Merge from emacs-23; up to 2010-06-09T17:54:28Z!albinus@detlef.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS.23
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 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 \f
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.3
19
20 ** New configure option --with-crt-dir specifies the location of your
21 crt*.o files, if they are in a non-standard location. This is only
22 used on x86-64 and s390x GNU/Linux architectures.
23
24 ** The MS-Windows build prefers libpng version 1.14 or later.
25 Versions of libpng before 1.14 had security issues, so we now
26 recommend to use version 1.14 or later. Precompiled Windows binaries
27 require version 1.14 or later. See README.W32 and nt/INSTALL for
28 details and pointers to URLs where the latest libpng can be
29 downloaded.
30
31 * Changes in Emacs 23.3
32
33 ** The last-resort backup file `%backup%~' is now written to
34 `user-emacs-directory', instead of the user's home directory.
35
36 ** If Emacs creates `user-emacs-directory', that directory's
37 permissions are now set to rwx------, ignoring the umask.
38
39 \f
40 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.3
41
42 ** Calendar and diary
43
44 *** The appt-add command takes an optional argument, the warning time.
45 This can be used in place of the default appt-message-warning-time.
46
47 ** Python mode
48
49 *** You can allow inferior Python processes to load modules from the
50 current directory by setting `python-remove-cwd-from-path' to nil.
51
52 ** Rmail
53
54 *** The default value of `rmail-enable-mime' is now t. Rmail decodes
55 MIME contents automatically. You can customize the variable
56 `rmail-enable-mime' back to `nil' to disable this automatic MIME
57 decoding.
58
59 *** The command `rmail-mime' change the displaying of a MIME message
60 between decoded presentation form and raw data if `rmail-enable-mime'
61 is non-nil. And, with prefix argument, it change only the displaying
62 of the MIME entity at point.
63
64 *** The new command `rmail-mime-next-item' (bound to TAB) moves point
65 to the next item of MIME message.
66
67 *** The new command `rmail-mime-previous-item' (bound to backtab) moves
68 point to the previous item of MIME message.
69
70 *** The new command `rmail-mime-toggle-hidden' (RET) hide or show the
71 body of the MIME entity at point.
72
73 ** VC and related modes
74
75 *** New VC command `vc-log-incoming', bound to `C-x v I'.
76 This shows a log of changes to be received with a pull operation.
77 For Git, this runs "git fetch" to make the necessary data available
78 locally; this requires version 1.7 or newer.
79
80 *** New VC command `vc-log-outgoing', bound to `C-x v O'.
81 This shows a log of changes to be sent in the next commit.
82
83 *** New VC command vc-find-conflicted-file.
84
85 *** The 'g' key in VC diff, log, log-incoming and log-outgoing buffers
86 reruns the corresponding VC command to compute an up to date version
87 of the buffer.
88
89 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
90
91 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
92 You can add headers specifying additional information to be supplied
93 to the version control system. For example:
94
95 Author: J. R. Hacker <jrh@example.com>
96 Fixes: 4204
97 Actual text of log entry...
98
99 Bazaar recognizes the headers "Author", "Date" and "Fixes".
100 Git, Mercurial, and Monotone recognize "Author" and "Date".
101 Any unknown header is left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
102
103 ** Obsolete packages
104
105 *** lmenu.el and cl-compat.el are now obsolete.
106
107 \f
108 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.3
109
110 ** smie.el is a generic navigation and indentation engine.
111 It takes a simple BNF description of the grammar, and provides both
112 sexp-style navigation (jumping over begin..end pairs) as well as
113 indentation, which can be adjusted via ad-hoc indentation rules.
114
115 \f
116 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.3
117
118 ** posn-col-row now excludes the header line from the row count
119 If the frame has a header line, posn-col-row will count row numbers
120 starting from the first line of text below the header line.
121
122 \f
123 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.3
124
125 ** `e' and `pi' are now called `float-e' and `float-pi'.
126 The old names are obsolete.
127
128 ** The use of unintern without an obarray arg is now obsolete.
129
130 ** The function `princ-list' is now obsolete.
131
132 ** The yank-handler argument to kill-region and friends is now obsolete.
133
134 ** New function byte-to-string, like char-to-string but for bytes.
135
136 \f
137 * Changes in Emacs 23.3 on non-free operating systems
138
139 ** The NeXTstep port can have different modifiers for the left and right
140 alt/option key by customizing the value for ns-right-alternate-modifier.
141
142 \f
143 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.2
144
145 ** New configure options for Emacs developers.
146 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
147
148 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
149 This might not work on all platforms.
150
151 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
152
153 ** `make install' now consistently ignores umask, creating a
154 world-readable install.
155
156 ** Emacs compiles with Gconf support, if it is detected.
157 Use the configure option --without-gconf to disable this.
158 This is used by the `font-use-system-font' feature (see below).
159
160 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.2
161
162 ** The command-line option -Q (--quick) also inhibits loading X resources.
163 However, if Emacs is compiled with the Lucid or Motif toolkit, X
164 resource settings for the graphical widgets are still applied.
165 On Windows, the -Q option causes Emacs to ignore Registry settings,
166 but environment variables set on the Registry are still honored.
167
168 *** The new variable `inhibit-x-resources' shows whether X resources
169 were loaded.
170
171 ** New command-line option -mm (--maximized) maximizes the initial frame.
172
173 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
174
175 ** The maximum size of buffers (and the largest fixnum) is doubled.
176 On typical 32bit systems, buffers can now be up to 512MB.
177
178 ** The default value of `trash-directory' is now nil.
179 This means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
180 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
181 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
182 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
183
184 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
185 Customize `make-pointer-invisible' to disable this feature.
186
187 ** Font changes
188
189 *** Emacs can use the system default monospaced font in Gnome.
190 To enable this feature, set `font-use-system-font' to non-nil (it is
191 nil by default). If the system default changes, Emacs changes also.
192 This feature requires Gconf support, which is automatically included
193 at compile-time if configure detects the gconf libraries (you can
194 disable this with the configure option --without-gconf).
195
196 *** On X11, Emacs reacts to Xft changes made by configuration tools,
197 via the XSETTINGS mechanism. This includes antialias, hinting,
198 hintstyle, RGBA, DPI and lcdfilter changes.
199
200 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks for confirmation.
201 To remove this query, remove `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from
202 `kill-buffer-query-functions', or set the appropriate process flag
203 with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
204
205 ** File-local variable changes
206
207 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
208 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
209 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
210
211 *** There are new commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
212 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
213 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
214 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
215
216 *** There are new commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
217 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
218 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
219 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
220 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
221 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
222
223 ** Internationalization changes
224
225 *** Unibyte sessions are now considered obsolete.
226 This refers to the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable as well as the
227 --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte command line
228 arguments. Customizing enable-multibyte-characters and setting
229 default-enable-multibyte-characters are also deprecated.
230
231 *** New coding system `utf-8-hfs'.
232 This is suitable for default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X; see
233 international/ucs-normalize.el.
234
235 ** Function arguments in *Help* buffers are now shown in upper-case.
236 Customize `help-downcase-arguments' to t to show them in lower-case.
237
238 ** New command `async-shell-command', bound globally to `M-&'.
239 This executes the command asynchronously, similar to calling `M-!' and
240 manually adding an ampersand to the end of the command. With `M-&',
241 you don't need the ampersand. The output appears in the buffer
242 `*Async Shell Command*'.
243
244 ** When running in a new enough xterm (newer than version 242), Emacs
245 asks xterm what the background color is and it sets up faces
246 accordingly for a dark background if needed (the current default is to
247 consider the background light).
248
249 \f
250 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
251
252 ** Kill-ring and selection changes
253
254 *** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
255 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
256 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
257 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
258
259 *** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, the kill
260 commands save the interprogram-paste selection into the kill ring
261 before doing anything else. This avoids losing the selection.
262
263 *** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical
264 subsequent kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
265
266 ** Completion changes
267
268 *** The new command `completion-at-point' provides mode-sensitive completion.
269
270 *** tab-always-indent set to `complete' lets TAB do completion as well.
271
272 *** The new completion-style `initials' is available.
273 For instance, this can complete M-x lch to list-command-history.
274
275 *** The new variable `completions-format' determines how completions
276 are displayed in the *Completions* buffer. If you set it to
277 `vertical', completions are sorted vertically in columns.
278
279 ** The default value of `blink-matching-paren-distance' is increased.
280
281 ** M-n provides more default values in the minibuffer for commands
282 that read file names. These include the file name at point (when ffap
283 is loaded without ffap-bindings), the file name on the current line
284 (in Dired buffers), and the directory names of adjacent Dired windows
285 (for Dired commands that operate on several directories, such as copy,
286 rename, or diff).
287
288 ** M-r is bound to the new `move-to-window-line-top-bottom'.
289 This moves point to the window center, top and bottom on successive
290 invocations, in the same spirit as the C-l (recenter-top-bottom)
291 command.
292
293 ** The new variable `recenter-positions' determines the default
294 cycling order of C-l (`recenter-top-bottom').
295
296 ** The abbrevs file is now a file named abbrev_defs in
297 user-emacs-directory; but the old location, ~/.abbrev_defs, is used if
298 that file exists.
299
300 \f
301 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
302
303 ** The bookmark menu has a narrowing search via bookmark-bmenu-search.
304
305 ** Calc
306
307 *** The Calc settings file is now a file named calc.el in
308 user-emacs-directory; but the old location, ~/.calc.el, is used if
309 that file exists.
310
311 *** Graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows, if you have
312 the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later installed.
313
314 ** Calendar and diary
315
316 *** Fancy diary display is now the default.
317 If you prefer the simple display, customize `diary-display-function'.
318
319 *** The diary's fancy display now enables view-mode.
320
321 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
322 giving an offset from today.
323
324 ** Desktop
325
326 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
327 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
328 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
329 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
330 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
331 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
332
333 ** Dired
334
335 *** The new variable `dired-auto-revert-buffer', if non-nil, causes
336 Dired buffers to be reverted automatically on revisiting them.
337
338 ** DocView
339
340 *** When `doc-view-continuous' is non-nil, scrolling a line
341 on the page edge advances to the next/previous page.
342
343 ** Elint
344
345 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode.
346
347 *** Elint can now scan individual files and whole directories,
348 and can be run in batch mode.
349
350 *** Elint does a more thorough initialization, and recognizes more built-in
351 functions and variables. Customize `elint-scan-preloaded' if you want
352 to sacrifice some accuracy for a faster startup.
353
354 *** Elint attempts some basic understanding of featurep and (f)boundp tests.
355
356 *** Customize `elint-ignored-warnings' to suppress some warnings.
357
358 ** GDB-UI
359
360 *** Toolbar functionality for reverse debugging. Display of STL
361 collections as watch expressions. These features require GDB 7.0 or later.
362
363 ** Grep
364
365 *** A new command `zrgrep' searches recursively in gzipped files.
366
367 ** Info
368
369 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
370 matched topics found in the index.
371
372 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
373 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
374 through a menu structure.
375
376 ** LaTeX mode now provides completion (via completion-at-point).
377
378 ** Message mode is now the default mode for composing mail.
379
380 The default for `mail-user-agent' is now message-user-agent, so the
381 C-x m (`compose-mail') command uses Message mode instead of Mail mode.
382
383 Message mode has been included in Emacs, as part of the Gnus package,
384 for several years. It provides several features that are absent in
385 Mail mode, such as MIME handling.
386
387 *** If the user has not customized mail-user-agent, `compose-mail'
388 checks for Mail mode customizations, and issues a warning if these
389 customizations are found. This alerts users who may otherwise be
390 unaware that their mail configuration has changed.
391
392 To disable this check, set compose-mail-user-agent-warnings to nil.
393
394 ** The default value of mail-interactive is t, since Emacs 23.1.
395 (This was not announced at the time.) It means that when sending mail,
396 Emacs will wait for the process sending mail to return. If you
397 experience delays when sending mail, you may wish to set this to nil.
398
399 ** nXML mode is now the default for editing XML files.
400
401 ** pcomplete provides a new command `pcomplete-std-completion' which
402 is similar to `pcomplete' but using the standard completion UI code.
403
404 ** Shell (and other comint modes)
405
406 *** M-s is no longer bound to `comint-next-matching-input'.
407
408 *** M-r is now bound to `comint-history-isearch-backward-regexp'.
409 This starts an incremental search of the comint/shell input history.
410
411 *** ansi-color is now enabled by default in Shell mode.
412 To disable it, set ansi-color-for-comint-mode to nil.
413
414 ** Tramp
415
416 *** New connection methods "rsyncc", "imap" and "imaps".
417 On systems which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new
418 connection methods "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
419
420 ** VC and related modes
421
422 *** When using C-x v v or C-x v i on a unregistered file that is in a
423 directory not controlled by any VCS, ask the user what VC backend to
424 use to create a repository, create a new repository and register the
425 file.
426
427 *** New command `vc-root-print-log', bound to `C-x v L'.
428 This displays a `*vc-change-log*' buffer showing the history of the
429 version-controlled directory tree as a whole.
430
431 *** New command `vc-root-diff', bound to `C-x v D'.
432 This is similar to `vc-diff', but compares the entire directory tree
433 of the current VC directory with its working revision.
434
435 *** `C-x v l' and `C-x v L' do not show the full log by default.
436 The number of entries shown can be chosen interactively with a prefix
437 argument, or by customizing vc-log-show-limit. The `*vc-change-log*'
438 buffer now contains buttons at the end of the buffer, which can be
439 used to increase the number of entries shown. RCS, SCCS, and CVS do
440 not support this feature.
441
442 *** vc-annotate supports annotations through file copies and renames,
443 it displays the old names for the files and it can show logs/diffs for
444 the corresponding lines. Currently only Git and Mercurial take
445 advantage of this feature.
446
447 *** The log command in vc-annotate can display a single log entry
448 instead of redisplaying the full log. The RCS, CVS and SCCS VC
449 backends do not support this.
450
451 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
452
453 *** Diff and log operations can be used from Dired buffers.
454
455 *** vc-git changes
456
457 **** The short log format for git makes use of the graph display,
458 so it's not supported on git versions earlier than 1.5.6.
459
460 **** vc-dir uses the --relative option of git, and so requires at least
461 git version 1.5.5.
462
463 **** Support for operating with stashes has been added to vc-dir:
464 the stash list is displayed in the *vc-dir* header, stashes can be
465 created, removed, applied and their content displayed.
466
467 *** vc-bzr supports operating with shelves: the shelve list is
468 displayed in the *vc-dir* header, shelves can be created, removed and applied.
469
470 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
471 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
472
473 ** Miscellaneous
474
475 *** Interactively `multi-isearch-buffers' and `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp'
476 read buffer names to search, one by one, ended with RET. With a prefix
477 argument, they ask for a regexp, and search in buffers whose names match
478 the specified regexp. Interactively `multi-isearch-files' and
479 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' read file names to search, one by one,
480 ended with RET. With a prefix argument, they ask for a wildcard, and
481 search in file buffers whose file names match the specified wildcard.
482
483 *** Autorevert Tail mode now works also for remote files.
484
485 *** The new eshell built-in commands `su' and `sudo' support Tramp.
486 Thus, they change `default-directory' to reflect the new user id, and
487 let commands run under that user's permissions. This works even when
488 `default-directory' is already remote. Calling the external commands
489 is possible via `*su' or `*sudo', respectively.
490
491 ** Obsolete packages
492
493 *** sym-comp.el is now obsolete, superseded by completion-at-point.
494
495 *** lucid.el and levents.el are now obsolete.
496
497 \f
498 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
499
500 ** CEDET (the Collection of Emacs Development Tools) is now in Emacs.
501 This is a collection of packages to aid with using Emacs as an IDE
502 (integrated development environment):
503
504 *** The Semantic package allows the use of parsers to intelligently
505 edit and navigate source code. Parsers for C/C++, Java, Javascript,
506 and several other languages are included by default, and Semantic can
507 also interface with external tools such as GNU Global and GNU Idutils.
508
509 To enable Semantic, use the global minor mode `semantic-mode'.
510 See the Semantic manual for details.
511
512 *** EDE (Emacs Development Environment) is a package for managing code
513 projects, including features such as automatic Makefile generation.
514
515 To enable EDE, use the minor mode `global-ede-mode'.
516 See the EDE manual for details.
517
518 *** SRecode is a library for recoding Semantic tags back into source
519 code. It is currently used by some parts of Semantic and EDE; in the
520 future, it may be used for code generation features.
521
522 *** The EIEIO library implements a subset of the Common Lisp Object
523 System (CLOS). It is used by the other CEDET packages.
524
525 ** mpc.el is a front end for the Music Player Daemon. Run it with M-x mpc.
526
527 ** htmlfontify.el turns a fontified Emacs buffer into an HTML page.
528
529 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
530
531 ** imap-hash.el is a new library to address IMAP mailboxes as hashtables.
532
533 \f
534 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.2
535
536 ** The Lisp reader turns integers that are too large/small into floats.
537 For instance, on machines where `536870911' is the largest integer,
538 reading `536870912' gives the floating-point object `536870912.0'.
539
540 This change only concerns the Lisp reader; it does not affect how
541 actual integer objects overflow.
542
543 ** Several obsolete functions removed.
544 The functions have been obsolete since Emacs 19, and are unlikely to
545 be in use:
546
547 time-stamp-month-dd-yyyy, time-stamp-dd/mm/yyyy, time-stamp-mon-dd-yyyy
548 time-stamp-dd-mon-yy, time-stamp-yy/mm/dd, time-stamp-yyyy/mm/dd,
549 time-stamp-yyyy-mm-dd, time-stamp-yymmdd, time-stamp-hh:mm:ss,
550 time-stamp-hhmm, baud-rate
551
552 ** Support for generating Emacs 18 compatible bytecode (by setting
553 the variable `byte-compile-compatibility') has been removed.
554
555 ** In image-mode.el `image-mode-maybe' is obsolete.
556 Instead, you can either use `image-mode' (which displays an image file
557 as the actual image initially), or `image-mode-as-text' (when you want
558 to display an image file as text initially). `image-mode-as-text' is a
559 combination of a non-image mode from `auto-mode-alist' (or Fundamental
560 mode) and `image-minor-mode'. `image-minor-mode' provides a `C-c C-c'
561 key binding to toggle image display.
562 `image-toggle-display-text' removes image properties.
563 `image-toggle-display-image' adds image properties.
564 `image-toggle-display' toggles between `image-mode-as-text' and `image-mode'.
565
566 \f
567 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
568
569 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
570 variable, are now declared obsolete.
571
572 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
573 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
574
575 ** Frame parameter changes
576
577 *** You can give the `fullscreen' frame parameter the value `maximized'.
578 This maximizes the frame.
579
580 *** The new frame parameter `sticky' makes Emacs frames sticky in
581 virtual desktops.
582
583 ** Completion changes
584
585 *** completion-base-size is obsoleted by completion-base-position.
586 This change causes a few backward incompatibilities, mostly with
587 choose-completion-string-functions where the `mini-p' argument has
588 been replaced by a `base-position' argument, and where the `base-size'
589 argument is now always nil.
590
591 *** New function `completion-in-region' to use the standard completion
592 facilities on a particular region of text.
593
594 *** The 4th arg to all-completions (aka hide-spaces) is declared obsolete.
595
596 *** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
597 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
598
599 ** Minibuffer changes
600
601 *** read-file-name-predicate is obsolete. It was used to pass the predicate
602 to read-file-name-internal because read-file-name-internal abused its `pred'
603 argument to pass the current directory, but this hack is not needed
604 any more.
605
606 ** Changes to file-manipulation functions
607
608 *** `delete-directory' has an optional parameter RECURSIVE.
609
610 *** New function `copy-directory', which copies a directory recursively.
611
612 ** called-interactively-p now takes one argument and replaces interactive-p
613 which is now marked obsolete.
614
615 ** New function set-advertised-calling-convention makes it possible
616 to obsolete arguments as well as make some arguments mandatory.
617
618 ** You can control which binding is preferentially shown in menus and
619 docstrings by adding a `:advertised-binding' property to the corresponding
620 command's symbol. That property can hold a single binding or a list
621 of bindings.
622
623 ** Network and process changes
624
625 *** start-process-shell-command and start-file-process-shell-command
626 now only take a single `command' argument.
627
628 *** The new variable `process-file-side-effects' should be set to nil
629 if a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. This allows
630 file name handlers such as Tramp to optimizations.
631
632 *** make-network-process can now also create `seqpacket' Unix sockets.
633
634 ** Loading changes
635
636 *** eval-next-after-load is obsolete.
637
638 *** New hook `after-load-functions' run after loading an Elisp file.
639
640 ** Byte compilation changes
641
642 *** Changing the file-names generated by byte-compilation by redefining
643 the function `byte-compile-dest-file' before loading bytecomp.el is obsolete.
644 Instead, customize byte-compile-dest-file-function.
645
646 *** `byte-compile-warnings' has new members, `constants' and `suspicious'.
647
648 ** New macro with-silent-modifications to tweak text properties without
649 affecting the buffer's modification state.
650
651 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
652 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
653 functionality.
654
655 ** New functions for performing Unicode normalization:
656 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
657 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
658 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
659 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
660 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
661 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
662
663 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
664 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
665
666 ** New function `window-full-height-p', analogous to the full-width version.
667
668 \f
669 * Changes in Emacs 23.2 on non-free operating systems
670
671 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
672 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
673
674 \f
675 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
676
677 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
678 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
679 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
680
681 ** New font code.
682 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
683 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
684
685 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
686 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
687
688 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
689 where Emacs is running).
690
691 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
692
693 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
694 OpenType fonts.
695
696 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
697
698 ** Changes to image support
699
700 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
701 a GIF library.
702
703 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
704
705 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
706
707 ** New NeXTstep-based port.
708 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
709 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
710
711 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
712 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
713 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
714 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
715
716 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
717 Use the NeXTstep port, described above.
718
719 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
720 bindings for Emacs.
721
722 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
723 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
724
725 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
726
727 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
728
729 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
730
731 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
732 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
733 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
734
735 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
736
737 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
738 executable format.
739
740 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
741
742 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
743
744 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
745
746 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
747
748 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
749 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
750
751 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
752 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
753 you need control over which C compiler is used.
754
755 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
756
757 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
758 or any later version.
759
760 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
761 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
762 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
763 \f
764 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
765
766 ** Improved X Window System support
767
768 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
769 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
770 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
771 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
772 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
773 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
774 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
775
776 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
777 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
778
779 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
780 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
781 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
782 terminal frames using emacsclient.
783
784 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
785 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
786 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
787 emacs server.
788
789 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
790 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
791
792 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
793 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
794 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
795 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
796 for details about XEmbed.
797
798 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
799 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
800 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
801 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
802 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
803
804 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
805 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
806 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
807 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
808
809 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
810 opacity; the default is 20.
811
812 ** Internationalization changes
813
814 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
815 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
816
817 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
818 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
819 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
820 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
821 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
822
823 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
824 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
825 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
826 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
827 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
828 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
829 shared with older Emacsen.
830
831 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
832
833 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
834 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
835 as tables of unicodes.
836
837 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
838 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
839 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
840
841 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
842 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
843
844 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
845 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
846 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
847
848 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
849 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
850 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
851 and others.
852
853 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
854 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
855 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
856 the mode-line mouse menu.
857
858 ** Menu Bar changes
859
860 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
861 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
862 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
863 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
864 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
865
866 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
867 "Save Options" item is used.
868
869 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
870 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
871 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
872
873 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
874 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
875 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
876 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
877
878 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
879 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
880 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
881
882 ** Mode-line changes
883
884 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
885 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
886
887 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
888 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
889
890 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
891 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
892
893 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
894
895 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
896 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
897
898 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
899 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
900 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
901 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
902
903 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
904 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
905 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
906 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
907
908 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
909 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
910 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
911 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
912
913 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
914
915 \f
916 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
917
918 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
919 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
920 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
921 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
922 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
923
924 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
925 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
926 file or directory.
927
928 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
929 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
930 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
931 following arguments.
932
933 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
934
935 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
936 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
937 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
938 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
939 documented.)
940 \f
941 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
942
943 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
944 on the regexp command prefix map.
945
946 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
947 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
948 the history list.
949
950 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
951 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
952 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
953 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
954 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
955 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
956
957 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
958 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
959 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
960 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
961 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
962 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
963
964 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
965 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
966 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
967
968 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
969 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
970 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
971 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
972 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
973 identical.
974
975 \f
976 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
977
978 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
979 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
980 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
981 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
982 alone).
983
984 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
985 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
986 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
987
988 ** Mark changes
989
990 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
991
992 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
993
994 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
995 activating it.
996
997 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
998 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
999
1000 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
1001 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
1002 word at point.
1003
1004 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
1005 region is active.
1006
1007 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
1008 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
1009 that empty region.
1010
1011 ** Temporarily active regions
1012
1013 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
1014 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
1015 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
1016 region, similar to mouse-selection.
1017
1018 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
1019 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
1020 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
1021 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
1022 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
1023 buffer).
1024
1025 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1026
1027 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
1028 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
1029 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
1030 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
1031 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
1032 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
1033 to create the file or buffer.
1034
1035 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
1036 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
1037 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
1038 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
1039
1040 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
1041 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
1042 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
1043 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
1044 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
1045 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
1046 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
1047 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
1048 performing completion.
1049
1050 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
1051 favorite completion style.
1052
1053 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
1054 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
1055 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
1056 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
1057 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
1058 searching minibuffer completion items.
1059
1060 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
1061
1062 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
1063 name of the current buffer.
1064
1065 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
1066 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
1067 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
1068 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
1069 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
1070
1071 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
1072 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
1073 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
1074 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
1075
1076 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
1077 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
1078 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
1079 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
1080 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
1081
1082 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
1083 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
1084 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
1085 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
1086 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
1087 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
1088 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
1089
1090 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
1091 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
1092
1093 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
1094 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
1095
1096 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
1097 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
1098
1099 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
1100 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
1101 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
1102
1103 ** Face changes
1104
1105 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
1106 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
1107 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
1108
1109 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
1110 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
1111 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
1112 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
1113
1114 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
1115 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
1116 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
1117 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
1118
1119 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
1120 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
1121 under New Modes and Packages.
1122
1123 ** Primary selection changes
1124
1125 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
1126 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
1127
1128 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
1129 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
1130 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
1131 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
1132 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
1133 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
1134 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
1135 New Modes and Packages, below.
1136
1137 ** Window management changes
1138
1139 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
1140 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
1141 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
1142
1143 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
1144 vertically and horizontally.
1145
1146 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
1147 is on a different frame.
1148
1149 ** Miscellaneous changes:
1150
1151 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
1152 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
1153 successive invocations.
1154
1155 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
1156
1157 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
1158 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
1159 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
1160
1161 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
1162 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
1163 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
1164
1165 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
1166 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
1167 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
1168 run processes remotely.
1169
1170 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
1171 matches a regexp.
1172
1173 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
1174 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
1175 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
1176
1177 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
1178 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
1179
1180 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
1181 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
1182 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
1183 convenience alias for this function.
1184
1185 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
1186 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
1187 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
1188
1189 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
1190 kill into the password.
1191
1192 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
1193 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
1194
1195 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
1196 \f
1197 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1198
1199 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
1200 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
1201 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
1202
1203 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
1204
1205 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
1206 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
1207 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
1208 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
1209 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
1210 description of face remapping.
1211
1212 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
1213 See http://xkcd.com/378/
1214
1215 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
1216
1217 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
1218 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
1219 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
1220
1221 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
1222 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
1223 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
1224
1225 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
1226
1227 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
1228 the postscript file.
1229
1230 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
1231 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
1232 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
1233 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
1234
1235 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
1236 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
1237
1238 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
1239 current buffer.
1240
1241 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
1242 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
1243 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
1244 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
1245 Maildir/MH setups.
1246
1247 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
1248
1249 ** nXML Mode
1250 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
1251 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
1252 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
1253
1254 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
1255 any invalid parts of your document.
1256
1257 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
1258 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
1259 allowed by the schema in that context.
1260
1261 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
1262 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
1263 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
1264 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
1265 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
1266 MS-Windows and Solaris.
1267
1268 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
1269 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
1270 Manual.
1271
1272 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
1273
1274 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
1275
1276 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
1277 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
1278 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
1279 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
1280 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
1281 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
1282
1283 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
1284 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
1285 requires D-Bus for communication.
1286
1287 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
1288 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
1289 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
1290 which have installed this software.
1291
1292 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
1293 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
1294 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
1295 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
1296 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
1297 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
1298 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
1299 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
1300 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
1301
1302 \f
1303 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1304
1305 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
1306
1307 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
1308 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
1309
1310 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
1311
1312 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
1313 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
1314
1315 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
1316
1317 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
1318
1319 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
1320 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
1321
1322 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
1323 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
1324 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
1325
1326 ** Apropos
1327
1328 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
1329
1330 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
1331
1332 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
1333 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
1334 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
1335
1336 ** BibTeX mode
1337
1338 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
1339
1340 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
1341 `string', disabled by default.
1342
1343 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
1344 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
1345
1346 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
1347
1348 ** Bookmarks
1349
1350 *** bookmark.el saves bookmarks in a pre-Emacs-23-incompatible file format
1351 bookmark.el can read a .emacs.bmk file saved by an older Emacs, but an
1352 older Emacs cannot read one saved by Emacs 23.
1353
1354 ** Calendar and diary
1355
1356 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
1357 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
1358 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
1359 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
1360
1361 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
1362 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
1363 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
1364 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
1365 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
1366 using the new names.
1367
1368 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
1369 See the variables:
1370 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
1371 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
1372
1373 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
1374 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
1375
1376 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
1377 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
1378
1379 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
1380 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
1381
1382 ** Change Log mode
1383
1384 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
1385 associated with the current log entry.
1386
1387 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
1388 source code associated with a log entry.
1389
1390 ** Compile and grep modes
1391
1392 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
1393 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
1394 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
1395
1396 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
1397 the first error encountered during compilations.
1398
1399 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
1400 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
1401
1402 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
1403 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
1404 C++ sources and headers.
1405
1406 ** Copyright
1407
1408 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
1409 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
1410 considered for update.
1411
1412 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
1413 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
1414
1415 ** Custom
1416
1417 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
1418 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
1419
1420 ** Diff mode
1421
1422 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
1423 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
1424 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
1425
1426 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
1427 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
1428 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
1429
1430 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
1431 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
1432
1433 ** Dired
1434
1435 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
1436 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
1437 saving changes.
1438
1439 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
1440 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
1441 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
1442 Command*'.
1443
1444 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
1445 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
1446 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
1447 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
1448 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
1449 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1450 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1451 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1452
1453 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1454 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1455 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1456
1457 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1458 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1459 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1460 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1461 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1462 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1463 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1464
1465 ** Fortran
1466
1467 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1468 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1469
1470 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1471 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1472
1473 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1474
1475 ** Gnus
1476
1477 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1478 There are many new features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1479 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1480
1481 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1482 saving articles, drafts, and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1483 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1484 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1485
1486 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1487 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1488 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1489 authentication respectively.
1490
1491 ** Help mode
1492
1493 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1494 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1495
1496 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1497 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1498
1499 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1500 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1501
1502 ** Isearch
1503
1504 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1505 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1506 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1507 while Isearch is active.
1508
1509 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1510 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1511 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1512 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1513 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1514
1515 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1516 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1517 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1518
1519 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1520 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1521 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1522 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1523 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1524
1525 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1526 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1527 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1528
1529 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1530 `isearch-fail' face.
1531
1532 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1533 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1534 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1535 documentation for Isearch mode. All the other Help commands exit
1536 Isearch mode and execute their global definitions.
1537
1538 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1539 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1540
1541 ** MH-E
1542
1543 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1544
1545 ** Python
1546 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1547 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1548
1549 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1550 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1551 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1552 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1553
1554 ** Recentf
1555
1556 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1557 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1558 corresponding remote host.
1559
1560 ** Rmail
1561
1562 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1563 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1564 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1565
1566 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1567 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1568 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1569 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1570 Rmail usage unaltered.
1571
1572 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1573 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1574 mbox-format file.
1575
1576 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1577 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1578 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1579 instead.
1580
1581 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1582 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1583 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1584 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1585 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1586 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1587 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1588 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1589 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1590 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1591
1592 You may find the following functions useful:
1593
1594 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1595 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1596
1597 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1598 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1599 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1600
1601 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1602 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1603 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1604 to save attachments.
1605
1606 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1607 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1608 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1609 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1610
1611 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1612 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1613 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1614 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1615 copies the full headers of the message.
1616
1617 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1618 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1619
1620 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1621 Previously, this information was hidden.
1622
1623 ** TeX modes
1624
1625 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1626 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1627 by escaped parens.
1628
1629 ** T-mouse Mode
1630
1631 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1632 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1633 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1634 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1635 minibuffer.
1636
1637 ** Tramp
1638
1639 *** New connection methods.
1640 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1641 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1642 "tunnel" and "socks".
1643
1644 *** IPv6 addresses.
1645 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1646 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1647
1648 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1649 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1650 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1651
1652 *** More default settings.
1653 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1654 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1655
1656 *** Connection information is cached.
1657 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1658 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1659 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1660
1661 *** Control of remote processes.
1662 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1663 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1664
1665 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1666 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1667 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1668
1669 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1670 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1671 necessary.
1672
1673 ** VC and related modes
1674
1675 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1676 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1677 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1678 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1679 a single changeset.
1680
1681 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1682 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1683 directory or a set of files/directories.
1684
1685 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1686 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1687 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1688 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1689 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1690 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1691 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1692
1693 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1694
1695 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1696
1697 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1698 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1699
1700 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1701 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1702 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1703 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1704
1705 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1706
1707 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1708 the current line.
1709
1710 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1711 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1712 active.
1713
1714 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1715 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1716 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1717
1718 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1719 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1720 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1721
1722 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1723
1724 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1725
1726 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1727 to update it to the new VC.
1728
1729 ** Miscellaneous
1730
1731 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1732 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1733 on the corresponding remote system.
1734
1735 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1736 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1737
1738 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1739 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1740 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1741
1742 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1743 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1744
1745 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1746 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1747
1748 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1749
1750 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1751 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1752
1753 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1754 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1755
1756 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supersedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1757
1758 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1759 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1760
1761 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1762 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1763
1764 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1765
1766 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1767
1768 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1769 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1770 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1771
1772 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1773
1774 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1775 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1776 several time zones.
1777
1778 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1779 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1780 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1781 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1782
1783 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1784 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1785
1786 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1787 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1788
1789 \f
1790 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1791
1792 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1793 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1794 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1795 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1796 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1797
1798 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1799 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1800 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1801 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1802 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1803
1804 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1805 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1806 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1807
1808 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1809 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1810 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1811 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1812 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1813
1814 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1815 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1816 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1817 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1818 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1819
1820 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1821 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1822 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1823 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1824 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1825 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1826
1827 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1828 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1829 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1830 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1831 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1832 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1833 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1834 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1835 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1836
1837 \f
1838 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1839
1840 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1841
1842 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1843 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1844
1845 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1846 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1847 that range have the same value.
1848
1849 ** Process changes
1850
1851 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1852
1853 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1854 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1855 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1856 obsolete.
1857
1858 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1859 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1860 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1861 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1862 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1863 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1864 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1865
1866 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1867 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1868
1869 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1870 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1871
1872 ** Internationalization changes
1873
1874 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1875
1876 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1877 have been removed.
1878
1879 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1880 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1881 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1882
1883 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1884 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1885 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1886
1887 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1888 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1889
1890 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1891 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1892
1893 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1894 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1895
1896 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1897 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1898
1899 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1900 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1901 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1902
1903 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1904 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1905 default fontset.
1906
1907 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1908 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1909 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1910 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1911 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1912 of `kill-buffer'.
1913
1914 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1915 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1916 temporary-file-directory instead.
1917
1918 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1919 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1920 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1921
1922 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1923 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1924 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1925 whitespace after calling it.
1926
1927 \f
1928 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1929
1930 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1931 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1932 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1933 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1934 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1935 respectively.
1936
1937 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1938 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1939 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1940 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1941 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1942
1943 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1944 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1945
1946 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1947 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1948 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1949
1950 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1951 the selected frame.
1952
1953 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1954 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1955 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1956 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1957
1958 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1959
1960 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1961 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1962 strings on the kill ring.
1963
1964 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1965 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1966 like this:
1967
1968 (condition-case nil
1969 (foo bar)
1970 ((debug error) nil))
1971
1972 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1973
1974 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1975 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1976 arguments.)
1977
1978 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1979 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1980 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1981 remote connection has been established already.
1982
1983 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1984 undefined functions.
1985
1986 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1987
1988 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1989 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1990 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1991
1992 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1993 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1994 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1995
1996 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1997 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1998 interactive forms to subroutines.
1999
2000 ** Region changes
2001
2002 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
2003 an active region that they should operate on.
2004
2005 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
2006 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
2007 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
2008 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
2009 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
2010
2011 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
2012 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
2013 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
2014 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
2015 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
2016
2017 ** Emacs session information
2018
2019 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
2020 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
2021
2022 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
2023
2024 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
2025 Emacs initialization.
2026
2027 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
2028
2029 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
2030 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
2031 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
2032 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
2033 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
2034 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
2035 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
2036 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
2037 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
2038 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
2039 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
2040
2041 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
2042 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
2043
2044 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
2045 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
2046 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
2047
2048 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
2049 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
2050 individual windows.
2051
2052 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
2053 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
2054
2055 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
2056
2057 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
2058 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
2059 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
2060 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
2061 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
2062
2063 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
2064 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
2065 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
2066
2067 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
2068 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
2069
2070 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
2071 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
2072
2073 ** Search and replacement changes
2074
2075 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
2076
2077 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
2078 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
2079
2080 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
2081 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
2082 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
2083 argument is nil.
2084
2085 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
2086 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
2087 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
2088 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
2089 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
2090
2091 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
2092 for search related commands.
2093
2094 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
2095 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
2096
2097 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
2098 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
2099
2100 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
2101 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
2102 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
2103 unless it ends in whitespace.
2104
2105 ** File handling changes
2106
2107 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
2108 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
2109
2110 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
2111 variables defined in the current buffer.
2112
2113 ** Face-remapping
2114
2115 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
2116 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
2117 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
2118 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
2119 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
2120
2121 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
2122 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
2123 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
2124 Editing Changes, above).
2125
2126 *** New functions:
2127
2128 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
2129 current buffer.
2130
2131 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
2132 the current buffer.
2133
2134 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
2135
2136 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
2137
2138 ** Process changes
2139
2140 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
2141 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
2142 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
2143 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
2144 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
2145
2146 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
2147 returns its output as a list of lines.
2148
2149 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
2150
2151 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
2152 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
2153 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
2154 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
2155 bytes.
2156
2157 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
2158
2159 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
2160 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
2161 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
2162
2163 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
2164 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
2165
2166 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
2167 characters for display.
2168
2169 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
2170 positional codes instead of just 2.
2171
2172 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
2173
2174 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
2175 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
2176
2177 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
2178 priorities of charsets.
2179
2180 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
2181 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
2182 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
2183 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
2184 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
2185 `titlecase'.
2186
2187 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
2188 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
2189 entries in that range of characters.
2190
2191 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
2192 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
2193 internal representation of characters.
2194
2195 *** New functions:
2196
2197 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
2198 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
2199
2200 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
2201
2202 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
2203
2204 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
2205
2206 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
2207
2208 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
2209
2210 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
2211
2212 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
2213 a character code property.
2214
2215 *** New variables:
2216
2217 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
2218 search for a word boundary.
2219
2220 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
2221
2222 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
2223
2224 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
2225 property on printing a string.
2226
2227 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
2228
2229 ** Code conversion changes
2230
2231 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
2232 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
2233
2234 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
2235 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
2236 conversion should go.
2237
2238 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
2239 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
2240 of conversion.
2241
2242 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
2243 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
2244 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
2245 bytes.
2246
2247 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
2248
2249 *** New functions:
2250
2251 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
2252 coding system priority order.
2253
2254 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
2255 encodable by the specified coding systems.
2256
2257 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
2258
2259 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
2260 by a coding system.
2261
2262 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
2263 ordered by their priorities.
2264
2265 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
2266
2267 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
2268 the argument name.
2269
2270 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
2271 It has three functionalities:
2272 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
2273 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
2274 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
2275 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
2276
2277 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
2278
2279 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
2280
2281 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
2282 as an input method.
2283
2284 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
2285 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
2286 character.
2287
2288 ** Changes related to the new font backend
2289
2290 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
2291 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
2292
2293 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
2294
2295 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
2296 available on your graphic device.
2297
2298 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
2299 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
2300 currently `x' and `xft'.
2301
2302 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
2303 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
2304 set the font.
2305
2306 *** New functions:
2307
2308 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
2309
2310 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
2311
2312 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
2313
2314 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
2315
2316 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
2317
2318 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
2319
2320 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
2321
2322 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
2323
2324 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
2325 entity, or font object.
2326
2327 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
2328
2329 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
2330
2331 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
2332 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
2333
2334 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
2335
2336 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
2337 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
2338 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
2339 takes a frame argument.
2340
2341 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
2342 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
2343
2344 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
2345 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
2346
2347 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
2348 session.
2349
2350 *** A new `terminal' data type.
2351 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
2352 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
2353
2354 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
2355 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
2356 which is not used directly any more.
2357
2358 *** New hooks:
2359
2360 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
2361 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
2362 file-local variables.
2363
2364 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
2365 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
2366 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
2367 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
2368
2369 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
2370 deleting a terminal.
2371
2372 *** New functions:
2373
2374 **** `delete-terminal'
2375
2376 **** `suspend-tty'
2377
2378 **** `resume-tty'.
2379
2380 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
2381
2382 ** Redisplay changes
2383
2384 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
2385 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
2386
2387 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
2388 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
2389 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
2390 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
2391
2392 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
2393
2394 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
2395 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
2396 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
2397 times the default column width.
2398
2399 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
2400 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
2401 instead.
2402
2403 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
2404 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
2405 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
2406 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
2407 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
2408 name, but take precedence.
2409
2410 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
2411
2412 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2413
2414 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
2415
2416 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
2417 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
2418
2419 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
2420 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
2421 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
2422 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
2423
2424 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
2425 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
2426
2427 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
2428 attributes of a given face.
2429
2430 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
2431 string of days, hours, etc.
2432
2433 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
2434 specification.
2435
2436 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
2437 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
2438 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
2439
2440 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
2441
2442 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
2443 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
2444
2445 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
2446 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
2447 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
2448
2449 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2450 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2451 the match data.
2452
2453 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2454 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2455 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2456
2457 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2458
2459 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2460 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2461
2462 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2463 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2464
2465 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2466 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2467
2468 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2469 marker used for window-point.
2470
2471 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2472 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2473 relevant data.
2474
2475 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2476 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2477
2478 \f
2479 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2480
2481 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2482
2483 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2484 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2485
2486 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2487
2488 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2489 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2490 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2491 of multiple buffers. Top-level functions `multi-isearch-buffers',
2492 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2493 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2494 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2495
2496 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2497 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2498
2499 \f
2500 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2501 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2502
2503 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2504 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2505 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2506 (at your option) any later version.
2507
2508 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2509 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2510 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2511 GNU General Public License for more details.
2512
2513 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2514 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2515
2516 \f
2517 Local variables:
2518 mode: outline
2519 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2520 end:
2521