Take colors for region face (selected text) from the Gtk+ theme.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
26
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
29
30 ---
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
33
34 ---
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
39
40 ---
41 ** There is a new configure option --with-crt-dir.
42 This is only useful if your crt*.o files are in a non-standard location.
43
44 ---
45 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
46 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
47 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
48 --without-gconf.
49
50 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
51 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
52 These is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
53
54 ---
55 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
56 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
57 automatically select it.
58
59 \f
60 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
61
62 \f
63 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
64
65 ** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
66 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
67 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
68
69 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
70
71 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
72
73 +++
74 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
75
76 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
77 initial documentation.
78
79 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
80 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
81
82 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
83 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
84 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
85 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
86 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
87 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
88
89 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
90 value of paragraph base direction at point.
91
92 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
93 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
94 Algorithm.
95
96 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
97 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
98 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
99
100 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
101 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
102
103 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
104 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
105 is taken from the desktop settings.
106
107 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
108 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
109 top, left, tight or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
110 for this.
111
112 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
113 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
114
115 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
116 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
117
118 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
119 with Xft.
120
121 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
122 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
123
124 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
125 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
126 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
127 context in their return values.
128
129 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
130 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
131
132 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
133 for remote machines which support SELinux.
134
135 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
136 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
137 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
138 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
139
140 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
141 scroll a line instead of full screen.
142
143 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
144 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position.
145
146 ** Trash changes
147
148 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
149 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
150
151 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
152 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
153
154 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
155 for `list-colors-display'.
156
157 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
158 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
159 from elpa.gnu.org. `M-x package-list-packages' shows a list of
160 packages, which can be selected for installation.
161
162 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
163 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
164 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
165 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
166
167 \f
168 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
169
170 ** completion-at-point is now an alias for complete-symbol.
171
172 ** mouse-region-delete-keys has been deleted.
173
174 ** Deletion changes
175
176 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
177 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
178 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
179 kill instead.
180
181 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
182 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region';
183 delete-char, meant for Lisp, does not obey `delete-active-region'.
184
185 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
186 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
187 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
188 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
189
190 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
191
192 ** Selection changes.
193
194 The way Emacs interacts with the clipboard and primary selection, by
195 default, is now similar to other X applications. In particular, kill
196 and yank use the clipboard, in addition to the primary selection.
197
198 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to `lazy'.
199 This means that any active region made with shift-selection or mouse
200 dragging, or acted on by Emacs (e.g. with M-w or C-w), is
201 automatically added to the primary window selection.
202
203 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t.
204
205 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
206
207 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
208
209 *** `mouse-2' is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
210
211 \f
212 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
213
214 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
215
216 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
217 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
218
219 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
220 You can get a comparable behavior with:
221 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
222 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
223
224 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
225 ** Customize
226
227 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
228 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
229 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
230
231 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
232 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
233
234 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
235
236 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
237 choose a color via list-colors-display.
238
239 ** Dired-x
240
241 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
242 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
243
244 ** VC and related modes
245
246 *** New VC commands: vc-log-incoming, vc-log-outgoing, vc-find-conflicted-file.
247
248 **** vc-log-incoming for Git runs "git fetch" so that the necessary
249 data is available locally.
250
251 **** vc-log-incoming and vc-log-outgoing for Git require version 1.7 (or newer).
252
253 *** New key bindings: C-x v I and C-x v O bound to vc-log-incoming and
254 vc-log-outgoing, respectively.
255
256 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
257
258 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
259 The log-edit buffers are expected to have a format similar to email messages
260 with headers of the form:
261 Author: <author of this change>
262 Summary: <one line summary of this change>
263 Fixes: <reference to the bug fixed by this change>
264 Some backends handle some of those headers specially, but any unknown header
265 is just left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
266
267 **** vc-git handles Author: and Date:
268 **** vc-hg handles Author: and Date:
269 **** vc-bzr handles Author:, Date: and Fixes:
270 **** vc-mtn handles Author: and Date:
271
272 *** Pressing g in a *vc-diff* buffer reruns vc-diff, so it will
273 produce an up to date diff.
274
275 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
276 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
277 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
278
279 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
280
281 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables. The
282 variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', `sql-database' and
283 `sql-port' can now be safely used as local variables.
284
285 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL.
286 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
287 MySQL servers.
288
289 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
290 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
291 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
292 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
293 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
294 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
295 `sql-send-*' functions.
296
297 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
298 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
299 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
300 connection is established.
301
302 By default, the value of the parameter is simply prompted for. For
303 `server' and `database', they can be specified in a list as shown
304 below:
305
306 (server :file ARG)
307 (database :file ARG)
308 (server :completion ARG)
309 (database :completion ARG)
310
311 The ARG when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid file
312 names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings will
313 be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
314
315 When :completion is specified, the ARG corresponds to the PREDICATE
316 argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of possible values
317 or a function returning such a list).
318
319 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
320 An alist for recording different username, database and server
321 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
322 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
323
324 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
325
326 (setq sql-connection-alist
327 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
328 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
329 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
330 (sql-user "mmaug")
331 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
332
333 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
334
335 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
336 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
337 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
338 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
339
340 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
341 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
342 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
343 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
344 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
345
346 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
347 When connections have been defined, There is a submenu available that
348 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
349 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
350 have been defined.
351
352 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
353 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
354 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
355 session and save them as a new connection.
356
357 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
358 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
359 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
360
361 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
362 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
363 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
364 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
365 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
366
367 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
368 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
369 listing object name completions when being sent text via
370 `sql-send-*' functions.
371
372 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
373
374 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
375 enabled by default in 23.1.
376
377 ** gdb-mi
378
379 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
380 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
381 threads simultaneously.
382
383 \f
384 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
385
386 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
387
388 ** smie.el is a package providing a simple generic indentation engine.
389
390 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
391 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
392 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
393 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
394 secrets.
395
396 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
397 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
398
399 \f
400 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
401
402 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
403
404 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
405 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
406 programmer-visible consequences.
407
408 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
409 ON unconditionally.
410
411 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
412 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and
413 `initial-frame-alist'. With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame'
414 checks the value of the variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to
415 determine whether to create a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.
416 If the alist entries are added, they override the value of
417 `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
418
419 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
420 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
421 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
422 has now been removed.
423
424 \f
425 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
426
427 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
428 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
429 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
430
431 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory now accept optional arg TRASH.
432 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
433 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
434 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
435
436 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
437
438 ** New completion style `substring'.
439
440 ** Image API
441
442 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
443 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
444 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
445 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
446 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
447 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
448
449 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
450
451 ** Isearch
452
453 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
454
455 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
456 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
457 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
458 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
459 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
460 displayed with a "spinning bar".
461
462 \f
463 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
464
465 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds emacs with extra
466 runtime checks.
467
468 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
469 included in binary distribution
470
471 ** New make target `dist' to create binary disttribution for Windows
472 platform
473
474 \f
475 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
476 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
477
478 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
479 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
480 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
481 (at your option) any later version.
482
483 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
484 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
485 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
486 GNU General Public License for more details.
487
488 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
489 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
490
491 \f
492 Local variables:
493 mode: outline
494 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
495 end: