengine-cf-promises'.
547
548 ---
549 ** Delete Selection mode can now be used without Transient Mark mode.
550
551 ** Desktop
552
553 +++
554 *** `desktop-save-mode' by default now auto-saves an existing desktop file
555 after `desktop-auto-save-timeout'. To disable this, customize that option
556 to nil (or zero).
557
558 +++
559 *** `desktop-restore-frames', enabled by default, allows saving and
560 restoring the frame/window configuration (frameset). Additional options
561 `desktop-restore-in-current-display', `desktop-restore-reuses-frames'
562 and `desktop-restore-forces-onscreen' offer further customization.
563
564 +++
565 ** New Dired minor mode `dired-hide-details-mode' toggles whether details,
566 such as file ownership or permissions, are visible.
567
568 ---
569 ** You can enable ElDoc inside the `eval-expression' minibuffer with:
570 (add-hook 'eval-expression-minibuffer-setup-hook 'eldoc-mode)
571 The results display in the mode line.
572
573 ** Electric Pair mode
574
575 +++
576 *** New option `electric-pair-preserve-balance', enabled by default.
577 If non-nil, pairing/skipping only kicks in when that help the balance
578 of parentheses and quotes, i.e. the buffer should end up at least as
579 balanced as before.
580
581 You can further control this behavior by adjusting the predicates
582 stored in `electric-pair-inhibit-predicate' and `electric-pair-skip-self'.
583
584 +++
585 *** New option `electric-pair-delete-adjacent-pairs', enabled by default.
586 In `electric-pair-mode', the commands `backward-delete-char' and
587 `backward-delete-char-untabify' are now bound to electric variants
588 that delete the closer when invoked between adjacent pairs.
589
590 +++
591 *** New option `electric-pair-open-newline-between-pairs', enabled by default.
592 In `electric-pair-mode', inserting a newline between adjacent pairs
593 opens an extra newline after point, which is indented if
594 `electric-indent-mode' is also set.
595
596 +++
597 *** New option `electric-pair-skip-whitespace', enabled by default.
598 This controls if skipping over closing delimiters should jump over any
599 whitespace slack. Setting it to `chomp' makes it delete this
600 whitespace. See also the variable `electric-pair-skip-whitespace-chars'.
601
602 ---
603 *** New variables control the pairing in strings and comments.
604 You can customize `electric-pair-text-pairs' and
605 `electric-pair-text-syntax-table' to tweak pairing behavior inside
606 strings and comments.
607
608 +++
609 ** New EPA option `epa-mail-aliases'.
610 You can set this to a list of email address aliases that `epa-mail-encrypt'
611 should use to find keys.
612
613 ---
614 ** New ERC option `erc-accidental-paste-threshold-seconds'.
615 If set to a number, this can be used to avoid accidentally pasting large
616 amounts of data into the ERC input.
617
618 +++
619 ** New ERT macro `skip-unless' allows skipping ERT tests.
620 See the ERT manual for details.
621
622 ** Eshell
623
624 +++
625 *** `eshell' now supports visual subcommands and options.
626 Eshell has been able to handle "visual" commands (interactive,
627 non-line oriented commands such as top that require display
628 capabilities not provided by eshell) by running them in an Emacs
629 terminal emulator. See `eshell-visual-commands'.
630
631 This feature has been extended to subcommands and options that make a
632 usually line-oriented command a visual command. Typical examples are
633 "git log" and "git <command> --help", which display their output in a
634 pager by default. See `eshell-visual-subcommands' and
635 `eshell-visual-options'.
636
637 ---
638 *** New Eshell-Tramp module.
639 External su and sudo commands are now the default; the internal,
640 Tramp-using variants can still be used by enabling the eshell-tramp
641 module.
642
643 ---
644 ** New F90 mode option `f90-smart-end-names'.
645
646 ** Icomplete
647 Icomplete is now more similar to Ido.
648
649 ---
650 *** Icomplete by default now applies to all forms of minibuffer completion.
651 The variable `icomplete-with-completion-tables' (now a user option)
652 controls this. To restore the old behavior, set it back to
653 '(internal-complete-buffer).
654
655 +++
656 *** You can navigate through and select completions using the keys
657 from `icomplete-minibuffer-map'.
658
659 ---
660 *** The string that separates potential completions is now a customizable
661 option (`icomplete-separator'). The default is " | " rather than ",".
662
663 ---
664 *** New face `icomplete-first-match'; and new options
665 `icomplete-hide-common-prefix' and `icomplete-show-matches-on-no-input'.
666
667 ---
668 *** The option `icomplete-show-key-bindings' has been removed.
669
670 ** Ido
671
672 +++
673 *** An Ido user manual is now included.
674
675 ---
676 *** The option `ido-use-virtual-buffers' can now take the value `auto'.
677 This means to use virtual buffers if the current ido input does not match
678 an existing buffer.
679
680 ---
681 *** The variable `ido-decorations' can optionally have two new elements,
682 which are the brackets to use around the sole remaining completion.
683
684 ** Image mode
685
686 +++
687 *** New commands `n' (`image-next-file') and `p' (`image-previous-file')
688 visit the next image file and the previous image file in the same
689 directory, respectively.
690
691 +++
692 *** New commands to show specific frames of multi-frame images.
693 `f' (`image-next-frame') and `b' (`image-previous-frame') visit the
694 next or previous frame. `F' (`image-goto-frame') shows a specific frame.
695
696 +++
697 *** New commands to speed up, slow down, or reverse animation.
698 `a +' (`image-increase-speed') and `a -' (`image-decrease-speed') to
699 speed up and slow down the animation. `a r' (`image-reverse-speed')
700 to reverse it and `a 0' (`image-reset-speed') to reset it.
701
702 ---
703 *** The command `image-mode-fit-frame' deletes other windows.
704 When toggling, it restores the frame's previous window configuration.
705 It also has an optional frame argument, which can be used by Lisp
706 callers to fit the image to a frame other than the selected frame.
707
708 ** Hi-Lock
709
710 +++
711 *** New global command `M-s h .' (`highlight-symbol-at-point') highlights
712 the symbol found near point.
713
714 +++
715 *** New option `hi-lock-auto-select-face'. When non-nil, hi-lock commands
716 will cycle through faces in `hi-lock-face-defaults' without prompting.
717
718 ---
719 ** New Imenu option `imenu-generic-skip-comments-and-strings'.
720
721 ** Info
722
723 ---
724 *** New Info face `info-index-match', used to highlight matches in index
725 entries displayed by `Info-index-next', `Info-virtual-index' and
726 `info-apropos'.
727
728 ---
729 *** The Info-edit command is obsolete. Editing Info nodes by hand
730 has not been relevant for some time.
731
732 ** JS Mode
733
734 ---
735 *** New option `js-switch-indent-offset'.
736
737 ---
738 *** Better indentation of multiple-variable declarations.
739 If a declaration spans several lines, variables on the following lines
740 are lined up to the first one.
741
742 ---
743 *** Recognition and better indentation of continuations in array comprehensions.
744
745 +++
746 ** MH-E has been updated to version 8.5 - see separate MH-E-NEWS file.
747
748 +++
749 ** Octave mode
750
751 *** Font locking for Texinfo comments and new keywords.
752
753 *** Completion in Octave file buffers.
754
755 *** ElDoc support.
756
757 *** Jump to definition.
758
759 *** Documentation lookup/search.
760
761 +++
762 ** OPascal mode is the new name for Delphi mode
763
764 ---
765 *** All delphi-* variables and functions have been renamed to opascal-*.
766 Obsolete aliases exist for those likely to have been used externally.
767
768 ---
769 *** The option `delphi-newline-always-indents' has been removed.
770 Use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
771
772 ---
773 *** The TAB key runs the standard `indent-for-tab-command', not `delphi-tab'.
774
775 ** Package
776
777 +++
778 *** In the `list-packages' buffer, you can use `f' (`package-menu-filter')
779 to filter the list of packages by a keyword.
780
781 +++
782 *** In the `describe-package' buffer, there are now buttons listing the
783 keywords related to the package. Click on a button to see other packages
784 related to that keyword.
785
786 ---
787 *** The format of `archive-contents' files, generated by package
788 repositories, has changed to allow a new (fifth) element in the data
789 vectors, containing an associative list with extra properties.
790 (For example, `describe-package' uses the `:url' extra property to
791 display a "Homepage" header.)
792
793 ---
794 ** In Prolog mode, `prolog-use-smie' has been removed,
795 along with the non-SMIE indentation code.
796
797 ** Remember
798
799 +++
800 *** The new command `remember-notes' creates a buffer that is saved on exit.
801 You can use it as a more permanent *scratch* buffer.
802
803 +++
804 *** Remember can now store notes in separate files.
805 To use this, add `remember-store-in-files' to the `remember-handler-functions'
806 option. The files are saved in `remember-data-directory' using
807 names specified by `remember-directory-file-name-format'.
808
809 ** Rmail
810
811 +++
812 *** Customize `rmail-mbox-format' to influence some minor aspects of
813 how Rmail displays non-MIME messages.
814
815 ---
816 *** The `unrmail' command now converts from BABYL to mboxrd format,
817 rather than mboxo. Customize `unrmail-mbox-format' to change this.
818
819 ** Ruby mode
820
821 ---
822 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
823
824 ---
825 *** New `electric-indent-mode' integration.
826
827 ---
828 *** New option `ruby-encoding-magic-comment-style'.
829
830 ---
831 *** New option `ruby-custom-encoding-magic-comment-template'.
832
833 ---
834 *** New option `ruby-align-to-stmt-keywords'.
835
836 ---
837 *** New option `ruby-align-chained-calls'.
838
839 ---
840 *** More Ruby file types have been added to `auto-mode-alist'.
841
842 ** Search and Replace
843
844 +++
845 *** New global command `M-s .' (`isearch-forward-symbol-at-point')
846 starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search forward with the
847 symbol found near point added to the search string initially.
848
849 +++
850 *** `C-x 8 RET' in Isearch mode reads a character by its Unicode name
851 and adds it to the search string.
852
853 +++
854 *** `M-s i' in Isearch mode toggles whether search matches invisible text.
855
856 +++
857 *** `query-replace' skips invisible text when `search-invisible' is nil,
858 and opens overlays with hidden text when `search-invisible' is `open'.
859
860 +++
861 *** A negative prefix arg of replacement commands replaces backward.
862 `M-- M-%' replaces a string backward, `M-- C-M-%' replaces a regexp
863 backward, `M-s w words M-- M-%' replaces a sequence of words backward.
864
865 +++
866 *** By default, prefix arguments do not now terminate Isearch mode.
867 Set `isearch-allow-prefix' to nil to restore old behavior.
868
869 +++
870 *** More Isearch commands accept prefix arguments, namely
871 `isearch-printing-char', `isearch-quote-char', `isearch-yank-word',
872 `isearch-yank-line'.
873
874 +++
875 *** Word search now matches whitespace at the beginning/end
876 of the search string if it contains leading/trailing whitespace.
877 In an incremental word search or when using a non-nil LAX argument
878 of `word-search-regexp', the lax matching can also match part of
879 the first word (in addition to the lax matching of the last word).
880 The same rules are now applied to the symbol search with the difference
881 that it matches symbols, and non-symbol characters between symbols.
882
883 +++
884 ** New SES command `ses-rename-cell' allows assignment of names to SES cells.
885
886 ---
887 ** The shell.el option `explicit-bash-args' includes --noediting by default.
888 All non-ancient Bash versions support this option.
889
890 ** Shell Script mode
891
892 ---
893 *** The SMIE indentation engine is now used by default - see `sh-use-smie'.
894
895 ---
896 *** `sh-mode' now has its own setting for `add-log-current-defun-function'.
897
898 ** SMIE indentation can be customized via `smie-config'.
899 Emacs can learn the appropriate indentation settings if you provide it
900 with an indented sample file.
901
902 ---
903 ** SQL mode
904
905 *** Improved login monitoring and appropriate response to login failures.
906 New variable `sql-login-delay' defines maximum wait time for a connection.
907
908 *** Oracle support.
909 SQL*Plus script placeholders are properly highlighted and identified
910 in `sql-placeholders-filter'. When starting SQL*Plus, `sql-oracle-options'
911 are passed before the logon parameter, as required. The default now
912 includes `-L', to limit the number of logon attempts per invocation.
913
914 ---
915 ** New Term mode option `term-suppress-hard-newline'.
916
917 +++
918 ** Todo mode has been rewritten and enhanced.
919 The Todo mode user manual describes all commands and most user
920 options. To support some of these features, a new file format is
921 used, which is incompatible with the old format; however, you can
922 convert old todo and done item files to the new format on initializing
923 the first new todo file, or at any later time with the provided
924 conversion command. The previous version of todo-mode.el has been
925 renamed to otodo-mode.el and is now obsolete. New features include:
926
927 *** Support for multiple todo files and archive files of done items.
928
929 *** Renaming, reordering, moving, merging, and deleting categories.
930
931 *** Sortable tabular summaries of categories and the item types they contain.
932
933 *** Cross-category lists of items filtered by specific criteria.
934
935 *** More fine-grained interaction with the Emacs diary, by being able to
936 decide for each todo item whether it appears in the Fancy Diary display.
937
938 *** Highly flexible new item insertion and item editing.
939
940 *** Moving items between categories, storing done items in their category
941 or in archive files, undoing or unarchiving done items.
942
943 *** Reprioritizing items by inputting a numerical priority.
944
945 *** Extensive customizability of operation and display, including many faces.
946
947 ** Trace
948
949 ---
950 *** `trace-function' and `trace-function-background' no longer prompt for
951 the output buffer. Unless you use a prefix argument, they output to
952 `trace-buffer'.
953
954 ---
955 *** With a prefix argument, `trace-function' and `trace-function-background'
956 will prompt for a "context". This is a Lisp expression, whose value at the
957 time the function is entered/exited is printed along with the function's
958 name and arguments.
959
960 ** Tramp
961
962 +++
963 *** The experimental url syntax for remote file names has been removed.
964
965 +++
966 *** New connection method "adb", which allows to access Android
967 devices by the Android Debug Bridge. The variable `tramp-adb-program'
968 can be used to adapt the path of the "adb" program, if needed.
969
970 +++
971 *** The connection methods "plink1", "ssh1", "ssh2", "scp1", "scp2",
972 "scpc" and "rsyncc" are discontinued. The ssh option
973 "ControlMaster=auto" is set automatically in all ssh-based methods,
974 when possible. See `tramp-use-ssh-controlmaster-options'.
975
976 +++
977 *** Handlers for `file-acl' and `set-file-acl' for remote machines
978 which support POSIX ACLs.
979
980 +++
981 *** Handlers for `file-notify-add-watch' and `file-notify-rm-watch'
982 for remote machines which support filesystem notifications.
983
984 +++
985 ** New URL command `url-cookie-list' displays the current cookies,
986 and allows you to interactively remove cookies.
987
988 ** VC and related modes
989
990 +++
991 *** In VC directory mode, `D' displays diffs between VC-controlled
992 whole tree revisions.
993
994 +++
995 *** In VC directory mode, `L' lists the change log for the current VC
996 controlled tree in a window.
997
998 +++
999 *** In VC directory mode, `I' shows a log of changes that will be
1000 received with a pull operation.
1001
1002 +++
1003 *** `C-x v G' (globally) and `G' (in VC directory mode) ignores a file
1004 under current version control system. When called with a prefix
1005 argument, you can remove a file from the ignored file list.
1006
1007 ** VHDL mode
1008
1009 ---
1010 *** New options: `vhdl-actual-generic-name', `vhdl-beautify-options'.
1011
1012 ---
1013 *** New commands: `vhdl-fix-statement-region', `vhdl-fix-statement-buffer'.
1014
1015 ---
1016 ** The Woman commands `woman-default-faces' and `woman-monochrome-faces'
1017 are obsolete. Customize the `woman-*' faces instead.
1018
1019 ** Obsolete packages
1020
1021 +++
1022 *** iswitchb.el; use icomplete-mode.
1023
1024 ---
1025 *** longlines.el; use visual-line-mode.
1026
1027 ---
1028 *** meese.el.
1029
1030 +++
1031 *** sup-mouse.el.
1032
1033 ---
1034 *** terminal.el; use term.el instead.
1035
1036 ---
1037 *** the old version of todo-mode.el (renamed to otodo-mode.el).
1038
1039 ---
1040 *** xesam.el (owing to the cancellation of the XESAM project).
1041
1042 +++
1043 *** yow.el; use fortune.el or cookie1.el instead.
1044
1045 \f
1046 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.4
1047
1048 +++
1049 ** New package `eww' is a built-in web browser.
1050 It is only available if Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support.
1051
1052 +++
1053 ** New minor mode `superword-mode'.
1054 This overrides the default word motion commands to treat "symbol_words"
1055 as a single word, similar to what `subword-mode' does.
1056
1057 +++
1058 ** New package nadvice.el offers lighter-weight advice facilities.
1059 It is layered as:
1060
1061 *** add-function/remove-function, which can be used to add/remove code on any
1062 function-carrying place, such as process-filters or `<foo>-function' hooks.
1063
1064 *** advice-add/advice-remove to add/remove a piece of advice on a named
1065 function, much like `defadvice' does.
1066
1067 ** New package frameset.el.
1068 It provides a set of operations to save a frameset (the state of all
1069 or a subset of the existing frames and windows, somewhat similar to a
1070 frame configuration), both in-session and persistently, and restore it
1071 at some point in the future.
1072
1073 +++
1074 ** New package filenotify.el provides an interface for file system
1075 notifications. It requires that Emacs be compiled with one of the
1076 low-level libraries gfilenotify.c, inotify.c or w32notify.c.
1077
1078 \f
1079 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
1080
1081 ---
1082 ** `kill-region' has lost its `yank-handler' optional argument.
1083
1084 +++
1085 ** `(input-pending-p)' no longer runs other timers that are ready to run.
1086 The new optional CHECK-TIMERS parameter allows for the prior behavior.
1087
1088 +++
1089 ** `defvar' and `defcustom' in a let-binding affect the "external" default.
1090
1091 ---
1092 ** The syntax of ?» and ?« is now punctuation instead of matched parens.
1093 Some languages match those as »...«, and others as «...», so it is
1094 better for Emacs to stay neutral by default.
1095
1096 ---
1097 ** In compiled Lisp files, the header no longer includes a timestamp.
1098
1099 +++
1100 ** The default file coding for Emacs Lisp files is now utf-8.
1101 (See `file-coding-system-alist'.) In most cases, this change is
1102 transparent, but files that contain unusual characters without
1103 specifying an explicit coding system may fail to load with obscure
1104 errors. You should either convert them to utf-8 or add an explicit
1105 `coding:' cookie.
1106
1107 +++
1108 ** `overriding-terminal-local-map' no longer replaces the local keymaps.
1109 It used to disable the minor mode, major mode, and text-property keymaps,
1110 whereas now it simply has higher precedence.
1111
1112 +++
1113 ** Default process filters and sentinels are not nil any more.
1114 Instead they default to a function that does what the nil value used to do.
1115
1116 +++
1117 ** `read-event' does not return decoded chars in ttys any more.
1118 As was the case in Emacs 22 and before, the decoding of terminal
1119 input, according to `keyboard-coding-system', is not performed in
1120 `read-event' any more. But unlike in Emacs 22, this decoding is still
1121 done before input-decode-map, function-key-map, etc.
1122
1123 ---
1124 ** The option `inhibit-local-menu-bar-menus' has been removed.
1125
1126 ---
1127 ** Frame-local variables that affect redisplay do not work any more.
1128 More specifically, redisplay does not bother to check for a frame-local
1129 value when looking up variables.
1130
1131 +++
1132 ** nil and "unbound" are indistinguishable in `symbol-function'.
1133 `symbol-function' does not signal a `void-function' error any more.
1134 To determine if a symbol's function definition is void, use `fboundp'.
1135
1136 +++
1137 ** `defadvice' does not honor the `freeze' flag and cannot advise
1138 special-forms any more.
1139
1140 ---
1141 ** `dolist' no longer binds VAR while evaluating the RESULT form,
1142 when lexical binding is enabled. Previously, VAR was bound to nil,
1143 which often led to spurious unused-variable warnings.
1144
1145 +++
1146 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
1147 The second argument is no longer an SELinux context, instead it is an
1148 alist of extended attributes as returned by the new function
1149 `file-extended-attributes'. The attributes can be applied to another
1150 file using `set-file-extended-attributes'.
1151
1152 +++
1153 ** By default `copy-file' no longer copies file permission bits to an
1154 existing destination; and it sets the file permission bits of a newly
1155 created destination to those of the source, masked by the default file
1156 permissions. To copy the file permission bits, pass t as the
1157 PRESERVE-PERMISSIONS argument of `copy-file'.
1158
1159 +++
1160 ** `visited-file-modtime' now returns -1 for nonexistent files.
1161 Formerly it returned a list (-1 LOW USEC PSEC), but this was ambiguous
1162 in the presence of files with negative time stamps.
1163
1164 +++
1165 ** The cars of the elements in `interpreter-mode-alist' are now
1166 treated as regexps rather than literal strings.
1167
1168 \f
1169 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.4
1170
1171 +++
1172 ** The second argument of `eval' can now specify a lexical environment.
1173
1174 +++
1175 ** New functions `special-form-p' and `macrop'.
1176
1177 +++
1178 ** New macro `define-alternatives' can be used to define generic commands.
1179 Generic commands are interactive functions whose implementation can be
1180 selected among several alternatives, as a matter of user preference.
1181
1182 +++
1183 ** If you give a symbol a `defalias-fset-function' property, `defalias'
1184 on that symbol will use the associated value as a function to call
1185 in place of `fset'.
1186
1187 +++
1188 ** New variable `enable-dir-local-variables'.
1189 Directory-local variables are ignored if this is nil. This may be
1190 useful for modes that want to ignore directory-locals while still
1191 respecting file-local variables.
1192
1193 +++
1194 ** New function `get-pos-property'.
1195
1196 +++
1197 ** `read-regexp' now uses the new variable `read-regexp-defaults-function'
1198 as a function to call to provide default values.
1199
1200 ** Completion changes
1201
1202 ---
1203 *** The separator used by `completing-read-multiple' is now a regexp.
1204 The default `crm-separator' has been changed to allow surrounding spaces
1205 around the comma.
1206
1207 +++
1208 *** The `common-substring' argument of `display-completion-list',
1209 which has been documented as obsolete since Emacs 23.1, is now _really_
1210 obsolete, and no longer advertised. Instead either call
1211 `completion-hilit-commonality' to add the highlighting; or use
1212 `completion-all-completions', which returns highlighted strings.
1213
1214 +++
1215 *** New function `completion-table-with-cache' is a wrapper for
1216 `completion-table-dynamic' that caches the result of the last lookup.
1217
1218 +++
1219 *** New function `completion-table-merge' to combine several
1220 completion tables by merging their completions.
1221
1222 +++
1223 ** New minor modes `prettify-symbols-mode' and `global-prettify-symbols-mode'
1224 display specified symbols as composed characters. E.g., in Emacs Lisp mode,
1225 this replaces the string "lambda" with the Greek lambda character.
1226
1227 ** Terminal changes
1228
1229 +++
1230 *** Functions to pop up menus and dialogs now work on all terminals,
1231 including TTYs. This includes `x-popup-menu', `x-popup-dialog',
1232 `message-box', `yes-or-no-p', etc.
1233
1234 The function `display-popup-menus-p' will now return non-nil for a
1235 display or frame whenever a mouse is supported on that display or
1236 frame.
1237
1238 +++
1239 *** New hook `tty-setup-hook', run at the end of initializing a text terminal.
1240
1241 +++
1242 *** The hook `term-setup-hook' is obsolete. It is entirely equivalent
1243 to `emacs-startup-hook'. See also the new `tty-setup-hook'.
1244
1245 +++
1246 ** New hook `pre-redisplay-function'.
1247
1248 +++
1249 ** New bool-vector set operation functions
1250 *** `bool-vector-exclusive-or'
1251 *** `bool-vector-union'
1252 *** `bool-vector-intersection'
1253 *** `bool-vector-set-difference'
1254 *** `bool-vector-not'
1255 *** `bool-vector-subsetp'
1256 *** `bool-vector-count-consecutive'
1257 *** `bool-vector-count-population'
1258
1259 +++
1260 ** Comparison functions =, <, >, <=, >= can now take many arguments.
1261
1262 ** Error-handling changes
1263
1264 +++
1265 *** New function `define-error'.
1266
1267 +++
1268 *** `with-demoted-errors' takes an additional argument `format'.
1269
1270 +++
1271 ** New macro `with-eval-after-load'.
1272 This is like the old `eval-after-load', but better behaved.
1273
1274 ---
1275 ** New library subr-x.el with miscellaneous small utility functions
1276 *** `hash-table-keys'
1277 *** `hash-table-values'
1278 *** `string-blank-p'
1279 *** `string-empty-p'
1280 *** `string-join'
1281 *** `string-reverse'
1282 *** `string-trim-left'
1283 *** `string-trim-right'
1284 *** `string-trim'
1285 *** `string-remove-prefix'
1286 *** `string-remove-suffix'
1287
1288 +++
1289 ** Obsoleted functions
1290 *** `log10'
1291 *** `dont-compile'
1292 *** `lisp-complete-symbol'
1293 *** `field-complete'
1294 *** `minibuffer-completion-contents'
1295 *** `isearch-nonincremental-exit-minibuffer'
1296 *** `isearch-filter-visible'
1297 *** `generic-make-keywords-list'
1298 *** `get-upcase-table' (use `case-table-get-table' instead).
1299
1300 +++
1301 ** `with-wrapper-hook' is obsoleted by `add-function'.
1302 The few hooks that used with-wrapper-hook are replaced as follows:
1303 *** `abbrev-expand-function' obsoletes `abbrev-expand-functions'.
1304 *** `completion-in-region-function' obsoletes `completion-in-region-functions'.
1305 *** `filter-buffer-substring-function' obsoletes `filter-buffer-substring-functions'.
1306
1307 +++
1308 ** `byte-compile-interactive-only-functions' is now obsolete.
1309 To specify that a command should only be called interactively, give it
1310 a non-nil `interactive-only' property.
1311
1312 +++
1313 ** `split-string' now takes an optional argument TRIM.
1314 The value, if non-nil, is a regexp that specifies what to trim from
1315 the start and end of each substring.
1316
1317 +++
1318 ** New function `string-suffix-p'.
1319
1320 ** File-handling changes
1321
1322 +++
1323 *** Support for filesystem notifications.
1324 Emacs now supports notifications of filesystem changes, such as
1325 creation, modification, and deletion of files. This requires the
1326 `glib' API, or the 'inotify' API (on GNU/Linux systems only). On
1327 MS-Windows systems, this is supported for Windows XP and newer
1328 versions.
1329
1330 +++
1331 *** The 9th element returned by `file-attributes' is now unspecified.
1332 Formerly, it was t if the file's gid would change if file were deleted
1333 and recreated. This value has been inaccurate for years on many
1334 platforms, and nobody seems to have noticed or cared.
1335
1336 +++
1337 *** The 6th argument to `copy-file' has been renamed to
1338 PRESERVE-PERMISSIONS as it now handles ACL entries and the traditional
1339 Unix file permission bits as well as SELinux context.
1340
1341 +++
1342 *** The function `file-ownership-preserved-p' now has an optional
1343 argument GROUP which causes it check for file group too. This can be
1344 used in place of the 9th element of `file-attributes'.
1345
1346 ---
1347 *** The function `set-visited-file-modtime' now accepts a 0 or -1
1348 argument, with the same interpretation as the returned value of
1349 `visited-file-modtime'.
1350
1351 ** Autorevert changes
1352
1353 ---
1354 *** If Emacs is compiled with file notification support, notifications
1355 are used instead of checking the time stamp of the files. You can
1356 disable this by setting the user option `auto-revert-use-notify' to
1357 nil. Alternatively, a regular expression of directories to be
1358 excluded from file notifications can be specified by
1359 `auto-revert-notify-exclude-dir-regexp'.
1360
1361 ---
1362 *** The new user option `auto-revert-remote-files' enables reversion
1363 of remote files when set to non-nil.
1364
1365 ** Face changes
1366
1367 +++
1368 *** The function `face-spec-set' is now like `setq' for face specs.
1369 Its third arg now accepts values specifying a face spec type (defface,
1370 custom, or override spec), and the relevant spec is set accordingly.
1371
1372 +++
1373 *** New function `add-face-text-property', which can be used to
1374 conveniently prepend/append new face properties.
1375
1376 *** Face specs set via Custom themes now replace the `defface' spec
1377 rather than inheriting from it (as do face specs set via Customize).
1378
1379 ---
1380 *** New face characteristic (supports :underline (:style wave))
1381 specifies whether or not the terminal can display a wavy line.
1382
1383 +++
1384 *** New face spec attribute :distant-foreground
1385 specifies foreground to use if background color is near the foreground
1386 color that would otherwise have been used.
1387
1388 ** Image API
1389
1390 +++
1391 *** `image-animated-p' is now `image-multi-frame-p'.
1392 It returns non-nil for any image that contains multiple frames,
1393 whether or not it specifies a frame delay.
1394
1395 +++
1396 *** New variable `image-default-frame-delay' gives the frame delay for
1397 animated images which do not specify a frame delay.
1398
1399 +++
1400 *** New functions `image-current-frame' and `image-show-frame' for getting
1401 and setting the current frame of a multi-frame image.
1402
1403 ** EIEIO
1404
1405 +++
1406 *** Namespace cleanup by obsolete-aliasing functions to use `eieio-' prefix.
1407 **** object-name -> eieio-object-name
1408 **** object-class -> eieio-object-class
1409 **** object-class-fast -> eieio--object-class
1410 **** object-class-name -> eieio-object-class-name
1411 **** object-name-string -> eieio-object-name-string
1412 **** object-num-slots -> eieio--object-num-slots
1413 **** object-set-name-string -> eieio-object-set-name-string
1414 **** class-of -> eieio-object-class
1415 **** class-name -> eieio-class-name
1416 **** class-parent -> eieio-class-parent
1417 **** class-parents -> eieio-class-parents
1418 **** class-parents-fast -> eieio-class-parents-fast
1419 **** class-children -> eieio-class-children
1420 **** class-num-slots -> eieio--class-num-slots
1421 **** class-precedence-list -> eieio-class-precedence-list
1422 **** class-direct-subclasses -> eieio-class-children
1423 **** class-direct-superclasses -> eieio-class-parents
1424
1425 ** Changes in encoding and decoding of text
1426
1427 ---
1428 *** New coding-system `prefer-utf-8'.
1429 This is like `undecided' but prefers UTF-8 on decoding if the text to
1430 be decoded does not contain any invalid UTF-8 sequences. On encoding,
1431 any non-ASCII characters are automatically encoded as UTF-8.
1432
1433 ---
1434 *** New attributes of coding-systems whose type is `undecided'.
1435 Two new attributes, `:inhibit-null-byte-detection' and
1436 `:inhibit-iso-escape-detection', determine how to detect encoding of
1437 text that includes null bytes and ISO-2022 escape sequences,
1438 respectively. Each of these attributes can be either nil, zero, or
1439 t. If it is t, decoding text ignores null bytes and, respectively,
1440 ISO-2022 sequences. If it is nil, null bytes cause text to be decoded
1441 with no-conversion and ISO-2022 sequences cause Emacs to assume the
1442 text is encoded in one of the ISO-2022 encodings, such as
1443 iso-2022-7bit. If the value is zero, Emacs consults the variables
1444 inhibit-null-byte-detection and inhibit-iso-escape-detection, which
1445 see.
1446 The new attribute `:prefer-utf-8', if non-nil, causes Emacs to prefer
1447 UTF-8 encoding and decoding, whenever possible.
1448
1449 These attributes are only meaningful for coding-systems of type
1450 `undecided'. (The type of a coding-system is determined by its
1451 `:coding-type' attribute and can be accessed by calling the
1452 `coding-system-type' function.)
1453
1454 ---
1455 ** The `time-to-seconds' alias to `float-time' is no longer marked obsolete.
1456
1457 +++
1458 ** New functions `group-gid' and `group-real-gid'.
1459
1460 ---
1461 ** The spelling of the rx.el category `chinese-two-byte' has been
1462 corrected (the first 'e' was missing).
1463
1464 ---
1465 ** Minor internal changes to the details of lock files.
1466 The lock for DIR/FILE is now _always_ DIR/.#FILE.
1467 If DIR/.#FILE already exists and is not an Emacs lock file,
1468 Emacs makes no attempt to lock DIR/FILE. (Previously, it fell back to
1469 numbered lock files DIR/.#FILE.0...).
1470 On file systems that do not support symbolic links, the lock is now a
1471 regular file with contents being what would have been in the symlink.
1472
1473 ** Changes to the Emacs Lisp Coding Conventions in Emacs 24.4
1474
1475 +++
1476 *** The package descriptor and name of global variables, constants,
1477 and functions should be separated by two hyphens if the symbol is not
1478 meant to be used by other packages.
1479
1480 \f
1481 * Changes in Emacs 24.4 on Non-Free Operating Systems
1482
1483 ---
1484 ** The procedure for building Emacs on MS-Windows has changed.
1485 It is now built by running the same configure script as on all other
1486 platforms. This requires the MSYS environment and MinGW development
1487 tools. See the updated instructions in nt/INSTALL for details.
1488
1489 Using the Posix configure script and Makefile's also means a change in
1490 the directory structure of the Emacs installation on Windows. It is
1491 now the same as on GNU and Unix systems. In particular, the auxiliary
1492 programs, such as cmdproxy.exe and hexl.exe, are in
1493 libexec/emacs/VERSION/i686-pc-mingw32 (where VERSION is the Emacs
1494 version), version-independent site-lisp is in share/emacs/site-lisp,
1495 version-specific Lisp files are in share/emacs/VERSION/lisp and in
1496 share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, Info docs are in share/info, and data
1497 files are in share/emacs/VERSION/etc. (Emacs knows about all these
1498 directories and will find the files in there automatically; there's no
1499 need to set any variables due to this change.)
1500
1501 +++
1502 ** Emacs on Windows 2000 and later can now access files and directories
1503 whose names cannot be encoded in the current system codepage.
1504
1505 The new variable `w32-unicode-filenames' controls this feature: if it
1506 is t, Emacs uses Unicode APIs to pass file names to system calls,
1507 which lifts the limitation of file names to the current locale.
1508
1509 +++
1510 ** The "generate a backtrace on fatal error" feature now works on MS Windows.
1511 The backtrace is written to the 'emacs_backtrace.txt' file in the
1512 directory where Emacs was running.
1513
1514 +++
1515 ** The variable `buffer-file-type' is no longer supported.
1516 Setting it has no effect, and %t in the mode-line format is ignored.
1517 Likewise, `file-name-buffer-file-type-alist' is now obsolete, and
1518 modifying it has no effect.
1519
1520 ---
1521 ** Lock files now work on MS-Windows.
1522 This helps to prevent losing your edits if the same file is being
1523 edited in another Emacs session or by another user. See the node
1524 "Interlocking" in the Emacs User Manual for the details. To disable
1525 file locking, customize `create-lockfiles' to nil.
1526
1527 ** New Core Text based font backend for Mac OS X 10.5 and newer.
1528 GNUstep and Mac OS X 10.4 use the old font backend.
1529 To use the old backend by default, do on the command line:
1530 % defaults write org.gnu.Emacs FontBackend ns
1531
1532 ** Improved fullscreen support on Mac OS X.
1533 Emacs supports both native (Mac OS X 10.7 and newer) and "old style" fullscreen.
1534 Customize `ns-use-native-fullscreen' to change the style.
1535 For Mac OS X 10.7 and newer, native is the default.
1536
1537 ** On Mac OS X 10.7 and newer, Emacs uses sRGB colorspace by default.
1538 Customize `ns-use-srgb-colorspace' to disable this. Note that this
1539 does not apply to images.
1540
1541 \f
1542 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.3
1543
1544 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+ version 3.
1545 If you don't pass `--with-x-toolkit' to configure, or if you use
1546 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk' or `--with-x-toolkit=yes', configure will try
1547 to build with Gtk+ version 3, and if that fails, try Gtk+ version 2.
1548 You can explicitly require a specific version by passing
1549 `--with-x-toolkit=gtk2' or `--with-x-toolkit=gtk3' to configure.
1550
1551 ** New configure option `--enable-link-time-optimization', to utilize
1552 an appropriate feature provided by GCC since version 4.5.0.
1553
1554 ** New configure option `--without-all' to disable most of the optional
1555 features (image support, etc.) that are normally enabled by default.
1556
1557 ** New configure option `--enable-gcc-warnings' (for developing/debugging
1558 Emacs). If building with GCC, this enables compile-time checks that
1559 warn/give errors about possibly-questionable C code. On a recent GNU
1560 system there should be no warnings; on older and on non-GNU systems
1561 the results may be useful to developers.
1562
1563 ** The configure option `--enable-use-lisp-union-type' has been
1564 renamed to `--enable-check-lisp-object-type', as the resulting
1565 Lisp_Object type no longer uses a union to implement the compile time
1566 check that this option enables.
1567
1568 ** The configure option `--disable-maintainer-mode' has been removed,
1569 as it was confusingly-named and rarely useful.
1570
1571 ** The configure options `--program-prefix', `--program-suffix', and
1572 `--program-transform-name' apply to more than just the installed
1573 binaries. Now they also affect the man pages, icons, and the
1574 etc/emacs.desktop file; but not the info pages, since this would break
1575 links between the various manuals.
1576
1577 ** You can use `NO_BIN_LINK=t make install' to prevent the installation
1578 overwriting "emacs" in the installation bin/ directory with a link
1579 to "emacs-VERSION".
1580
1581 ** Emacs uses libtinfo in preference to libncurses, if available.
1582
1583 ** On FreeBSD and NetBSD, configure no longer adds /usr/local/lib and
1584 /usr/pkg/lib to the linker search path. You must add them yourself if
1585 you want them.
1586
1587 ** The standalone scripts `rcs-checkin' and `vcdiff' have been removed
1588 (from the bin and libexec directories, respectively). The former is
1589 no longer relevant, the latter is replaced by lisp (in vc-sccs.el).
1590
1591 \f
1592 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.3
1593
1594 ** Emacs no longer searches for `leim-list.el' files beneath the standard
1595 lisp/ directory. There should not be any there anyway. If you have
1596 been adding them there, put them somewhere else; e.g., site-lisp.
1597
1598 ** The `--no-site-lisp' command line option now works for Nextstep builds.
1599
1600 \f
1601 * Changes in Emacs 24.3
1602
1603 ** Help
1604
1605 *** `C-h f' (`describe-function') can now perform autoloading.
1606 When this command is called for an autoloaded function whose docstring
1607 contains a key substitution construct, that function's library is
1608 automatically loaded, so that the documentation can be shown
1609 correctly. To disable this, set `help-enable-auto-load' to nil.
1610
1611 *** `C-h f' now reports previously-autoloaded functions as "autoloaded",
1612 even after their associated libraries have been loaded (and the
1613 autoloads have been redefined as functions).
1614
1615 ** ImageMagick
1616
1617 *** Images displayed via ImageMagick now support transparency and the
1618 :background image specification property.
1619
1620 *** When available, ImageMagick support is automatically enabled.
1621 It is no longer necessary to call `imagemagick-register-types'
1622 explicitly to install ImageMagick image types; that function is called
1623 automatically at startup, or when customizing an imagemagick- option.
1624
1625 *** Setting `imagemagick-types-inhibit' to t now disables the use of
1626 ImageMagick to view images. (You must call `imagemagick-register-types'
1627 afterwards if you do not use customize to change this.)
1628
1629 *** The new variable `imagemagick-enabled-types' also affects which
1630 ImageMagick types are treated as images. The function
1631 `imagemagick-filter-types' returns the list of types that will be
1632 treated as images.
1633
1634 ** Minibuffer
1635
1636 *** In minibuffer filename prompts, `C-M-f' and `C-M-b' now move to the
1637 next and previous path separator, respectively.
1638
1639 *** `minibuffer-electric-default-mode' can shorten "(default ...)" to "[...]"
1640 in minibuffer prompts. Just set `minibuffer-eldef-shorten-default'
1641 non-nil before enabling the mode.
1642
1643 ** Mode line
1644
1645 *** New option `mode-line-default-help-echo' specifies the help text
1646 (shown in a tooltip or in the echo area) for any part of the mode line
1647 that does not have its own specialized help text.
1648
1649 *** You can now click mouse-3 in the coding system indicator to invoke
1650 `set-buffer-file-coding-system'.
1651
1652 ** Server and client
1653
1654 *** emacsclient now obeys string values for `initial-buffer-choice',
1655 if it is told to open a new frame without specifying any file to visit
1656 or expression to evaluate.
1657
1658 *** New option `server-auth-key' specifies a shared server key.
1659
1660 ** Emacs now generates backtraces on fatal errors.
1661 On encountering a fatal error, Emacs now outputs a textual description
1662 of the fatal signal, and a short backtrace on platforms like glibc
1663 that support backtraces.
1664
1665 ** `C-x C-q' is now bound to the new minor mode `read-only-mode'.
1666 This minor mode replaces `toggle-read-only', which is now obsolete.
1667
1668 ** Most `y-or-n' prompts now allow you to scroll the selected window.
1669 Typing `C-v' or `M-v' at a y-or-n prompt scrolls forward or backward
1670 respectively, without exiting from the prompt.
1671
1672 ** In the Package Menu, newly-available packages are listed as "new",
1673 and sorted above the other "available" packages by default.
1674
1675 ** If your Emacs was built from a repository checkout, the new variable
1676 `emacs-bzr-version' contains information about the bzr revision used.
1677
1678 ** New option `create-lockfiles' specifies usage of lockfiles.
1679 It defaults to t. Changing it to nil inhibits the creation of lock
1680 files (use this with caution).
1681
1682 ** New option `enable-remote-dir-locals', if non-nil, allows directory-local
1683 variables on remote hosts.
1684
1685 ** The entry for PCL-CVS has been removed from the Tools menu.
1686 The PCL-CVS commands are still available via the keyboard.
1687
1688 ** Using "unibyte: t" in Lisp source files is obsolete.
1689 Use "coding: raw-text" instead.
1690
1691 ** In the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug', the `C-c m' binding
1692 has been changed to `C-c M-i' (`report-emacs-bug-insert-to-mailer').
1693 The previous binding, introduced in Emacs 24.1, was a mistake, because
1694 `C-c LETTER' bindings are reserved for user customizations.
1695
1696 ** Internationalization
1697
1698 *** New language environment: Persian.
1699
1700 *** New input method `vietnamese-vni'.
1701
1702 ** Nextstep (GNUstep / Mac OS X) port
1703
1704 *** Support for fullscreen and the frame parameter fullscreen.
1705
1706 *** A file dialog is used for open/save operations initiated from the
1707 menu/toolbar.
1708
1709 \f
1710 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.3
1711
1712 ** Search and Replace
1713
1714 *** Non-regexp Isearch now performs "lax" space matching.
1715 Each sequence of spaces in the supplied search string may match any
1716 sequence of one or more whitespace characters, as specified by the
1717 variable `search-whitespace-regexp'. (This variable is also used by a
1718 similar existing feature for regexp Isearch.)
1719
1720 *** New Isearch command `M-s SPC' toggles lax space matching.
1721 This applies to both ordinary and regexp Isearch.
1722
1723 *** New option `replace-lax-whitespace'.
1724 If non-nil, `query-replace' uses flexible whitespace matching too.
1725 The default is nil.
1726
1727 *** Global `M-s _' starts a symbol (identifier) incremental search,
1728 and `M-s _' in Isearch toggles symbol search mode.
1729 `M-s c' in Isearch toggles search case-sensitivity.
1730
1731 ** Navigation commands
1732
1733 *** New binding `M-g c' for `goto-char'.
1734
1735 *** New binding `M-g TAB' for `move-to-column'.
1736
1737 *** `M-g TAB' (`move-to-column') prompts for a column number if called
1738 interactively with no prefix arg. Previously, it moved to column 1.
1739
1740 ** New option `yank-handled-properties' allows processing of text
1741 properties on yanked text, in ways that are more general than just
1742 removing them (as is done by `yank-excluded-properties').
1743
1744 ** New option `delete-trailing-lines' specifies whether
1745 M-x delete-trailing-whitespace should delete trailing lines at the end
1746 of the buffer. It defaults to t.
1747
1748 ** `C-u M-=' now counts lines/words/characters in the entire buffer.
1749
1750 ** `C-x 8 RET' is now bound to `insert-char', which is now a command.
1751 `ucs-insert' is now an obsolete alias for `insert-char'.
1752
1753 ** The `z' key no longer has a binding in most special modes.
1754 It used to be bound to `kill-this-buffer', but `z' is too easy to
1755 accidentally type.
1756
1757 ** New command `C-x r M-w' (`copy-rectangle-as-kill').
1758 It copies the region-rectangle as the last rectangle kill.
1759
1760 ** Registers
1761
1762 *** `C-x r +' is now overloaded to invoke `append-to-register'.
1763
1764 *** New option `register-separator' specifies the register containing
1765 the text to put between collected texts for use with
1766 M-x append-to-register and M-x prepend-to-register.
1767
1768 \f
1769 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.3
1770
1771 ** Common Lisp emulation (CL)
1772
1773 *** CL's main entry is now (require 'cl-lib).
1774 `cl-lib' is like the old `cl' except that it uses the namespace cleanly;
1775 i.e., all its definitions have the "cl-" prefix (and internal definitions
1776 use the "cl--" prefix).
1777
1778 If `cl' provided a feature under the name `foo', then `cl-lib'
1779 provides it under the name `cl-foo' instead; with the exceptions of the
1780 few `cl' definitions that had to use `foo*' to avoid conflicts with
1781 pre-existing Elisp entities. These have been renamed to `cl-foo'
1782 rather than `cl-foo*'.
1783
1784 The old `cl' is now deprecated and is mainly just a bunch of aliases that
1785 provide the old, non-prefixed names. Some exceptions are listed below:
1786
1787 *** `cl-flet' is not like `flet' (which is deprecated).
1788 Instead it obeys the behavior of Common-Lisp's `flet'.
1789 In particular, in cl-flet function definitions are lexically scoped,
1790 whereas in flet the scoping is dynamic.
1791
1792 *** `cl-labels' is slightly different from `labels'.
1793 The difference is that it relies on the `lexical-binding' machinery
1794 (as opposed to the `lexical-let' machinery used previously) to capture
1795 definitions in closures, so such closures will only work if `lexical-binding'
1796 is in use.
1797
1798 *** `cl-letf' is not exactly like `letf'.
1799 The only difference is in details that relate to some deprecated usage
1800 of `symbol-function' in place forms.
1801
1802 *** `progv' was rewritten to use the `let' machinery.
1803 A side effect is that variables without corresponding values are bound
1804 to nil rather than being made unbound.
1805
1806 *** The following methods of extending `setf' are obsolete
1807 (use features from gv.el instead):
1808 `define-modify-macro' (use `gv-letplace')
1809 `defsetf' (use `gv-define-simple-setter' or `gv-define-setter')
1810 `define-setf-expander' (use `gv-define-setter' or `gv-define-expander')
1811 `get-setf-method' no longer exists (see "Incompatible Lisp Changes")
1812
1813 ** Diff mode
1814
1815 *** Changes are now highlighted using the same color scheme as in
1816 modern VCSes. Deletions are displayed in red (new faces
1817 `diff-refine-removed' and `smerge-refined-removed', and new definition
1818 of `diff-removed'), insertions in green (new faces `diff-refine-added'
1819 and `smerge-refined-added', and new definition of `diff-added').
1820
1821 *** The variable `diff-use-changed-face' defines whether to use the
1822 face `diff-changed', or `diff-removed' and `diff-added' to highlight
1823 changes in context diffs.
1824
1825 *** The new command `diff-delete-trailing-whitespace' removes trailing
1826 whitespace introduced by a diff.
1827
1828 ** Ediff now uses the same color scheme as Diff mode.
1829
1830 ** Python mode
1831
1832 A new version of python.el, which provides several new features, including:
1833 per-buffer shells, better indentation, Python 3 support, and improved
1834 shell-interaction compatible with iPython (and virtually any other
1835 text based shell).
1836
1837 *** Some user options have been replaced/renamed, including (old -> new):
1838 **** python-indent -> python-indent-offset
1839 **** python-guess-indent -> python-indent-guess-indent-offset
1840 **** python-pdbtrack-do-tracking-p -> python-pdbtrack-activate
1841 **** python-use-skeletons -> python-skeleton-autoinsert
1842
1843 *** Some user options have been removed, including:
1844
1845 **** `python-indent-string-contents': Strings are never indented.
1846
1847 **** `python-honour-comment-indentation':
1848 Comments are always considered as indentation markers.
1849
1850 **** `python-continuation-offset': Indentation is automatically
1851 calculated in a pep8 compliant way depending on the context.
1852
1853 **** `python-shell-prompt-alist', `python-shell-continuation-prompt-alist':
1854 Have no direct mapping as the shell interaction is completely different.
1855
1856 **** `python-python-command', `python-jython-command':
1857 Replaced by `python-shell-interpreter'.
1858
1859 **** `inferior-python-filter-regexp', `python-remove-cwd-from-path',
1860 `python-pdbtrack-minor-mode-string', `python-source-modes':
1861 No longer relevant.
1862
1863 *** Some commands have been replaced (old -> new):
1864 **** python-insert-class -> python-skeleton-class
1865 **** python-insert-def -> python-skeleton-def
1866 **** python-insert-for -> python-skeleton-for
1867 **** python-insert-if -> python-skeleton-if
1868 **** python-insert-try/except -> python-skeleton-try
1869 **** python-insert-try/finally -> python-skeleton-try
1870 **** python-insert-while -> python-skeleton-while
1871 **** python-find-function -> python-nav-jump-to-defun
1872 **** python-next-statement -> python-nav-forward-sentence
1873 **** python-previous-statement -> python-nav-backward-sentence
1874 **** python-beginning-of-defun-function -> python-nav-beginning-of-defun
1875 **** python-end-of-defun-function -> python-nav-end-of-defun
1876 **** python-send-buffer -> python-shell-send-buffer
1877 **** python-send-defun -> python-shell-send-defun
1878 **** python-send-region -> python-shell-send-region
1879 **** python-send-region-and-go -> emulate with python-shell-send-region
1880 and python-shell-switch-to-shell
1881 **** python-send-string -> python-shell-send-string
1882 **** python-switch-to-python -> python-shell-switch-to-shell
1883 **** python-describe-symbol -> python-eldoc-at-point
1884
1885 ** D-Bus
1886
1887 *** New variables `dbus-compiled-version' and `dbus-runtime-version'.
1888
1889 *** The D-Bus object manager interface is implemented.
1890
1891 *** Variables of type :(u)int32 and :(u)int64 accept floating points,
1892 if their value does not fit into Emacs's integer range.
1893
1894 *** The function `dbus-call-method' is now non-blocking.
1895 It can be interrupted by `C-g'. `dbus-call-method-non-blocking' is obsolete.
1896
1897 *** Signals can also be sent as unicast messages.
1898
1899 *** The argument list of `dbus-register-signal' has been extended,
1900 according to the new match rule types of D-Bus.
1901
1902 *** `dbus-init-bus' supports private connections.
1903
1904 *** There is a new function `dbus-setenv'.
1905
1906 ** `desktop-path' no longer includes the "." directory.
1907 Desktop files are now located in ~/.emacs.d by default.
1908
1909 ** Dired
1910
1911 *** `dired-do-async-shell-command' executes each file sequentially
1912 if the command ends in `;' (when operating on multiple files).
1913 Otherwise, it executes the command on each file in parallel.
1914
1915 *** Typing `M-n' in the minibuffer of `dired-do-chmod', `dired-do-chgrp',
1916 `dired-do-chown', and `dired-do-touch' yanks the attributes of the
1917 file at point.
1918
1919 *** When the region is active, `m' (`dired-mark'), `u' (`dired-unmark'),
1920 `DEL' (`dired-unmark-backward'), and `d' (`dired-flag-file-deletion')
1921 mark/unmark/flag all files in the active region.
1922
1923 *** The minibuffer default for `=' (`dired-diff') has changed.
1924 It is now the backup file for the file at point, if one exists.
1925 In Transient Mark mode the default is the file at the active mark.
1926
1927 *** `M-=' is no longer bound to `dired-backup-diff' in Dired buffers.
1928 The global binding for `M-=', `count-words-region' is in effect.
1929
1930 ** ERC
1931
1932 *** New module "notifications", which can send a notification when you
1933 receive a private message or your nickname is mentioned.
1934
1935 *** ERC will look up server/channel names via auth-source and use any
1936 channel keys found.
1937
1938 *** New option `erc-lurker-hide-list', similar to `erc-hide-list', but
1939 only applies to messages sent by lurkers.
1940
1941 ** reStructuredText mode
1942
1943 *** Keybindings (see `C-c C-h'), TAB indentation, filling and auto-filling,
1944 fontification, comment handling, and customization have all been revised
1945 and improved.
1946
1947 *** Support for `imenu' and `which-function-mode'.
1948
1949 *** The reStructuredText syntax is more closely covered.
1950 Sphinx support has been improved.
1951
1952 *** `rst-insert-list' inserts new list or continues existing lists.
1953
1954 *** A negative prefix argument always works for `rst-adjust'.
1955
1956 *** The window configuration is reset after displaying a TOC.
1957
1958 *** The constant `rst-version' describes the rst.el package version.
1959
1960 ** Ruby mode
1961
1962 *** Support for percent literals and recognition of regular expressions
1963 in method calls without parentheses with more methods, including Cucumber
1964 steps definitions.
1965
1966 *** Improved syntax highlighting and indentation.
1967
1968 *** New command `ruby-toggle-block', bound to `C-c {'.
1969
1970 *** Some non-standard keybindings/commands have been removed:
1971
1972 **** `ruby-electric-brace'; use `electric-indent-mode' instead.
1973
1974 **** `ruby-mark-defun'; use `mark-defun'.
1975
1976 **** `ruby-beginning-of-defun' and `ruby-end-of-defun' are replaced by
1977 appropriate settings for the variables `beginning-of-defun-function'
1978 and `end-of-defun-function'.
1979
1980 **** Non-standard keybindings for `backward-kill-word', `comment-region',
1981 `reindent-then-newline-and-indent' and `newline' have been removed.
1982
1983 ** Shell Script mode
1984
1985 *** Pairing of parens/quotes uses `electric-pair-mode' instead of skeleton-pair.
1986
1987 *** `sh-electric-here-document-mode' now controls auto-insertion of here-docs.
1988
1989 *** `sh-use-smie' lets you choose a new indentation and navigation code.
1990
1991 ** VHDL mode
1992
1993 *** The free software compiler GHDL is supported (and now the default).
1994
1995 *** Support for the VHDL-AMS packages has been added/updated.
1996
1997 *** Updated to the 2002 revision of the VHDL standard.
1998
1999 *** Accepts \r and \f as whitespace.
2000
2001 ** Apropos
2002
2003 *** The faces used by Apropos are now directly customizable.
2004 These faces are named `apropos-symbol', `apropos-keybinding', and so on;
2005 see the `apropos' Custom group for details.
2006
2007 *** The old options whose values specified faces to use have been removed
2008 (i.e. `apropos-symbol-face', `apropos-keybinding-face', `apropos-label-face',
2009 `apropos-match-face' and `apropos-property-face'.).
2010
2011 ** Buffer Menu
2012
2013 *** This package has been rewritten to use Tabulated List mode.
2014
2015 *** Option `Buffer-menu-buffer+size-width' is now obsolete.
2016 Use `Buffer-menu-name-width' and `Buffer-menu-size-width' instead.
2017
2018 ** Calc
2019
2020 *** Algebraic simplification mode is now the default.
2021 To restrict to the limited simplifications given by the former
2022 default simplification mode, use `m I'.
2023
2024 ** Calendar
2025
2026 *** You can customize the header text that appears above each calendar month.
2027 See the variable `calendar-month-header'.
2028
2029 *** New LaTeX calendar style, produced by `cal-tex-cursor-week2-summary'.
2030
2031 *** The calendars produced by cal-html include holidays.
2032 Customize `cal-html-holidays' to change this.
2033
2034 ** CEDET
2035
2036 *** The major modes from the parser generators "Bovine" and "Wisent"
2037 are now properly integrated in Emacs. The file suffixes ".by" and ".wy"
2038 are in `auto-mode-alist', and the corresponding manuals are included.
2039
2040 *** EDE
2041
2042 **** Menu support for the "Configuration" feature. This allows users to
2043 choose the active configuration (such as debug or install) from the menu.
2044
2045 **** New command `ede-set' to interactively set project-local variables.
2046
2047 **** Support for compiling, debugging, and running in "generic" projects.
2048
2049 **** Autoconf editing support for M4 macros with complex arguments.
2050
2051 **** Compilation support for the "linux" project type.
2052
2053 **** "simple" projects have been removed; use "generic" projects instead.
2054
2055 *** Semantic
2056
2057 **** Support for parsing #include statements inside a namespace in C/C++.
2058
2059 **** Improved support for 'extern "C"' declarations in C/C++.
2060
2061 **** The ability to ignore more common special C/C++ preprocessor symbols,
2062 such as '__nonnull' and '__asm'. Add '__cplusplus' macro when parsing C++.
2063 If available, include cdefs.h as an additional source of preprocessor symbols.
2064
2065 **** Improved C/C++ function pointer parsing.
2066
2067 **** In Python, support for converting imports to include file names.
2068
2069 **** Ability to dynamically determine the Python load path.
2070
2071 **** Support for the Python 'WITH' and 'AT' keywords.
2072
2073 **** Improved tooltip completion.
2074
2075 *** SRecode
2076
2077 **** The SRecode manual is now included.
2078
2079 **** Tag generation supports constructor/destructor settings and system
2080 include differentiation.
2081
2082 **** Addition of 'Framework' support: Frameworks are specified when a
2083 particular kind of library (such as Android) is needed in a common language
2084 mode (like Java).
2085
2086 **** Support for nested templates and let variables override based on priority.
2087
2088 **** Support for merging tables from multiple related modes, such as
2089 default -> c++ -> arduino.
2090
2091 ** Compile has a new option `compilation-always-kill'.
2092
2093 ** Customize
2094
2095 *** `custom-reset-button-menu' now defaults to t.
2096
2097 *** Non-option variables are never matched in `customize-apropos' and
2098 `customize-apropos-options' (i.e., the prefix argument does nothing for
2099 these commands now).
2100
2101 ** Term
2102
2103 *** The variables `term-default-fg-color' and `term-default-bg-color'
2104 are now deprecated in favor of the customizable face `term'.
2105
2106 *** You can customize how to display ANSI terminal colors and styles
2107 by customizing the corresponding `term-color-<COLOR>',
2108 `term-color-underline' and `term-color-bold' faces.
2109
2110 ** Tramp
2111
2112 *** The syntax has been extended in order to allow ad-hoc proxy definitions.
2113
2114 *** Remote processes are now also supported on remote MS-Windows hosts.
2115
2116 ** URL
2117
2118 *** Structs made by `url-generic-parse-url' have nil `attributes' slot.
2119 Previously, this slot stored semicolon-separated attribute-value pairs
2120 appended to some imap URLs, but this is not compatible with RFC 3986.
2121 So now the `filename' slot stores the entire path and query components,
2122 and the `attributes' slot is always nil.
2123
2124 *** New function `url-encode-url' for encoding a URI string.
2125 The `url-retrieve' function now uses this to encode its URL argument,
2126 in case that is not properly encoded.
2127
2128 ** notifications.el supports now version 1.2 of the Notifications API.
2129 The function `notifications-get-capabilities' returns the supported
2130 server properties.
2131
2132 ** Flymake uses fringe bitmaps to indicate errors and warnings.
2133 See `flymake-fringe-indicator-position', `flymake-error-bitmap' and
2134 `flymake-warning-bitmap'.
2135
2136 ** The FFAP option `ffap-url-unwrap-remote' can now be a list of strings,
2137 specifying URL types that should be converted to remote file names at
2138 the FFAP prompt. The default is now '("ftp").
2139
2140 ** New Ibuffer `derived-mode' filter, bound to `/ M'.
2141 The old binding for `/ M' (filter by used-mode) is now bound to `/ m'.
2142
2143 ** New option `mouse-avoidance-banish-position' specifies where the
2144 `banish' mouse avoidance setting moves the mouse.
2145
2146 ** In Perl mode, new option `perl-indent-parens-as-block' causes non-block
2147 closing brackets to be aligned with the line of the opening bracket.
2148
2149 ** In Proced mode, new command `proced-renice' renices marked processes.
2150
2151 ** New option `async-shell-command-buffer' specifies the buffer to use
2152 for a new asynchronous `shell-command' when the default output buffer
2153 `*Async Shell Command*' is already in use.
2154
2155 ** SQL mode has a new option `sql-db2-escape-newlines'.
2156 If non-nil, newlines sent to the command interpreter will be escaped
2157 by a backslash. The default does not escape the newlines and assumes
2158 that the sql statement will be terminated by a semicolon.
2159
2160 ** New command `tabulated-list-sort', bound to `S' in Tabulated List mode
2161 (and modes that derive from it), sorts the column at point, or the Nth
2162 column if a numeric prefix argument is given.
2163
2164 ** `which-func-modes' now defaults to t, so Which Function mode, when
2165 enabled, applies to all applicable major modes.
2166
2167 ** `winner-mode-hook' now runs when the mode is disabled, as well as when
2168 it is enabled.
2169
2170 ** Follow mode no longer works by using advice.
2171 The option `follow-intercept-processes' has been removed.
2172
2173 ** `javascript-generic-mode' is now an obsolete alias for `js-mode'.
2174
2175 ** Hooks renamed to avoid obsolete "-hooks" suffix:
2176 *** semantic-lex-reset-hooks -> semantic-lex-reset-functions
2177 *** semantic-change-hooks -> semantic-change-functions
2178 *** semantic-edits-new-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-new-change-functions
2179 *** semantic-edits-delete-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-delete-change-functions
2180 *** semantic-edits-reparse-change-hooks -> semantic-edits-reparse-change-functions
2181 *** semanticdb-save-database-hooks -> semanticdb-save-database-functions
2182 *** c-prepare-bug-report-hooks -> c-prepare-bug-report-hook
2183 *** rcirc-sentinel-hooks -> rcirc-sentinel-functions
2184 *** rcirc-receive-message-hooks -> rcirc-receive-message-functions
2185 *** rcirc-activity-hooks -> rcirc-activity-functions
2186 *** rcirc-print-hooks -> rcirc-print-functions
2187 *** dbus-event-error-hooks -> dbus-event-error-functions
2188 *** eieio-pre-method-execution-hooks -> eieio-pre-method-execution-functions
2189 *** checkdoc-style-hooks -> checkdoc-style-functions
2190 *** checkdoc-comment-style-hooks -> checkdoc-comment-style-functions
2191 *** archive-extract-hooks -> archive-extract-hook
2192 *** filesets-cache-fill-content-hooks -> filesets-cache-fill-content-hook
2193 *** hfy-post-html-hooks -> hfy-post-html-hook
2194 *** nndiary-request-create-group-hooks -> nndiary-request-create-group-functions
2195 *** nndiary-request-update-info-hooks -> nndiary-request-update-info-functions
2196 *** nndiary-request-accept-article-hooks -> nndiary-request-accept-article-functions
2197 *** gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-hooks -> gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-functions
2198
2199 ** Obsolete packages
2200
2201 *** assoc.el
2202 In most cases, assoc+member+push+delq work just as well.
2203 And in any case it's just a terrible package: ugly semantics, terrible
2204 inefficiency, and not namespace-clean.
2205 *** bruce.el
2206 *** cust-print.el
2207 *** ledit.el
2208 *** mailpost.el
2209 *** mouse-sel.el
2210 *** patcomp.el
2211
2212 \f
2213 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
2214
2215 ** Docstrings starting with `*' no longer indicate user options.
2216 Only variables defined using `defcustom' are considered user options.
2217 The function `user-variable-p' is now an obsolete alias for
2218 `custom-variable-p'.
2219
2220 ** The return values of `defalias', `defun' and `defmacro' have changed,
2221 and are now undefined. For backwards compatibility, `defun' and
2222 `defmacro' currently return the name of the newly defined
2223 function/macro, but this should not be relied upon.
2224
2225 ** `random' by default now returns a different random sequence in
2226 every Emacs run. Use `(random S)', where S is a string, to set the
2227 random seed to a value based on S, in order to get a repeatable
2228 sequence in later calls.
2229
2230 ** If the NEWTEXT arg to `replace-match' contains a substring "\?",
2231 that substring is inserted literally even if the LITERAL arg is
2232 non-nil, instead of causing an error to be signaled.
2233
2234 ** `select-window' now always makes the window's buffer current.
2235 It does so even if the window was selected before.
2236
2237 ** The function `x-select-font' can return a font spec, instead of a
2238 font name as a string. Whether it returns a font spec or a font name
2239 depends on the graphical library.
2240
2241 ** `face-spec-set' no longer sets frame-specific attributes when the
2242 third argument is a frame (that usage was obsolete since Emacs 22.2).
2243
2244 ** `set-buffer-multibyte' now signals an error in narrowed buffers.
2245
2246 ** The CL package's `get-setf-method' function no longer exists.
2247 Generalized variables are now part of core Emacs Lisp, and implemented
2248 differently to the way cl.el used to do it. It is not possible to
2249 define a compatible replacement for `get-setf-method'. See the file
2250 gv.el for internal details of the new implementation.
2251
2252 ** The arguments of `dbus-register-signal' are no longer just strings,
2253 but keywords or keyword-string pairs. The old argument list will
2254 still be supported for Emacs 24.x.
2255
2256 ** Miscellaneous name changes
2257 Some Lisp symbols have been renamed to correct their spelling,
2258 or to be more consistent with standard Emacs terminology.
2259
2260 *** Renamed functions
2261 **** hangul-input-method-inactivate -> hangul-input-method-deactivate
2262 **** inactivate-input-method -> deactivate-input-method
2263 **** quail-inactivate -> quail-deactivate
2264 **** robin-inactivate -> robin-deactivate
2265 **** viper-inactivate-input-method -> viper-deactivate-input-method
2266 **** viper-inactivate-input-method-action ->
2267 viper-deactivate-input-method-action
2268 **** ucs-input-inactivate -> ucs-input-deactivate
2269
2270 *** Renamed hooks
2271 The old hooks are still supported for backward compatibility, but they
2272 are deprecated and will be removed eventually.
2273 **** input-method-inactivate-hook -> input-method-deactivate-hook
2274 **** robin-inactivate-hook -> robin-deactivate-hook
2275 **** quail-inactivate-hook -> quail-deactivate-hook
2276
2277 *** Renamed variables
2278 **** follow-deactive-menu -> follow-inactive-menu
2279 **** inactivate-current-input-method-function ->
2280 deactivate-current-input-method-function
2281
2282 ** Some obsolete functions, variables, and faces have been removed:
2283 *** `last-input-char', `last-command-char', `unread-command-char'
2284 *** `facemenu-unlisted-faces'
2285 *** `rmail-decode-mime-charset'
2286 *** `iswitchb-read-buffer'
2287 *** `sc-version', `sc-submit-bug-report'
2288 *** `set-char-table-default'
2289 *** `string-to-sequence' (use `string-to-list' or `string-to-vector')
2290 *** `compile-internal'
2291 *** `modeline'
2292 *** `mode-line-inverse-video'
2293 *** `follow-mode-off-hook'
2294 *** `cvs-commit-buffer-require-final-newline'
2295 (use `log-edit-require-final-newline' instead)
2296 *** `cvs-changelog-full-paragraphs'
2297 (use `log-edit-changelog-full-paragraphs' instead)
2298 *** `cvs-diff-ignore-marks', `cvs-diff-buffer-name'
2299 *** `vc-ignore-vc-files' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
2300 *** `vc-master-templates' (use `vc-handled-backends' instead)
2301 *** `vc-checkout-carefully'
2302
2303 \f
2304 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.3
2305
2306 ** CL-style generalized variables are now in core Elisp.
2307 `setf' is autoloaded; `push' and `pop' accept generalized variables.
2308 You can define your own generalized variables using `gv-define-simple-setter',
2309 `gv-define-setter', etc.
2310
2311 ** Emacs tries to macroexpand interpreted (non-compiled) files during load.
2312 This can significantly speed up execution of non-byte-compiled code,
2313 but can also bump into previously unnoticed cyclic dependencies.
2314 These are generally harmless: they will simply cause the macro calls
2315 to be left for later expansion (as before), but will result in a
2316 warning ("Eager macro-expansion skipped due to cycle") describing the cycle.
2317 You may wish to restructure your code so this does not happen.
2318
2319 ** New sampling-based Elisp profiler.
2320 Try M-x profiler-start, do some work, and then call M-x profiler-report.
2321 When finished, use M-x profiler-stop. The sampling rate can be based on
2322 CPU time or memory allocations.
2323
2324 ** `defun' also accepts a (declare DECLS) form, like `defmacro'.
2325 The interpretation of the DECLS is determined by `defun-declarations-alist'.
2326
2327 ** New macros `setq-local' and `defvar-local'.
2328
2329 ** Face underlining can now use a wave.
2330
2331 ** `read-regexp' has a new argument HISTORY; the first argument PROMPT
2332 of `read-regexp' accepts a string ending with a colon and space, and its
2333 second argument DEFAULTS can be a list of strings accessible via `M-n'
2334 in the minibuffer ahead of other hard-coded useful regexp-related values.
2335 More commands use `read-regexp' now to read their regexp arguments.
2336
2337 ** Completion
2338
2339 *** New function `completion-table-with-quoting' to handle completion
2340 in the presence of quoting, such as file completion in shell buffers.
2341
2342 *** New function `completion-table-subvert' to use an existing completion
2343 table, but with a different prefix.
2344
2345 ** Debugger
2346
2347 *** New error type and new function `user-error'.
2348 These do not trigger the debugger.
2349
2350 *** New option `debugger-bury-or-kill', saying what to do with the
2351 debugger buffer when exiting debug.
2352
2353 *** Set `debug-on-message' to enter the debugger when a certain
2354 message is displayed in the echo area. This can be useful when trying
2355 to work out which code is doing something.
2356
2357 *** New var `inhibit-debugger', automatically set to prevent accidental
2358 recursive invocations.
2359
2360 ** Window handling
2361
2362 *** New command `fit-frame-to-buffer' adjusts the frame height to
2363 fit the contents.
2364
2365 *** The command `fit-window-to-buffer' can adjust the frame height
2366 if the new option `fit-frame-to-buffer' is non-nil.
2367
2368 *** New macro `with-temp-buffer-window', similar to
2369 `with-output-to-temp-buffer'.
2370
2371 *** `temp-buffer-resize-mode' no longer resizes windows that have been
2372 reused.
2373
2374 *** New option `switch-to-buffer-preserve-window-point' to restore a
2375 window's point when switching buffers.
2376
2377 *** New display action alist entries `window-height' and `window-width'
2378 specify the size of new windows created by `display-buffer'.
2379
2380 *** New display action alist entry `pop-up-frame-parameters', if
2381 non-nil, specifies frame parameters to give any newly-created frame.
2382
2383 *** New display action alist entry `inhibit-switch-frame', if non-nil,
2384 tells display action functions to avoid changing which frame is
2385 selected.
2386
2387 *** New display action alist entry `previous-window', if non-nil,
2388 specifies window to reuse in `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
2389
2390 *** New display action functions `display-buffer-below-selected',
2391 and `display-buffer-in-previous-window'.
2392
2393 *** The functions `get-lru-window', `get-mru-window' and `get-largest-window'
2394 now accept a third argument to avoid choosing the selected window.
2395
2396 *** Additional values recognized for option `window-combination-limit'.
2397
2398 *** The following variables are obsolete, as they can be replaced by
2399 appropriate entries in the `display-buffer-alist' function introduced
2400 in Emacs 24.1:
2401 **** `dired-shrink-to-fit'
2402 **** `display-buffer-reuse-frames'
2403 **** `display-buffer-function'
2404 **** `special-display-buffer-names'
2405 **** `special-display-frame-alist'
2406 **** `special-display-function'
2407 **** `special-display-regexps'
2408
2409 ** Time
2410
2411 *** `current-time-string' no longer requires that its argument's year
2412 must be in the range 1000..9999. It now works with any year supported
2413 by the underlying C implementation.
2414
2415 *** `current-time' now returns extended-format time stamps
2416 (HIGH LOW USEC PSEC), where the new PSEC slot specifies picoseconds.
2417 PSEC is typically a multiple of 1000 on current machines. Other
2418 functions that use this format, such as `file-attributes' and
2419 `format-time-string', have been changed accordingly. Old-format time
2420 stamps are still accepted.
2421
2422 *** The format of timers in `timer-list' and `timer-idle-list' is now
2423 [TRIGGERED-P HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS REPEAT-DELAY FUNCTION ARGS IDLE-DELAY PSECS].
2424 The PSECS slot is new, and uses picosecond resolution. It can be
2425 accessed via the new `timer--psecs' accessor.
2426
2427 *** Last-modified time stamps in undo lists now are of the form
2428 (t HI-SECS LO-SECS USECS PSECS) instead of (t HI-SECS . LO-SECS).
2429
2430 ** EIEIO
2431
2432 *** Improved security when handling persistent objects:
2433
2434 **** `eieio-persistent-read' now features optional arguments for specifying
2435 the class to load, as well as a flag stating whether subclasses are allowed;
2436 if provided, other classes will be rejected by the reader. For
2437 compatibility with existing code, if the class is omitted only a
2438 warning is issued.
2439
2440 **** New specialized reader for pulling in classes and signaling errors
2441 without evaluation of suspicious code.
2442
2443 **** All slots that contain objects must have a :type. Slots with lists
2444 of objects must use a new type predicate for a list of an object type.
2445
2446 *** Support for `find-function' and similar utilities, through the addition
2447 of filename support to generated symbols.
2448
2449 ** Floating point functions now always return special values like NaN,
2450 instead of signaling errors, if given invalid args; e.g., (log -1.0).
2451 Previously, they returned NaNs on some platforms but signaled errors
2452 on others. The affected functions are acos, asin, tan, exp, expt,
2453 log, log10, sqrt, and mod.
2454
2455 ** New fringe bitmap `exclamation-mark'.
2456
2457 ** Miscellaneous changes to special forms and macros
2458
2459 *** `defun' and `defmacro' are now macros rather than special forms.
2460
2461 *** `kbd' is now a function rather than a macro.
2462
2463 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2464
2465 *** `set-temporary-overlay-map' sets up a temporary keymap that
2466 takes precedence over most other maps for a short while (normally one key).
2467
2468 *** `autoloadp' tests if its argument is an autoloaded object.
2469
2470 *** `autoload-do-load' performs the autoloading operation.
2471
2472 *** `buffer-narrowed-p' tests if the buffer is narrowed.
2473
2474 *** `file-name-base' returns a file name sans directory and extension.
2475
2476 *** `function-get' fetches a function property, following aliases.
2477
2478 *** `posnp' tests if an object is a `posn'.
2479
2480 *** `system-users' returns the user names on the system.
2481
2482 *** `system-groups' returns the group names on the system.
2483
2484 *** `tty-top-frame' returns the topmost frame of a text terminal.
2485
2486 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
2487 *** `automount-dir-prefix' (use `directory-abbrev-alist')
2488 *** `buffer-has-markers-at'
2489 *** `macro-declaration-function' (use `macro-declarations-alist')
2490 *** `window-system-version' (provides no useful information)
2491 *** `dired-pop-to-buffer' (use `dired-mark-pop-up')
2492 *** `query-replace-interactive'
2493 *** `font-list-limit' (has had no effect since Emacs < 23)
2494
2495 \f
2496 * Changes in Emacs 24.3 on Non-Free Operating Systems
2497
2498 ** Cygwin builds can use the native MS Windows user interface.
2499 Pass `--with-w32' to configure. The default remains the X11 interface.
2500
2501 ** Two new functions are available in Cygwin builds:
2502 `cygwin-convert-file-name-from-windows' and
2503 `cygwin-convert-file-name-to-windows'. These functions allow Lisp
2504 code to access the Cygwin file-name mapping machinery to convert
2505 between Cygwin and Windows-native file and directory names.
2506
2507 ** When invoked with the -nw switch to run on the Windows text-mode terminal,
2508 Emacs now supports `mouse-highlight', help-echo (in the echo area), and
2509 `mouse-autoselect-window'.
2510
2511 ** On MS Windows Vista and later Emacs now supports symbolic links.
2512
2513 ** On MS Windows, you can pass `--without-libxml2' to configure.bat to omit
2514 support for libxml2, even if its presence is detected.
2515
2516 ** On Mac OS X, the Nextstep port requires OS X 10.4 or later.
2517
2518 ** On Mac OS X, configure no longer automatically adds the Fink "/sw"
2519 directories to the search path. You must add them yourself if you want them.
2520
2521 \f
2522 * Changes in Emacs 24.2
2523
2524 ** This is mainly a bug-fix release.
2525
2526 \f
2527 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
2528
2529 ** Emacs can be compiled with Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
2530 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
2531 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
2532 --without-gconf.
2533
2534 ** Emacs can be compiled with GnuTLS support.
2535 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2536 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2537 `--without-gnutls'. See below for GnuTLS features.
2538
2539 ** Emacs can be compiled with SELinux support.
2540 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2541 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2542 `--without-selinux'. See below for SELinux features.
2543
2544 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
2545 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2546 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2547 `--without-imagemagick'. See below for ImageMagick features.
2548 This feature is not available for the Nextstep or MS ports.
2549
2550 ** Emacs can be compiled with libxml2 support.
2551 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
2552 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
2553 `--without-xml2'. See below for libxml2 features.
2554
2555 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
2556 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
2557
2558 ** New configure option --with-wide-int.
2559 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
2560 On 32-bit hosts, this raises the limit on buffer sizes from about 512 MiB
2561 to about 2 GiB.
2562
2563 ** New configure options: --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
2564 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
2565 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
2566
2567 ** New configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
2568 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
2569 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
2570
2571 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
2572 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
2573
2574 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
2575 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
2576
2577 \f
2578 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
2579
2580 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
2581 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
2582 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
2583
2584 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
2585 from load-path. -Q now implies this. This option does not affect the
2586 EMACSLOADPATH environment variable (and hence has no effect for
2587 Nextstep builds).
2588
2589 \f
2590 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
2591
2592 ** Completion
2593
2594 *** Many packages now use the `completion-at-point' command,
2595 rather than implementing separate completion commands.
2596
2597 *** `completion-at-point' now handles tags and semantic completion.
2598
2599 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
2600 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
2601
2602 *** New option `completion-cycle-threshold' allows completion cycling.
2603
2604 *** New option `completion-category-overrides' for overriding the
2605 default completion style in certain circumstances.
2606
2607 *** New completion style `substring'.
2608
2609 *** Completion of buffer names uses `substring' completion by default.
2610
2611 *** The option `widget-complete-field' has been removed.
2612
2613 ** Mail changes
2614
2615 *** The first time you try sending mail, Emacs asks for a mail method.
2616 This is implemented by a new default for `send-mail-function', which
2617 is `sendmail-query-once'. This offers to use the smtpmail package, or
2618 to use the old defaults relying on external mail facilities
2619 (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems, and
2620 `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
2621
2622 *** Typing `C-c m' in the buffer made by `M-x report-emacs-bug'
2623 transfers the report to your desktop's preferred mail client, if there
2624 is one. This uses either the "xdg-email" utility, or Mac OS's "open"
2625 command.
2626
2627 *** See Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages for SMTPmail changes
2628 and Mail mode changes
2629
2630 ** Emacs server and client changes
2631
2632 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port for TCP Emacs servers.
2633
2634 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
2635
2636 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters specifies the frame
2637 parameters of any newly-created graphical frame.
2638
2639 *** If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling an error,
2640 its exit status is 1.
2641
2642 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
2643 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
2644 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
2645
2646 ** Internationalization changes
2647
2648 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
2649 Right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, are
2650 displayed in the correct visual order as expected by users of those
2651 scripts. The display reordering is a "full bidirectionality" class
2652 implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA). Buffers
2653 with no RTL text should look exactly the same as before.
2654
2655 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
2656 To disable display reordering in a buffer, change this to nil.
2657
2658 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
2659 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
2660 paragraph from its text, as specified by the UBA. Setting the value
2661 to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a base direction on each
2662 paragraph.
2663
2664 Paragraphs with right-to-left base direction are displayed starting at
2665 the right window edge.
2666
2667 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts,
2668 or, on text terminals, characters that cannot be encoded by the
2669 terminal coding system. The new option `glyphless-char-display-control'
2670 specifies how to display them: as a hexadecimal code in a box, a thin
2671 1-pixel space, an empty box, etc.
2672
2673 *** New input methods for Farsi and Bulgarian
2674 (farsi-isiri-9147, farsi-transliterate-banan, bulgarian-alt-phonetic).
2675
2676 *** `nobreak-char-display' now also highlights Unicode hyphen chars
2677 (U+2010 and U+2011).
2678
2679 *** New Hebrew translation of the Emacs Tutorial.
2680 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
2681 automatically select it.
2682
2683 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
2684 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
2685 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
2686
2687 *** M-x list-packages shows a list of packages, which can be
2688 selected for installation.
2689
2690 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
2691
2692 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded automatically when
2693 Emacs starts up. To disable this, set `package-enable-at-startup' to
2694 nil. To specify the packages to load, customize `package-load-list'.
2695
2696 ** Custom theme changes
2697
2698 *** New command `M-x customize-themes', which provides a convenient
2699 interface for enabling and disabling Custom themes.
2700
2701 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
2702 Emacs no longer looks for Custom themes in `load-path'. The default
2703 value of `custom-theme-load-path' says to look for themes in
2704 `custom-theme-directory', followed by a subdirectory of
2705 `data-directory' named "themes/", which contains a small selection of
2706 built-in Custom themes.
2707
2708 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
2709 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
2710 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
2711 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
2712
2713 ** Improved GTK integration
2714
2715 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
2716 The function `set-scroll-bar-mode' can change this.
2717
2718 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
2719 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose the style. On a Gnome desktop,
2720 the default is taken from desktop settings.
2721
2722 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on any edge of the frame.
2723 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the
2724 values top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has
2725 entries for this.
2726
2727 *** The default colors for selected text (the `region' face) are taken
2728 from the GTK theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
2729
2730 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.
2731 You can disable this by changing `x-gtk-use-system-tooltips' to nil.
2732
2733 ** Graphical interface changes
2734
2735 *** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
2736 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
2737 displayed as a space.
2738
2739 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
2740 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
2741
2742 *** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is
2743 built with Xft. These fonts can be set via X resources, for example:
2744 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
2745
2746 ** Exiting changes
2747
2748 *** Emacs now calls `kill-emacs' if it receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP,
2749 or if it receives a SIGINT signal in batch mode.
2750
2751 *** `kill-emacs-hook' is now also run in batch mode.
2752 Third-party code which adds to `kill-emacs-hook' should check if they
2753 do the right thing in batch mode.
2754
2755 ** Scrolling changes
2756
2757 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
2758 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
2759 of buffer at first key-press (instead they move to top/bottom of buffer)
2760 when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
2761
2762 *** New option `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).
2763
2764 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
2765 scroll a line instead of full screen.
2766
2767 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
2768 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
2769
2770 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
2771 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
2772 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
2773 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
2774 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
2775
2776 *** "Aggressive" scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
2777 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
2778 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
2779 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
2780 margin.
2781
2782 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
2783 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
2784
2785 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up.
2786 Also, the function `copy-file' has an extra optional argument for
2787 preserving SELinux context, and the return value of `backup-buffer'
2788 now includes the SELinux context.
2789
2790 *** New functions `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
2791 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
2792
2793 ** Trash changes
2794
2795 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
2796 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
2797
2798 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
2799 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
2800
2801 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
2802
2803 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
2804 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
2805 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
2806 subdirectories.
2807
2808 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
2809 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
2810 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
2811 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
2812 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
2813
2814 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
2815 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
2816
2817 *** The variable `inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps' has been renamed
2818 to `inhibit-local-variables-regexps'. As the name suggests, it now
2819 applies to ALL file local variables, not just -*- lines. The
2820 associated `inhibit-first-line-modes-suffixes' has been renamed in the
2821 corresponding way.
2822
2823 ** Window changes
2824
2825 *** The `quit-window' command now restores the last buffer displayed
2826 in the quitted window.
2827
2828 *** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
2829 modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.
2830
2831 *** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.
2832
2833 **** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
2834 user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
2835 for choosing the displaying window).
2836
2837 This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
2838 specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.
2839
2840 **** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
2841 display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.
2842
2843 *** New option `window-combination-limit'.
2844 The new option `window-combination-limit' allows to return the space
2845 obtained for resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window
2846 from which such space was obtained.
2847
2848 *** New option `window-combination-resize'.
2849 The new option `window-combination-resize' allows to split a window that
2850 otherwise cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from
2851 other windows in the same combination. Subsequent resizing or deletion
2852 of the window will resize all windows in the same combination as well.
2853
2854 *** New option `frame-auto-hide-function' lets you choose between
2855 iconifying or deleting a frame when burying a buffer in a dedicated
2856 frame, or quitting a window showing a buffer in a frame of its own.
2857
2858 *** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
2859 These maximize and minimize the size of a window within its frame.
2860
2861 *** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
2862 These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
2863 been shown in a specific window.
2864
2865 ** Minibuffer changes
2866
2867 *** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
2868 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the feature
2869 where mouse-1 pops up *Messages*"', which can now easily be changed.
2870
2871 *** Minibuffers set `truncate-lines' to nil.
2872 If you want to change the value to something else, you could use
2873 for example `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
2874
2875 ** `auto-mode-case-fold' is now enabled by default.
2876
2877 ** `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' now defaults to t.
2878
2879 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success'.
2880 These are used to highlight text indicating failure, caution or
2881 successful operation.
2882
2883 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
2884 for `list-colors-display'.
2885
2886 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
2887
2888 \f
2889 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
2890
2891 ** Search changes
2892
2893 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-kill', instead of
2894 `isearch-yank-line'.
2895
2896 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-pop', instead of
2897 `isearch-yank-kill'.
2898
2899 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-line'.
2900
2901 ** New commands `count-words-region' and `count-words'.
2902
2903 *** M-= is bound to `count-words-region', not `count-lines-region'.
2904 The `count-words-region' command, when called interactively, reports
2905 the number of lines, words, and characters in the region. It is a
2906 superset of the old `count-lines-region', which is now an obsolete
2907 alias for it.
2908
2909 ** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
2910 also deletes newlines around point.
2911
2912 ** Deletion changes
2913
2914 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
2915 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
2916 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', those commands kill
2917 instead.
2918
2919 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
2920 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
2921 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
2922
2923 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
2924 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
2925 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; Lisp
2926 callers should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
2927
2928 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
2929
2930 ** Selection changes.
2931
2932 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
2933 changed to conform with modern X applications. In short, most
2934 commands for killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while
2935 mouse commands use the primary selection.
2936
2937 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
2938 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
2939
2940 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
2941 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
2942 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
2943 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
2944
2945 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
2946 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
2947 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
2948 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
2949 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
2950
2951 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
2952
2953 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
2954 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
2955 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
2956
2957 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
2958
2959 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
2960 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
2961 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
2962
2963 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
2964 exactly equivalent to M-w, C-w, and C-y respectively.
2965
2966 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
2967 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
2968 between applications.
2969
2970 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
2971
2972 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
2973 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
2974 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
2975 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
2976 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
2977
2978 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
2979
2980 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
2981 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
2982
2983 ** New command `C-x r N' (`rectangle-number-lines') numbers the lines
2984 in the current rectangle. With a prefix argument, this prompts for a
2985 number to count from and for a format string.
2986
2987 ** `redisplay-dont-pause' now defaults to t.
2988 This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
2989 at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
2990 in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
2991 updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.
2992
2993 ** The behavior of <TAB> for active regions in Text mode has changed.
2994 In Text and related modes, typing <TAB> (`indent-for-tab-command')
2995 when the region is active causes Emacs to indent all the lines in the
2996 region, aligning them with the line previous to the first line in the
2997 region (or with the left margin if there is no previous line).
2998
2999 ** When `occur' is called with a prefix argument, matching strings are
3000 collected into the `*Occur*' buffer without line numbers. If there
3001 are parenthesized subexpressions in the specified regexp, `occur'
3002 reads replacement text that may contain \\& and \\N whose convention
3003 follows `replace-match'.
3004
3005 \f
3006 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
3007
3008 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
3009
3010 ** BibTeX mode
3011
3012 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
3013 Use the variable `bibtex-dialect' to select different BibTeX dialects.
3014 `bibtex-entry-field-alist' is now an obsolete alias for
3015 `bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist'.
3016
3017 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries', bound to C-c C-a.
3018
3019 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
3020
3021 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
3022
3023 ** Browse-url
3024
3025 *** New option `browse-url-mailto-function' specifies how to handle "mailto:"s.
3026
3027 *** The default browser used by the package is now the "xdg-open" program,
3028 on platforms that support it. This calls your desktop's preferred browser.
3029
3030 ** Calc
3031
3032 *** Support for musical notes.
3033
3034 *** Support for logarithmic units.
3035
3036 *** No longer uses the tex prefix for TeX specific unit names when
3037 using TeX or LaTeX mode.
3038
3039 *** New option to highlight selections using faces.
3040
3041 *** `calc-histogram' has the option of using a vector to determine the bins.
3042
3043 *** New "O" option prefix.
3044
3045 *** Use the "O" prefix to "d r" (`calc-radix') to turn on twos-complement mode.
3046
3047 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
3048
3049 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing "comments".
3050 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
3051
3052 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
3053 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
3054
3055 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
3056 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
3057 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
3058
3059 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
3060
3061 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
3062 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
3063
3064 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt
3065 package by adding `appt-make-list' to `diary-hook' has been removed.
3066 Use `appt-activate' instead.
3067
3068 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
3069 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
3070 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
3071
3072 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
3073 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
3074
3075 ** CC Mode
3076
3077 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
3078 The main entry point is M-x c-guess.
3079
3080 *** Java Mode now supports Java 5.0 (Tiger) and 6 (Mustang).
3081
3082 *** `c-beginning-of-defun' and `c-end-of-defun' now respect nested scopes.
3083 Thus C-M-a will, by default, go to the beginning of the immediate function,
3084 not the top level.
3085
3086 *** "Macros with semicolons" can be registered for correct indentation.
3087 Where such a macro ends a line (no semicolon) the next statement is no longer
3088 parsed as a statement continuation.
3089
3090 ** Comint and modes derived from it use the standard completion code.
3091
3092 ** Compilation mode
3093
3094 *** Compilation mode can be used without Font Lock mode.
3095 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
3096
3097 *** New variable `compilation-filter-start', which is bound while
3098 `compilation-filter-hook' runs. It records the start position of the
3099 text inserted by `compilation-filter'.
3100
3101 *** `compilation-error-screen-columns' and `compilation-first-column'
3102 are obeyed in the editing buffer. So programming language modes can
3103 set them, whereas previously only the value in the *Compilation*
3104 buffer was used.
3105
3106 ** Customize
3107
3108 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
3109 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
3110 To turn off the search field, set `custom-search-field' to nil.
3111
3112 *** Options in customize group buffers start out hidden if not customized.
3113 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
3114
3115 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
3116
3117 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
3118 choose a color via `list-colors-display'.
3119
3120 ** D-Bus
3121
3122 *** It is now possible to access buses other than the default system
3123 or session bus.
3124
3125 *** The `dbus-register-method' and `dbus-register-property' functions
3126 optionally do not register names.
3127
3128 *** The new function `dbus-register-service' registers a known service
3129 name on a D-Bus without also registering a property or a method.
3130
3131 ** Dired-x
3132
3133 *** C-x C-j (`dired-jump') and C-x 4 C-j (`dired-jump-other-window'),
3134 if called with a prefix argument, read a file name from the minibuffer
3135 instead of using the current buffer.
3136
3137 *** The "dired local variables" feature of Dired-x is obsolete.
3138 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
3139
3140 ** ERC changes
3141
3142 *** New options `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay',
3143 controlling attempts to autojoin a channel.
3144
3145 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
3146 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
3147 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
3148 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
3149
3150 ** Eshell changes
3151
3152 *** The default value of `eshell-directory-name' has changed
3153 to be an "eshell" directory in `user-emacs-directory'.
3154 The old "~/.eshell/" directory is still used if it exists, though.
3155
3156 ** gdb-mi
3157
3158 *** The M-x gdb command now uses the GDB Machine Interface protocol.
3159 It now supports multithread non-stop debugging and simultaneous
3160 debugging of several threads.
3161
3162 ** Image mode
3163
3164 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if applicable.
3165 Animation plays once, unless the option `image-animate-loop' is non-nil.
3166
3167 ** Info
3168
3169 *** New command M-x info-display-manual displays a named Info manual.
3170 If that manual is already visited in some Info buffer, it displays
3171 that buffer. (This is handy if you have many manuals in many *info*
3172 buffers, and don't remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual
3173 you want to consult.) Otherwise, it loads and displays the manual.
3174
3175 *** `e' is now bound to `end-of-buffer' rather than to `Info-edit'.
3176 This is for compatibility with the stand-alone Info reader program,
3177 and also because `Info-edit' is a rarely used command that is disabled
3178 by default.
3179
3180 ** Mail mode changes (not Message mode)
3181
3182 *** New command M-x mail-add-attachment for adding MIME attachments
3183
3184 *** The command M-x mail-attach-file was renamed to M-x mail-insert-file.
3185 (Its name is misleading, since it has nothing to do with MIME
3186 attachments.) The old name is now an obsolete alias to the new name.
3187
3188 ** MH-E has been updated to MH-E version 8.3.1.
3189 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
3190
3191 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
3192
3193 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
3194
3195 ** nXML mode no longer binds C-RET to `nxml-complete'.
3196 Completion is now performed via `completion-at-point', bound to C-M-i
3197 or M-TAB. If `nxml-bind-meta-tab-to-complete-flag' is non-nil (the
3198 default), this performs tag completion.
3199
3200 ** Org mode has been updated to version 7.8.09.
3201 See ORG-NEWS for details.
3202
3203 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
3204 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity,
3205 support for more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
3206
3207 ** Rmail
3208
3209 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
3210 in the Rmail incoming message.
3211
3212 *** The variable `rmail-message-filter' no longer has any effect.
3213 This change was made in Emacs 23.1 but was not advertised at the time.
3214 Try using `rmail-show-message-hook' instead.
3215
3216 ** Shell mode
3217
3218 *** M-x shell prompts for the shell path name if the default directory
3219 is a remote file name and neither the environment variable $ESHELL nor
3220 the variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
3221
3222 *** TAB is now bound to the standard `completion-at-point' command,
3223 which now implements the pcomplete rules for shell command completion.
3224
3225 ** SMTPmail
3226
3227 *** SMTPmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) by default
3228 if the mail server supports them. This uses either built-in GnuTLS
3229 support, or the starttls.el library. Customize `smtpmail-stream-type'
3230 to change this.
3231
3232 *** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
3233 By default, the information is now stored in the file ~/.authinfo.
3234 This was the default value of smtpmail-auth-credentials. If you had
3235 customized smtpmail-auth-credentials to a list of user names and
3236 passwords, those settings are not used. During your first connection
3237 to the smtp server, Emacs will prompt for the user name and password,
3238 and offer to save them to ~/.authinfo. Or you can manually copy the
3239 credentials to ~/.authinfo. For example, if you had
3240
3241 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
3242 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
3243
3244 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
3245
3246 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
3247
3248 See the auth-source manual for more information, e.g. on encrypting
3249 the credentials file.
3250
3251 *** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
3252 If you had that set, you need to put
3253
3254 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
3255
3256 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
3257
3258 *** SMTPmail defaults to using the address in the From: header as the
3259 SMTP MAIL FROM envelope. To override this, set `mail-envelope-from'
3260 to the address you wish to use instead.
3261
3262 ** SQL mode
3263
3264 *** New options `sql-port', `sql-connection-alist', `sql-send-terminator',
3265 and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
3266
3267 *** New options controlling prompting for login parameters.
3268 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
3269 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
3270 connection is established.
3271
3272 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
3273 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product.
3274
3275 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix arguments.
3276 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
3277 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
3278 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
3279
3280 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
3281 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
3282 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
3283 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
3284 second prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from listing
3285 object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*' functions.
3286
3287 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
3288 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
3289
3290 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
3291 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
3292 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
3293
3294 *** New commands for listing database objects and details:
3295 sql-list-all and sql-list-table.
3296
3297 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
3298
3299 ** TeX modes
3300
3301 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
3302
3303 ** Tramp
3304
3305 *** New inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
3306
3307 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
3308 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
3309
3310 *** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
3311 remote file attributes are cached for better performance.
3312
3313 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
3314 default value to "".
3315
3316 *** Handlers for `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
3317 for remote machines which support SELinux.
3318
3319 ** New function `url-queue-retrieve', which behaves like url-retrieve,
3320 but with limits (`url-queue-parallel-processes', `url-queue-timeout') on
3321 the degree of parallelism.
3322
3323 ** VC and related modes
3324
3325 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
3326 The command C-x v + (`vc-pull') runs a "pull" operation, if it is
3327 supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to update the
3328 current branch and working tree. A prefix argument means to prompt
3329 the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
3330
3331 *** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
3332
3333 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
3334 The command C-x v m (`vc-merge') now runs a "merge" operation, if it
3335 is supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to merge
3336 changes from another branch into the current one. It prompts for
3337 specifics, e.g. a merge source.
3338
3339 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
3340 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
3341
3342 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
3343 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
3344 This is currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial (to support
3345 another backend, define a `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function').
3346 In the Log View buffers made by C-x v L (`vc-print-root-log'), you can
3347 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
3348
3349 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
3350 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
3351
3352 *** The option `vc-initial-comment' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but
3353 this was not advertised at the time.
3354
3355 *** `vc-toggle-read-only' is an obsolete alias for `toggle-read-only'.
3356 Since Emacs 23, it has done the same thing as `toggle-read-only', but
3357 this was not advertised at the time.
3358
3359 ** Obsolete modes
3360
3361 *** abbrevlist.el
3362
3363 *** erc-hecomplete.el (use erc-pcomplete.el instead)
3364
3365 *** partial-completion-mode (complete.el) is obsolete.
3366 You can get a comparable behavior with:
3367 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
3368 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
3369
3370 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete (CUA mode is much more comprehensive).
3371
3372 *** pgg is obsolete (use EasyPG instead).
3373
3374 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
3375
3376 *** s-region.el and pc-select.el are obsolete.
3377 They are superseded by shift-select-mode, enabled by default since 23.1.
3378
3379 *** vc-mcvs.el is obsolete (for lack of a maintainer).
3380
3381 ** Miscellaneous
3382
3383 *** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
3384 Its functions and variables have been similarly renamed.
3385
3386 *** In `ido-file-completion-map', C-v is no longer bound to `ido-toggle-vc'.
3387 (This interfered with cua-mode.)
3388
3389 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
3390
3391 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
3392
3393 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
3394
3395 \f
3396 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
3397
3398 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
3399 original buffers. It is bound to "e" in Occur mode.
3400
3401 ** New global minor mode electric-pair-mode.
3402 When enabled, typing an open parenthesis automatically inserts the
3403 matching closing one.
3404
3405 ** New global minor mode electric-indent-mode.
3406 When enabled, typing certain characters triggers reindentation.
3407 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-indent-chars or
3408 electric-indent-functions.
3409
3410 ** New global minor mode electric-layout-mode.
3411 When enabled, typing certain characters automatically inserts newlines.
3412 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-layout-rules.
3413
3414 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
3415 from which other modes can be derived.
3416
3417 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
3418
3419 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
3420 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
3421 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
3422 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
3423 secrets.
3424
3425 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
3426 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
3427
3428 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
3429 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
3430
3431 ** New generic mode, xmodmap-generic-mode, for xmodmap files.
3432
3433 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
3434 The previous version has been moved to obsolete/old-emacs-lock.el.
3435 Now, there is a proper minor mode `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection
3436 against exiting Emacs and killing the buffer can be set separately.
3437 The mechanism for automatically turning off protection for buffers
3438 with dead inferior processes has been generalized.
3439
3440 \f
3441 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
3442
3443 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function call now ENABLES
3444 the minor mode unconditionally. This is so that you can write e.g.
3445
3446 (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'foo-mode)
3447
3448 to enable foo-mode in Text mode buffers, removing the need for
3449 `turn-on-foo-mode' style functions. This affects all mode commands
3450 defined by `define-minor-mode'. If called interactively, the mode
3451 command still toggles the minor mode.
3452
3453 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
3454 It is now a list of three elements, where the second element is a list
3455 describing the original file's SELinux context. If Emacs or the
3456 system lacks SELinux support, the context list is (nil nil nil nil).
3457 See "Basic SELinux support" above, under "Changes in Emacs 24.1".
3458
3459 ** `char-direction-table' and the `char-direction' function were deleted.
3460 They were buggy and inferior to the new support of bidirectional
3461 editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the bidirectional
3462 properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property' with the last
3463 argument `bidi-class'.
3464
3465 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
3466 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
3467 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
3468 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
3469
3470 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
3471 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
3472 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
3473 of the header line.
3474
3475 ** Support for "old-style" backquotes, obsolete for 10+ years, has
3476 been further reduced. Now a backquote not followed by a space is
3477 always treated as a "new-style" backquote. Please remove all
3478 "old-style" backquotes from your code. If your code uses backquotes
3479 as documented in the Elisp manual, and compiles without warning, then
3480 you have nothing to do in this regard. Code not following the
3481 appropriate conventions may fail to compile.
3482
3483 The most common cause of trouble seems to be an old-style backquote
3484 followed by a newline. Another cause of trouble is vector notation
3485 for key sequence notation: instead of [(control ,)] and [(control ')],
3486 you should write [(control ?,)] and [(control ?')], which will work in
3487 older Emacsen too.
3488
3489 ** The macro `eval-at-startup' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but this
3490 was not advertised at the time. The function `custom-initialize-delay'
3491 replaced all known uses.
3492
3493 ** `view-buffer' now treats special mode-class in the same way that
3494 `view-file' has since Emacs 22 (i.e. it won't enable View mode if the
3495 major mode is special).
3496
3497 ** Menu and tool bar changes
3498
3499 *** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
3500 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
3501 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
3502 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
3503 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
3504 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
3505
3506 *** The menu bar bindings's caches are not used any more.
3507 Use (where-is-internal <def> nil t) instead.
3508
3509 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
3510 similar to those created by shift-selection (see Selection changes
3511 above). In previous Emacs versions, these regions were delineated by
3512 `mouse-drag-overlay'; that variable has been removed.
3513
3514 ** The fourth argument of `filter-buffer-substring' has been removed.
3515 If you want to remove text properties from the final result, simply
3516 pass the result through substring-no-properties.
3517
3518 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
3519
3520 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases have been removed
3521 (the appropriate new function is given in parentheses; "not needed"
3522 means you can just remove all calls to the function in question):
3523
3524 *** `comint-kill-output' (`comint-delete-output')
3525 *** `decompose-composite-char' (`char-to-string')
3526 *** `outline-visible' (`outline-invisible-p')
3527 *** `internal-find-face' (`facep')
3528 *** `internal-get-face' (`facep and check-face')
3529 *** `frame-update-faces' (not needed)
3530 *** `frame-update-face-colors' (`frame-set-background-mode')
3531 *** `x-frob-font-weight' and `x-frob-font-slant' (`make-face-*' functions)
3532 *** `x-make-font-bold' and `x-make-font-demibold' (`make-face-bold')
3533 *** `x-make-font-italic' and `x-make-font-oblique' (`make-face-italic')
3534 *** `x-make-font-bold-italic' (`make-face-bold-italic')
3535 *** `x-make-font-unbold' (`make-face-unbold')
3536 *** `x-make-font-unitalic' (`make-face-unitalic')
3537 *** `mldrag-drag-mode-line' (`mouse-drag-mode-line')
3538 *** `mldrag-drag-vertical-line' (`mouse-drag-vertical-line')
3539 *** `iswitchb-default-keybindings' (`iswitchb-mode')
3540 *** `char-bytes' (== 1)
3541 *** `isearch-return-char' (`isearch-printing-char')
3542 *** `make-local-hook' (not needed)
3543 *** `set-screen-height' (`set-frame-height')
3544 *** `set-screen-width' (`set-frame-width')
3545
3546 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases have been removed
3547 (the appropriate new variable is given in parentheses):
3548
3549 *** `checkdoc-minor-keymap' (`checkdoc-minor-mode-map')
3550 *** `vc-header-alist' (`vc-BACKEND-header')
3551 *** `directory-sep-char' (== ?/)
3552 *** `font-lock-defaults-alist' (`font-lock-defaults')
3553 *** `e' (`float-e').
3554
3555 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
3556 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
3557
3558 ** The format of the finder-inf.el file has changed, since the Finder
3559 mechanism is now based on the package system. The variable
3560 `finder-package-info' is replaced by `package--builtins' and
3561 `finder-keywords-hash'.
3562
3563 ** When generating autoloads, `update-directory-autoloads' no longer
3564 assumes every inspected file is in your `load-path'. It instead
3565 generates relative names according to the current `load-path'.
3566
3567 \f
3568 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
3569
3570 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
3571 The `lexical-binding' variable enables lexical scoping for local
3572 variables. It is typically set via a file-local variable in the first
3573 line of the file, in which case it applies to all the code in that
3574 file.
3575
3576 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
3577 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
3578
3579 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
3580 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
3581
3582 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
3583
3584 *** `defvar' and `defconst' now mark the variable as special (dynamic).
3585 So do `defcustom' and other forms that call `defvar' as a subroutine.
3586
3587 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
3588 declared as dynamically bound.
3589
3590 *** The form ((lambda ...) ...) is deprecated.
3591
3592 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
3593 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
3594 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
3595
3596 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
3597
3598 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
3599 This returns the base direction of the paragraph at point.
3600
3601 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
3602 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left scripts, this
3603 function returns another string which can be safely inserted into a
3604 buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
3605 right of that string. (This works by appending an invisible Unicode
3606 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character if the argument string might need it.)
3607
3608 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right paragraph
3609 direction and you need to insert a string whose contents are not known
3610 in advance, without disrupting the layout of the line.
3611
3612 ** Window changes
3613
3614 *** Window tree functions are accessible in Elisp.
3615 Functions are provided to return the parent, siblings or child windows
3616 of any window including internal windows (windows not associated with a
3617 buffer) in the window tree.
3618
3619 **** New function `window-valid-p' gives non-nil for live and internal
3620 windows.
3621
3622 **** Window manipulation can deal with internal windows.
3623 Many window handling functions like `split-window', `delete-window', or
3624 `delete-other-windows' as well as the window resizing functions can now
3625 act on any window including internal ones.
3626
3627 *** window-total-height/-width vs window-body-height/-width.
3628 The function `window-height' has been renamed to `window-total-height'
3629 and `window-width' has been renamed to `window-body-width'. The old
3630 names are provided as aliases. Two new functions `window-total-width'
3631 and `window-body-height' are provided.
3632
3633 *** Window parameters specific to window handling functions.
3634 For each window you can specify a parameter to override the default
3635 behavior of a number of functions like `split-window', `delete-window'
3636 and `delete-other-windows'. The variable `ignore-window-parameters'
3637 allows to ignore processing such parameters.
3638
3639 *** New semantics of third argument of `split-window'.
3640 The third argument of `split-window' has been renamed to SIDE and can be
3641 set to any of the values 'below, 'right, 'above, or 'left to make the
3642 new window appear on the corresponding side of the window that shall be
3643 split. Any other value of SIDE will cause `split-window' to split the
3644 window into two side-by-side windows as before.
3645
3646 *** Window resizing functions.
3647 A new standard function for resizing windows called `window-resize' has
3648 been introduced. This and all other functions for resizing windows no
3649 longer delete any windows when they become too small.
3650
3651 *** Deleting the selected window now selects the most recently selected
3652 live window on that frame instead.
3653
3654 *** `adjust-window-trailing-edge' adjustments.
3655 `adjust-window-trailing-edge' can now deal with fixed-size windows and
3656 is able to resize other windows if a window adjacent to the trailing
3657 edge cannot be shrunk any more. This makes its behavior more similar to
3658 that of Emacs 21 without compromising, however, its inability to delete
3659 windows which was introduced in Emacs 22.
3660
3661 *** Window-local buffer lists.
3662 Windows now have local buffer lists. This means that removing a buffer
3663 from display in a window will preferably show the buffer previously
3664 shown in that window with its previous window-start and window-point
3665 positions. This also means that the same buffer may be automatically
3666 shown twice even if it already appears in another window.
3667
3668 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
3669 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
3670 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
3671 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
3672
3673 *** `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally' renamed
3674 to `split-window-below' and `split-window-right' respectively.
3675 The old names are kept as aliases.
3676
3677 *** Display actions
3678
3679 **** The second arg to `display-buffer' and `pop-to-buffer' is now
3680 named ACTION, and takes a display action of the same form as
3681 `display-buffer-base-action' (see Changes, above). A non-nil,
3682 non-list value is treated specially, as the old meaning.
3683
3684 **** New variable `display-buffer-overriding-action'.
3685
3686 **** The procedure of `display-buffer' etc. to choose a window is
3687 determined by combining `display-buffer-overriding-action',
3688 `display-buffer-alist', the ACTION arg, `display-buffer-base-action',
3689 and `display-buffer-fallback-action'. The second and fourth of these
3690 are user-customizable variables.
3691
3692 See the docstring of `display-buffer' for details.
3693
3694 *** New functions `window-state-get' and `window-state-put'.
3695 These functions allow to save and restore the state of an arbitrary
3696 frame or window as an Elisp object.
3697
3698 ** Completion
3699
3700 *** New variable `completion-extra-properties' used to specify extra
3701 properties of the current completion:
3702 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
3703 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
3704
3705 *** Functions on `completion-at-point-functions' can return any of the
3706 properties valid for `completion-extra-properties'.
3707
3708 *** `completion-annotate-function' is obsolete.
3709
3710 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
3711 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
3712 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
3713 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
3714 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
3715 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
3716 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
3717
3718 *** `minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map' is not used any more.
3719 Instead, the bindings in `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map'
3720 are combined with `minibuffer-local-must-match-map'.
3721
3722 *** New variable `completing-read-function' allows overriding the
3723 behavior of `completing-read'.
3724
3725 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
3726 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
3727
3728 ** `pre-command-hook'/`post-command-hook' are not reset to nil on error.
3729 Instead, the offending function is removed.
3730
3731 ** New hook types
3732
3733 *** New function `run-hook-wrapped' for running an abnormal hook by
3734 passing the hook functions as arguments to a "wrapping" function.
3735 Like `run-hook-with-args-until-success', it stops at the first
3736 non-nil return value.
3737
3738 *** New macro `with-wrapper-hook' for running an abnormal hook as a
3739 set of "wrapping" filters, similar to around advice.
3740 (A version of this macro was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not
3741 advertised at the time.)
3742
3743 ** Debugger changes
3744
3745 *** New macro `condition-case-unless-debug' (this was actually added in
3746 Emacs 23.1 as condition-case-no-debug, but not advertised)
3747
3748 *** The macro `with-demoted-errors' was added in Emacs 23.1, but not advertised.
3749
3750 *** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
3751
3752 *** The debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will
3753 jump to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked
3754 instead of jumping all the way to the top-level.
3755
3756 *** Set `debug-on-event' to enter the debugger on events like SIGUSR1.
3757 This can be useful when `inhibit-quit' is set.
3758
3759 ** The new function `server-eval-at' allows evaluation of Lisp forms on
3760 named Emacs server instances.
3761
3762 ** `call-process' and `call-process-region' allow a `(:file "file")' spec
3763 to redirect STDOUT to a file.
3764
3765 ** The function `format-time-string' now supports the %N directive,
3766 for higher-resolution time stamps.
3767
3768 ** New input reading functions
3769
3770 *** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of
3771 characters, discarding any inputs not inside the set.
3772
3773 *** The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name
3774 or RGB triplet, instead of signaling an error if the user provides
3775 invalid input.
3776
3777 **** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
3778
3779 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
3780 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
3781 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
3782 obsolete alias.
3783
3784 ** Syntax parsing changes
3785
3786 *** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
3787 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
3788 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
3789 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
3790 Together with this new variable come a new hook
3791 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
3792 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
3793 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
3794 syntactic rules.
3795
3796 *** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
3797
3798 ** New hook `post-self-insert-hook', run after `self-insert-command'.
3799
3800 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
3801
3802 ** Major and minor mode changes
3803
3804 *** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
3805 as well as those in the -*- line.
3806
3807 *** `prog-mode' is a new major mode from which programming modes
3808 should be derived.
3809
3810 **** `prog-mode-hook' can be used to enable features for programming
3811 modes, e.g. (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode) to enable
3812 on-the-fly spell checking for comments and strings.
3813
3814 *** New hook `change-major-mode-after-body-hook', run by
3815 `run-mode-hooks' just before any other mode hooks.
3816
3817 *** Enabled globalized minor modes can be disabled in specific major modes.
3818 If the global mode is global-FOO-mode, then run (FOO-mode -1) in the
3819 major mode's hook, where FOO-mode toggles the mode on a per-buffer basis.
3820
3821 *** `define-minor-mode' accepts new keywords :variable, :after-hook.
3822
3823 ** File-handling changes
3824
3825 *** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
3826 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
3827 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
3828 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
3829
3830 *** New file predicates: `file-equal-p', `file-in-directory-p'.
3831
3832 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
3833 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
3834 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
3835
3836 ** Image API
3837
3838 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
3839
3840 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
3841
3842 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
3843
3844 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
3845 is being animated.
3846
3847 *** `image-extension-data' has been renamed to `image-metadata'.
3848 The old name is an obsolete alias to the new one.
3849
3850 *** Image mode can view any image type that ImageMagick supports.
3851 This requires Emacs to be built with ImageMagick support.
3852
3853 **** New function `imagemagick-types', defined if ImageMagick support
3854 is enabled, returns a list of image file extensions that your
3855 ImageMagick installation supports.
3856
3857 **** New function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick
3858 image types in Image mode and in `create-image' and other helper
3859 functions.
3860
3861 **** New option `imagemagick-types-inhibit' excludes certain
3862 ImageMagick image types from `imagemagick-register-types'.
3863
3864 **** With ImageMagick support, there are extra Image mode commands to
3865 resize and rotate images: `image-transform-fit-to-height',
3866 `image-transform-fit-to-width', `image-transform-set-rotation', and
3867 `image-transform-set-scale'.
3868
3869 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
3870 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
3871 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail. For
3872 example, this is used by Rmail to optionally delete a mail window.
3873
3874 ** XML and HTML parsing
3875 If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support, there are two new
3876 functions: `libxml-parse-html-region' (which parses "real world" HTML)
3877 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
3878 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
3879
3880 ** Networking and encryption changes
3881
3882 *** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
3883 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
3884 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
3885 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
3886 must also be supplied.
3887
3888 *** New library gnutls.el.
3889 The new function `gnutls-available-p' returns non-nil if Emacs is
3890 built with GnuTLS support. The main entry points are
3891 `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'. It's easiest to use
3892 these functions through `open-network-stream', because that can
3893 upgrade connections through STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain
3894 SSL, depending on your needs. For debugging, set `gnutls-log-level'
3895 greater than 0.
3896
3897 *** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms:
3898 md5, sha1, sha2, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512. The lisp library
3899 sha1.el has been removed. The `sha1' feature is provided by default.
3900
3901 ** Isearch
3902
3903 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
3904
3905 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
3906 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
3907 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
3908 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
3909 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
3910 displayed with a "spinning bar".
3911
3912 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
3913 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
3914
3915 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook'.
3916 If delayed-warnings-list is non-nil, the command loop calls
3917 `delayed-warnings-hook' after `post-command-hook'. At present, this
3918 is only used by Emacs on some platforms to display warnings during
3919 startup, which might otherwise not be noticed. This uses the
3920 functions `display-delayed-warnings' and `collapse-delayed-warnings'.
3921
3922 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
3923
3924 ** New function `make-composed-keymap' that constructs a new keymap
3925 from multiple input maps. You can use this to make a keymap that
3926 inherits from multiple maps, eg:
3927 (set-keymap-parent newmap (make-composed-keymap othermap parent))
3928
3929 ** New function `string-prefix-p'.
3930 (This was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not advertised at the time.)
3931
3932 ** New reader macro ## that stands for the empty symbol.
3933 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
3934 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
3935 an empty uninterned symbol.
3936
3937 ** New math functions `isnan', `copysign', `frexp', `ldexp'.
3938
3939 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
3940
3941 *** `tooltip-use-echo-area' is obsolete.
3942 Rather than setting this to t, disable Tooltip mode instead.
3943
3944 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
3945 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
3946
3947 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
3948
3949 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
3950 Use `post-command-hook' instead.
3951
3952 *** `font-lock-maximum-size' is obsolete.
3953
3954 \f
3955 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on Non-Free Operating Systems
3956
3957 ** On MS Windows, Emacs warns when using the obsolete init file _emacs,
3958 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
3959
3960 ** New configure.bat options
3961
3962 *** --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra runtime checks.
3963
3964 *** --distfiles specifies files to be included in binary distribution.
3965
3966 *** --without-gnutls disables automatic GnuTLS detection.
3967
3968 *** --lib for general library linkage, works with the USER_LIBS build variable.
3969
3970 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
3971
3972 ** The Lisp function `w32-default-color-map' is now obsolete.
3973 (It is only used internally in the Emacs C code.)
3974
3975 ** Customize ns-auto-hide-menu-bar to have the menu-bar hidden, but
3976 reappear on mouse-over. (Requires OS X 10.6 or later.)
3977
3978 ** On Mac OS X, dragging a file into Emacs visits the file, like on
3979 other platforms, rather than inserting its contents into the buffer.
3980
3981 \f
3982 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
3983 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
3984
3985 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
3986 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
3987 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
3988 (at your option) any later version.
3989
3990 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
3991 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
3992 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
3993 GNU General Public License for more details.
3994
3995 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
3996 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
3997
3998 \f
3999 Local variables:
4000 mode: outline
4001 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
4002 end: