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[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2000-10-12
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
12
13 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
14
15 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
16 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
17
18 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
19 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
20 to list them.
21
22 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
23 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
24
25 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
26 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
27
28 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
29 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
30 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions.
31
32 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
33 new display features described below.
34
35 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
36 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
37 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support.
38
39 \f
40 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
41
42 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
43 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
44 `auto-compression-mode' command.
45
46 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
47 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME.
48
49 +++
50 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
51 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
52
53 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs header-line
54 (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window), so that it
55 remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled. This behavior
56 may be disabled by customizing the option `Info-use-header-line'.
57
58 +++
59 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
60 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
61
62 +++
63 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
64 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
65
66 +++
67 ** Gnus changes.
68
69 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
70 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
71 internationalization and mail-fetching.
72
73 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
74 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
75
76 If you used procmail like in
77
78 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
79 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
80 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
81 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
82
83 this now has changed to
84
85 (setq mail-sources
86 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
87 :suffix ".in")))
88
89 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
90 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
91
92 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
93 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
94 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, SEMI, mime-compose etc., will
95 probably no longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
96
97 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
98 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
99 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
100 now just a compatibility layer.
101
102 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
103 called to position point.
104
105 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
106 summary buffers and NOV files.
107
108 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
109 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
110
111 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
112 subtly different manner.
113
114 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
115 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
116 ever-changing layouts.
117
118 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
119
120 *** There is image support.
121
122 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
123 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
124 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
125 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
126 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
127 on.
128
129 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
130 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
131 file that is already visited under a different name.
132
133 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
134 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
135
136 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
137 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
138 signaled.
139
140 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
141 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
142 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
143 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
144 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
145 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
146
147 +++
148 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
149 and displays information about that.
150
151 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
152 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
153
154 ** Polish and German translations of Emacs' reference card have been
155 added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex' and `de-refcard.tex'.
156 Postscript files are included.
157
158 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
159 `dired-ref.tex'.
160
161 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
162 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
163
164 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
165 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
166 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
167 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
168 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
169 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
170
171 +++
172 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
173 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
174 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
175 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
176
177 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
178 a version-dependent component.
179
180 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
181 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
182 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
183 character is still bound as before.
184
185 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
186 using that menu.
187
188 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
189 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
190
191 +++
192 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
193 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
194 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
195 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
196 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
197 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
198 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
199
200 +++
201 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
202 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
203 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
204 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
205 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
206 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
207 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
208 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
209 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
210
211 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
212 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
213
214 +++
215 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
216 point in a pop-up window.
217
218 +++
219 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
220 displays all characters in that character set.
221
222 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
223 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
224
225 +++
226 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
227 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
228 defined on newcomment.el.
229
230 +++
231 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
232
233 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
234 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
235
236 +++
237 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
238 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
239 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
240 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
241
242 +++
243 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
244 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
245 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
246 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
247
248 +++
249 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
250 on the display using several methods
251
252 +++
253 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
254 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
255 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
256
257 +++
258 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
259 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
260
261 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
262
263 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
264 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
265
266 +++
267 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
268 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
269 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
270 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
271
272 +++
273 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
274 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
275 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
276
277 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
278 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
279
280 +++
281 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
282 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
283 this behavior.
284
285 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
286 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
287 Emacs dump core.
288
289 +++
290 ** New X resources recognized
291
292 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
293 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
294 is useful for debugging X problems.
295
296 Example:
297
298 emacs.synchronous: true
299
300 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
301 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
302 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
303 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
304 visual class names are
305
306 TrueColor
307 PseudoColor
308 DirectColor
309 StaticColor
310 GrayScale
311 StaticGray
312
313 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
314 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
315 meaning.
316
317 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
318 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
319 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
320 visual.
321
322 Example:
323
324 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
325
326 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
327 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
328 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
329 resource values are `true' or `on'.
330
331 Example:
332
333 emacs.privateColormap: true
334
335 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
336 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
337 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
338
339 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
340 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
341 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
342 be customized.
343
344 +++
345 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
346
347 +++
348 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
349 all frames except the selected one.
350
351 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
352 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
353
354 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
355 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
356 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
357 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
358
359 +++
360 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
361 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
362
363 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
364 read mail from the menu etc.
365
366 +++
367 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
368 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
369
370 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
371
372 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
373 macros
374
375 Key binding Macro
376 -------------------------
377 C-c C-c C-s @strong
378 C-c C-c C-e @emph
379 C-c C-c u @url
380 C-c C-c q @quotation
381 C-c C-c m @email
382
383 ** Changes in Outline mode.
384
385 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
386 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
387 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
388
389 ** Changes to Emacs Server
390
391 +++
392 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
393 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
394 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
395 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
396 buffers to kill, as before.
397
398 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
399 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
400 this way.
401
402 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
403
404 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
405 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
406 use. Default is 1000.
407
408 +++
409 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
410 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
411
412 +++
413 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
414 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
415 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
416 buffers.
417
418 +++
419 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
420 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
421 .emacs file.
422
423 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
424 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
425
426 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
427 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
428 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
429
430 ** Faces and frame parameters.
431
432 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
433 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
434 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
435 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
436 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
437 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
438 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
439
440 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
441 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
442 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
443 `default' face and vice versa.
444
445 +++
446 ** New face `menu'.
447
448 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
449 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
450 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
451
452 +++
453 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
454
455 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
456 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
457 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
458 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
459
460 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
461 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
462 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
463
464 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
465 `ScreenGamma'.
466
467 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
468
469 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
470 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
471 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
472 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
473 the text.
474
475 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
476
477 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
478 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
479 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
480 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
481 specify a font.
482
483 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
484 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
485 under Lisp changes, below.
486
487 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
488
489 +++
490 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
491 of its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid;
492 otherwise, it is hollow.
493
494 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
495 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
496 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
497 customizing face `fringe'.
498
499 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
500 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
501
502 ** LessTif support.
503
504 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see <http://www.lesstif.org>).
505 You will need a version 0.88.1 or later.
506
507 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
508
509 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
510 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
511 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
512 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
513 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
514 Emacs.
515
516 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
517 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
518 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
519 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
520 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
521 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
522
523 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
524 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
525 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
526 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
527 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
528 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
529
530 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
531 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
532 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
533 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
534 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
535
536 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
537
538 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
539 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
540 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
541
542 +++
543 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
544
545 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
546 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
547 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
548 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
549 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
550 whitespace.
551
552 +++
553 ** Busy-cursor.
554
555 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
556 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
557
558 +++
559 ** Blinking cursor
560
561 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
562 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
563 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
564 the group `cursor'.
565
566 +++
567 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
568
569 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
570 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
571 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
572 details.
573
574 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
575 have to do anything to activate it.
576
577 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
578
579 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
580 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
581 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
582 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
583
584 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
585
586 +++
587 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
588
589 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
590
591 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
592 LessTif/Motif one.
593
594 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
595 LessTif and Motif.
596
597 +++
598 ** Hscrolling in C code.
599
600 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
601 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
602 customized.
603
604 +++
605 ** Tool bar support.
606
607 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
608 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
609 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
610 displayed. To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of
611 extra icons for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
612
613 +++
614 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
615
616 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
617 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
618 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
619 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
620 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
621
622 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
623
624 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
625 buffers.
626
627 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
628 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
629
630 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
631
632 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
633 `*') toggles the status.
634
635 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
636
637 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
638
639 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
640 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
641 non-nil.
642
643 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
644
645 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
646 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
647 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
648 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
649 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
650 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
651 on terminals.
652
653 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
654 supported on character terminals.
655
656 ** Sound support
657
658 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
659 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
660 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
661
662 +++
663 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
664 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
665 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
666 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
667 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
668 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
669
670 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
671
672 +++
673 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
674
675 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
676 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
677 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
678
679 +++
680 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
681 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
682
683 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
684 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
685 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
686
687 +++
688 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
689
690 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
691 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
692 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
693 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
694
695 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
696 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
697 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
698 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
699
700 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
701 notably at the end of lines.
702
703 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
704 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
705
706 +++
707 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
708
709 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
710 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
711 after each match to get the replacement text.
712
713 +++
714 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
715 you edit the replacement string.
716
717 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
718 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
719 lisp-complete-symbol.
720
721 +++
722 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
723
724 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
725 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
726 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
727 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
728
729 - User option: max-mini-window-height
730
731 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
732 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
733 specifies a number of lines.
734
735 Default is 0.25.
736
737 - User option: resize-mini-windows
738
739 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
740 resize ot fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
741 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
742 again.
743
744 Default is `grow-only'.
745
746 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
747
748 ** Changes to hideshow.el
749
750 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
751 selection and traversal, includes more isearch support, and has more
752 conventional keybindings.
753
754 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
755
756 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
757 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
758 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
759 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
760 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
761 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
762
763 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
764 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
765 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
766 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
767
768 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
769
770 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
771 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
772 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
773 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
774 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
775
776 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
777 something like this in your .emacs.
778
779 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
780 (lambda ()
781 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
782
783 *** New customization var: `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function'
784
785 Normally, `hs-hide-all' hides everything, leaving only the
786 header lines of top-level forms (and comments, unless var
787 `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is non-nil). It does this by
788 moving point to each top-level block beginning and hiding the
789 block there. In some major modes (for example, Java), this
790 behavior results in few blocks left visible, which may not be so
791 useful.
792
793 You can now set var `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' to a
794 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead
795 of the normal block-hiding function. For example, the following
796 code defines a function to hide one level down and move point
797 appropriately, and then tells hideshow to use the new function.
798
799 (defun ttn-hs-hide-level-1 ()
800 (hs-hide-level 1)
801 (forward-sexp 1))
802 (setq hs-hide-all-non-comment-function 'ttn-hs-hide-level-1)
803
804 The name `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' was chosen to
805 emphasize that this function is not called for comment blocks,
806 only for code blocks.
807
808 *** Command deleted: `hs-show-region'
809
810 Historical Note: This command was added to handle "unbalanced
811 parentheses" emergencies back when hideshow.el used selective
812 display for implementation.
813
814 *** Commands rebound to more conventional keys
815
816 The hideshow commands used to be bound to keys of the form "C-c
817 LETTER". This is contrary to the Emacs keybinding convention,
818 which reserves that space for user modification. Here are the
819 new bindings (which includes the addition of `hs-toggle-hiding'):
820
821 hs-hide-block C-c C-h
822 hs-show-block C-c C-s
823 hs-hide-all C-c C-M-h
824 hs-show-all C-c C-M-s
825 hs-hide-level C-c C-l
826 hs-toggle-hiding C-c C-c
827 hs-mouse-toggle-hiding [(shift button-2)]
828
829 These were chosen to roughly imitate those used by Outline mode.
830
831 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
832
833 +++
834 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
835 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
836 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
837
838 +++
839 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
840 current buffer.
841
842 +++
843 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
844 in a log file.
845
846 +++
847 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
848 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
849
850 +++
851 *** Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
852 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
853 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be cutomized.
854 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
855
856 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
857
858 ** Changes to cmuscheme
859
860 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
861 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
862
863 ** Changes in Font Lock
864
865 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
866 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
867 mode.
868
869 *** multiline patterns are now supported.
870
871 ** Comint (subshell) changes
872
873 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
874 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
875
876 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
877 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
878 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
879 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
880 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
881 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
882 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
883 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
884
885 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
886 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
887
888 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
889 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
890 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
891
892 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
893 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
894 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
895
896 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
897 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
898 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
899
900 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
901 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
902 argument, it appends to the file.
903
904 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
905 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
906 compatibility.
907
908 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
909 ring (history).
910
911 ** Changes to Rmail mode
912
913 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
914 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
915 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
916 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
917 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
918 as correspondent.
919
920 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
921 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
922 regexp matching your mail addresses.
923
924 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
925 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
926 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
927 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
928 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
929
930 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
931 like `j'.
932
933 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
934 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
935 digest message.
936
937 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
938 in which folder to put messages automatically.
939
940 ** Changes to TeX mode
941
942 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
943 `latex-mode'.
944
945 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
946
947 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
948 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
949 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
950 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
951 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
952 can be edited from that buffer.
953
954 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
955 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
956 `A' to use all marked entries).
957
958 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
959 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
960
961 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
962 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
963 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
964 been cited.
965
966 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
967 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
968 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
969 in column 1 are always made leaves.
970
971 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
972 has the following new features:
973
974 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
975 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
976 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
977 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
978
979 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
980 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
981 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
982 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
983 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
984 defaults to 1.
985
986 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
987 file names.
988
989 +++
990 ** Tooltips.
991
992 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
993 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
994 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
995
996 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
997 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
998 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
999 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
1000
1001 +++
1002 ** Customize changes
1003
1004 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
1005 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
1006 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
1007
1008 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
1009 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
1010 default).
1011
1012 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
1013 between custom options. Example:
1014
1015 (defcustom default-input-method nil
1016 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
1017 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
1018 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
1019 :group 'mule
1020 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
1021 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
1022
1023 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
1024 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
1025 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
1026
1027 ** New features in evaluation commands
1028
1029 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
1030 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
1031 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
1032 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
1033 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
1034
1035 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
1036 code when called with a prefix argument.
1037
1038 ** Ispell changes
1039
1040 +++
1041 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1042 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1043 spell-checks the current buffer.
1044
1045 +++
1046 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1047 added.
1048
1049 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1050 correction is made and re-checked.
1051
1052 *** An Italian and a Portuguese dictionary definition has been added.
1053
1054 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1055 cases.
1056
1057 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1058 on syntax errors.
1059
1060 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1061 end of the buffer.
1062
1063 ** Dired changes
1064
1065 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1066 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1067 is, delete only empty directories.
1068
1069 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1070 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1071 copy directories recursively.
1072
1073 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1074 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1075 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1076
1077 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1078 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1079 directory.
1080
1081 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1082 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1083 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1084 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1085 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1086
1087 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1088 from ls switches.
1089
1090 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1091 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1092 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1093 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1094
1095 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1096 use the -f option when sending mail.
1097
1098 ** CC mode changes.
1099
1100 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1101 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1102 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1103 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1104 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1105 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1106 release.
1107
1108 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1109 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1110 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1111 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1112 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1113 have to bother.
1114
1115 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1116 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1117 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1118 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1119 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1120 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1121
1122 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1123 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1124 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1125 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1126 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1127 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1128 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1129 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1130
1131 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1132 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1133 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1134 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1135 above.
1136
1137 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1138 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1139 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1140 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1141 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1142 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1143 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1144 function documentation for more info.
1145
1146 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1147 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1148 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1149 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1150 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1151 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1152 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1153 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1154
1155 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1156
1157 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1158 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1159
1160 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1161 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1162 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1163 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1164 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1165 style system.
1166
1167 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1168 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1169 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1170 as far as possible.
1171
1172 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1173 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1174 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1175 chapter about this in the manual.
1176
1177 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1178 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1179 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1180 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1181 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1182
1183 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1184 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1185 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1186
1187 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1188 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1189
1190 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1191 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1192 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1193 inside CC Mode.
1194
1195 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1196 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1197 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1198 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1199 cc-mode/).
1200
1201 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1202 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1203 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1204 literals.
1205
1206 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1207 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1208 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1209 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1210 this function.
1211
1212 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1213 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1214 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1215 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1216 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1217
1218 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1219 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1220 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1221
1222 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1223
1224 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1225 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1226 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1227 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1228
1229 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1230 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1231 the column specified by comment-column.
1232
1233 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1234 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1235 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1236 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1237 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1238 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1239
1240 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1241 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1242 arguments.
1243
1244 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1245
1246 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1247 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1248 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1249 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1250 Provan).
1251
1252 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1253
1254 ** Makefile mode changes
1255
1256 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1257
1258 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1259 Fontlock mode is active.
1260
1261 ** Isearch changes
1262
1263 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1264 so that searches can be resumed.
1265
1266 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1267 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1268 that started the search.
1269
1270 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1271 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1272
1273 +++
1274 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1275
1276 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1277 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1278 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1279 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1280 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1281 `secondary-selection'.
1282
1283 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1284 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1285 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1286 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1287 usual snappy response.
1288
1289 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1290 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1291 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1292 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1293
1294 +++
1295 ** Changes in sort.el
1296
1297 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1298 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1299 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1300 numeric base.
1301
1302 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1303
1304 +++
1305 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1306 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1307 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1308
1309 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1310 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1311
1312 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1313 output ^M at the end of lines.
1314
1315 ** Shell script mode changes.
1316
1317 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1318 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
1319 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1320
1321 ** Etags changes.
1322
1323 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1324
1325 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1326 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1327 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1328 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1329 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1330
1331 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1332 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1333
1334 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1335 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1336
1337 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1338 types.
1339
1340 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1341
1342 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1343
1344 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1345 are now tagged.
1346
1347 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1348 variables are tagged.
1349
1350 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1351
1352 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1353 for PSWrap.
1354
1355 +++
1356 ** Changes in etags.el
1357
1358 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1359 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1360 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1361
1362 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1363 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1364
1365 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1366 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1367 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1368 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1369
1370 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1371
1372 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1373 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1374
1375 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1376
1377 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1378 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1379 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1380
1381 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1382 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1383
1384 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1385 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1386
1387 +++
1388 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1389 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1390 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1391
1392 +++
1393 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1394 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1395 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1396 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet; there are basic 8859-14 and
1397 8859-15 fonts at <URL:http://czyborra.com/charsets/> and recent X
1398 releases have 8859-15. There are new Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix
1399 (only) and Polish slash input methods in Leim.
1400
1401 +++
1402 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1403 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1404 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1405
1406 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1407
1408 +++
1409 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1410
1411 +++
1412 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1413 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1414 expression from that list, are not checked.
1415
1416 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1417 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1418 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1419 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1420
1421 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1422
1423 +++
1424 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1425 displays local abbrevs, only.
1426
1427 ** VC Changes
1428
1429 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1430 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1431 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1432 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1433 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1434 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of atoms that identify
1435 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1436 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1437 file is registered in that backend.
1438
1439 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1440 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1441 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1442 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1443 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1444 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1445
1446 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1447 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1448 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1449 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1450 where it doesn't make sense.)
1451
1452 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1453 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1454 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1455
1456 *** General Changes
1457
1458 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1459 checks are always done now.
1460
1461 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1462 operations.
1463
1464 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1465 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1466 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1467
1468 *** Changes for CVS
1469
1470 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1471 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1472 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1473 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1474 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1475 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1476 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1477
1478 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1479 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1480 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1481 commit, you can either use C-u C-x v m to perform an update on the
1482 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1483 entire directory tree.
1484
1485 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1486 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1487 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1488 "watched" by other developers.)
1489
1490 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1491
1492 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1493 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1494 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1495 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1496 a version system named FOO, you write a library named vc-foo.el, which
1497 provides a number of functions vc-foo-... (see commentary at the end
1498 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1499 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the atom
1500 `FOO' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1501
1502 ** New modes and packages
1503
1504 +++
1505 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1506 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1507 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1508 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1509 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1510 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1511 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1512 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1513 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1514
1515 +++
1516 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1517 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1518 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1519 on certain projects.
1520
1521 +++
1522 *** The new package hi-lock.el, text matching interactively entered
1523 regexp's can be highlighted. For example,
1524
1525 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1526
1527 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1528 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1529 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1530 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1531 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1532 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1533 corresponding file is read.
1534
1535 +++
1536 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1537 Emacs is idle.
1538
1539 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1540 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1541
1542 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1543 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1544 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1545
1546 +++
1547 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1548 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1549 separate Texinfo file.
1550
1551 +++
1552 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1553 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1554 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1555 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1556 enter checkin log messages.
1557
1558 +++
1559 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1560 without invoking external programs.
1561
1562 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1563 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1564 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1565 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1566 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1567
1568 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1569 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1570
1571 +++
1572 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1573 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1574
1575 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1576 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1577 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1578 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1579 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1580 single step.
1581
1582 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1583 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1584 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1585 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1586
1587 +++
1588 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1589 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1590 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1591
1592 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1593 PostScript.
1594
1595 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1596
1597 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1598
1599 ; comment (until end of line)
1600 A non-terminal
1601 "C" terminal
1602 ?C? special
1603 $A default non-terminal
1604 $"C" default terminal
1605 $?C? default special
1606 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1607 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1608 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1609 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1610 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1611 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1612 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1613 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1614 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1615 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1616 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1617 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1618 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1619 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1620 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1621
1622 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1623
1624 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1625 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1626 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1627 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1628 equal signs of assignments.
1629
1630 +++
1631 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1632 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1633
1634 +++
1635 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1636 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1637 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1638 customize the package.
1639
1640 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1641
1642 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1643 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1644 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1645 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1646 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1647 which answers different needs.
1648
1649 +++
1650 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1651 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1652 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1653 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1654 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1655 to be enabled.
1656
1657 +++
1658 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1659 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1660
1661 +++
1662 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1663
1664 +++
1665 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1666
1667 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1668
1669 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-shell-mode' and
1670 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
1671 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
1672 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
1673 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
1674 and background colors.
1675
1676 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1677 Pascal) language.
1678
1679 +++
1680 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1681 the text at point.
1682
1683 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1684
1685 +++
1686 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1687
1688 *** whitespace.el ???
1689
1690 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1691 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1692 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1693 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1694 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1695 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1696 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1697
1698 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1699
1700 Here is an example of columns:
1701
1702 horse apple bus
1703 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1704 porcupine strawberry airplane
1705
1706 Doing the following settings:
1707
1708 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1709 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1710 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1711 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1712
1713
1714 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1715
1716 M-x delimit-columns-region
1717
1718 It results:
1719
1720 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1721 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1722 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1723
1724 delim-col has the following options:
1725
1726 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1727 before all columns.
1728
1729 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1730 between each column.
1731
1732 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1733 after all columns.
1734
1735 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1736 each column.
1737
1738 delim-col has the following commands:
1739
1740 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1741 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1742
1743 +++
1744 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1745 were operated on recently.
1746
1747 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1748
1749 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1750 recentf at Emacs startup.
1751
1752 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1753 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1754 file list can be displayed:
1755
1756 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1757 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1758 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1759
1760 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1761 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1762
1763 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1764 text.
1765
1766 +++
1767 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1768 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1769 specific to Message mode.
1770
1771 +++
1772 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1773 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1774 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1775
1776 +++
1777 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1778 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1779 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1780
1781 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1782 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1783
1784 +++
1785 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1786
1787 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1788 minibuffer with completion.
1789
1790 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1791 with the diary features.
1792
1793 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1794 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1795
1796 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1797 Fill mode.
1798
1799 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1800 Gnus facilities.
1801
1802 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
1803 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
1804 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
1805 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
1806
1807 +++
1808 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
1809 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
1810
1811 +++
1812 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
1813 to be visited as images.
1814
1815 ** Withdrawn packages
1816
1817 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1818 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1819
1820 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1821
1822 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1823
1824 \f
1825 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1826 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1827
1828 +++
1829 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
1830 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
1831
1832 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum",
1833 currently using the `md5sum' program.
1834
1835 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
1836 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
1837 being deleted.
1838
1839 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
1840
1841 +++
1842 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
1843 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
1844 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
1845 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
1846 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
1847 charset.
1848
1849 +++
1850 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
1851 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
1852 message.
1853
1854 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
1855 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
1856
1857 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
1858 with the more general `:mask' property.
1859
1860 ** Image specifications accept more `:algorithm's.
1861
1862 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
1863 backslash.
1864
1865 +++
1866 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
1867 is running in batch mode. For example,
1868
1869 (message "%s" (read t))
1870
1871 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
1872 to standard output.
1873
1874 +++
1875 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
1876 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
1877
1878 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
1879 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
1880 frame or window.
1881
1882 +++
1883 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
1884 were added
1885
1886 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
1887
1888 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
1889 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
1890
1891 - Function: remq ELT LIST
1892
1893 Return a copy of LIST with all occurences of ELT removed. The
1894 comparison is done with `eq'.
1895
1896 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
1897
1898 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
1899 has been changed.
1900
1901 +++
1902 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1903 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1904 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1905
1906 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1907 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1908
1909 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1910 function was declared obsolete.
1911
1912 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
1913 retained as an alias).
1914
1915 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1916 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1917 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1918
1919 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1920
1921 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1922
1923 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1924 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1925
1926 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1927
1928 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1929
1930 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1931
1932 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1933 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1934 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1935 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1936 returned.
1937
1938 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1939 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1940 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1941 minibuffer even if it is active.
1942
1943 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1944 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1945 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1946 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1947 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1948 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1949
1950 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1951 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1952 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1953 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1954 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1955 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1956 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1957
1958 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
1959 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
1960 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
1961
1962 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1963 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1964 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1965 Default value is nil.
1966
1967 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
1968 meaning no limit.
1969
1970 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
1971 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1972 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1973
1974 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1975 of a primitive.
1976
1977 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
1978
1979 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1980 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1981 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1982 than replacing the local map.
1983
1984 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1985 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1986
1987 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1988
1989 +++
1990 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
1991 as promised long ago.
1992
1993 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
1994 \f
1995 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1996
1997 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1998 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1999 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2000 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2001
2002 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2003 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2004 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2005 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2006
2007 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2008 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2009 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
2010 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2011
2012 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
2013 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
2014 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2015
2016 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2017 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2018 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2019 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2020 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2021 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2022 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2023 eight-bit-graphic.
2024
2025 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2026
2027 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
2028 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2029 character set as previously.
2030
2031 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2032 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2033 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2034
2035 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2036 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2037 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2038 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2039
2040 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2041 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
2042
2043 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2044 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2045 "fontset-default".
2046
2047 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2048 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2049
2050 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2051 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2052 buffers and strings.
2053
2054 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2055 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2056 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2057 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2058 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2059 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2060 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
2061 also been deleted.
2062
2063 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
2064 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
2065 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
2066
2067 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
2068 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
2069 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
2070 may differ between buffer and string text.
2071
2072 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2073 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2074
2075 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
2076 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
2077 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
2078 `composition' from STRING.
2079
2080 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2081 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2082
2083 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2084 obsolete.
2085
2086 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
2087 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' are introduced
2088 for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF, U+2500..U+33FF,
2089 U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
2090
2091 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
2092 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
2093 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
2094
2095 +++
2096 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2097 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
2098 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
2099
2100 +++
2101 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
2102 that offset in the file before writing.
2103
2104 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
2105 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
2106
2107 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
2108 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
2109 from which the command was issued.
2110
2111 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
2112 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
2113 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
2114 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
2115 operate on.
2116
2117 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
2118 to `window-buffer-height'.
2119
2120 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
2121
2122 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
2123 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
2124 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2125
2126 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2127 respectively.
2128
2129 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
2130 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2131
2132 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2133 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2134 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2135
2136 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2137 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2138 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2139 is currently displayed in some window.
2140
2141 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2142 argument function's results.
2143
2144 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2145 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
2146
2147 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2148 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2149
2150 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2151 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2152
2153 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2154 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2155 as follows:
2156
2157 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2158 nil don't display a cursor
2159 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2160 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2161 others display a box cursor.
2162
2163 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2164 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2165 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2166 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2167
2168 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2169 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2170 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2171 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2172
2173 Example:
2174
2175 (string-to-syntax "()")
2176 => (4 . 41)
2177
2178 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2179 other than 10.
2180
2181 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2182 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2183
2184 #b1111
2185 => 15
2186 #b-1111
2187 => -15
2188
2189 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2190
2191 #o666
2192 => 438
2193
2194 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2195
2196 #xbeef
2197 => 48815
2198
2199 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2200
2201 #2R-111
2202 => -7
2203 #25rah
2204 => 267
2205
2206 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2207 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2208 and isn't a string.
2209
2210 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2211 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2212 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2213 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2214
2215 +++
2216 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2217
2218 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2219 for a regexp in a string.
2220
2221 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2222 `mouse-position-function'.
2223
2224 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2225 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2226
2227 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2228 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2229
2230 +++
2231 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2232 returns it.
2233
2234 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2235 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2236
2237 +++
2238 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2239 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2240 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2241 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2242 mode.
2243
2244 +++
2245 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2246 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2247
2248 +++
2249 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2250 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2251 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2252 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2253 been performed."
2254
2255 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2256 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2257 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2258 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2259
2260 +++
2261 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2262 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2263 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2264
2265 +++
2266 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2267 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2268 specified table.
2269
2270 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2271
2272 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2273 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2274 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2275 what BODY returns.
2276
2277 +++
2278 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2279 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2280
2281 +++
2282 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2283 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2284
2285 +++
2286 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2287 instead of being optional.
2288
2289 +++
2290 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2291 modify read-only text.
2292
2293 +++
2294 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2295
2296 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2297 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2298 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2299 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2300 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2301
2302 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2303 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2304 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2305 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2306 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2307 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2308 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2309
2310 +++
2311 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2312 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2313 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2314 start sequences.
2315
2316 +++
2317 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2318 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2319
2320 +++
2321 ** New function `propertize'
2322
2323 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2324 strings with text properties.
2325
2326 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2327
2328 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2329 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2330 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2331 specified value of that property. Example:
2332
2333 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2334
2335 +++
2336 ** push and pop macros.
2337
2338 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2339 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2340 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2341
2342 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2343 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2344 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2345
2346 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2347
2348 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2349 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2350
2351 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2352 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2353 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2354 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2355
2356 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2357 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2358 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2359 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2360
2361 +++
2362 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
2363 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
2364
2365 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2366 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2367 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2368 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2369 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2370 space, and DEL.
2371 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2372 and DEL.
2373 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2374 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2375 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2376 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2377 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2378 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2379 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2380 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2381 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2382 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2383 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2384 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2385 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2386 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2387 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2388
2389 +++
2390 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2391
2392 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2393
2394 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2395
2396 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2397 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2398
2399 :test TEST
2400
2401 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2402 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2403 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2404
2405 :size SIZE
2406
2407 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2408 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2409
2410 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2411
2412 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2413 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2414 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2415 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2416 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2417
2418 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2419
2420 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2421 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2422 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2423
2424 :weakness WEAK
2425
2426 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2427 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2428 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2429 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2430 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2431
2432 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2433
2434 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2435
2436 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2437
2438 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2439
2440 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2441
2442 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2443 values are shared.
2444
2445 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2446
2447 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2448
2449 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2450
2451 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2452
2453 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2454
2455 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2456
2457 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2458
2459 Returns the size of TABLE.
2460
2461 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2462
2463 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2464
2465 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2466
2467 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2468
2469 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2470
2471 Clear TABLE.
2472
2473 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2474
2475 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2476 not found.
2477
2478 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2479
2480 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2481 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2482
2483 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2484
2485 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2486
2487 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2488
2489 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2490 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2491
2492 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2493
2494 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2495
2496 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2497
2498 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2499 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2500 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2501 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2502 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2503
2504 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2505
2506 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2507 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2508 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
2509
2510 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
2511 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
2512
2513 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
2514 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
2515
2516 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
2517 (sxhash (upcase a)))
2518
2519 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
2520 'case-fold-string-hash))
2521
2522 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
2523
2524 +++
2525 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
2526
2527 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
2528 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
2529 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
2530
2531 +++
2532 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
2533
2534 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
2535 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
2536
2537 +++
2538 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
2539 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
2540 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
2541 is too short to reach that column.
2542
2543 +++
2544 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
2545 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
2546 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
2547 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
2548
2549 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
2550 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
2551 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
2552
2553 +++
2554 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
2555 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
2556
2557 +++
2558 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
2559 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
2560
2561 +++
2562 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
2563 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
2564 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
2565 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
2566 temporary-file-directory instead.
2567
2568 +++
2569 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
2570 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
2571 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
2572 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
2573
2574 +++
2575 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
2576 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
2577
2578 +++
2579 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
2580
2581 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
2582 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
2583 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
2584
2585 +++
2586 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
2587
2588 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
2589 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
2590 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
2591 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
2592 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
2593 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
2594
2595 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
2596 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
2597 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
2598 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
2599
2600 +++
2601 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
2602
2603 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
2604 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
2605 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
2606 result string.
2607
2608 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2609 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2610
2611 Example:
2612
2613 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2614 (s2 "world"))
2615 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2616 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2617 (format s1 s2))
2618
2619 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2620
2621 +++
2622 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2623
2624 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2625 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2626 argument in it.
2627
2628 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2629 (arg "world"))
2630 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2631 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2632 (message msg arg))
2633
2634 +++
2635 ** Sound support
2636
2637 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2638 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2639
2640 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2641 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2642 to enable sound support.
2643
2644 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2645 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2646 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2647 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2648 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2649
2650 The following sound properties are supported:
2651
2652 - `:file FILE'
2653
2654 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2655 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2656
2657 - `:data DATA'
2658
2659 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2660 may be present, but not both.
2661
2662 - `:volume VOLUME'
2663
2664 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2665 0..1. This property is optional.
2666
2667 Other properties are ignored.
2668
2669 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2670
2671 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2672 a keyword symbol.
2673
2674 ** Changes to garbage collection
2675
2676 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2677 of live and free strings.
2678
2679 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2680 strings that have been consed so far.
2681
2682 \f
2683 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2684 Lisp Manual
2685
2686 +++
2687 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
2688 mini-windows.
2689
2690 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third argument, FULLY.
2691 If FULLY is non-nil, then locations that are partially obscured aren't
2692 considered visible.
2693
2694 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
2695
2696 +++
2697 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2698
2699 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2700 image.
2701
2702 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2703
2704 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2705
2706 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2707 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2708 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2709 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2710 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2711
2712 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
2713 has a mask bitmap.
2714
2715 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
2716
2717 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
2718 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
2719 or omitted means use the selected frame.
2720
2721 +++
2722 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2723 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2724
2725 +++
2726 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2727 optional.
2728
2729 +++
2730 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
2731 below).
2732
2733 \f
2734 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2735
2736 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2737 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2738 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2739 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2740
2741 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2742 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2743
2744 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2745 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2746 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2747 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2748 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2749 just display it black instead.
2750
2751 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2752 a line like
2753
2754 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2755
2756 in your `.emacs'.
2757
2758 ** New face implementation.
2759
2760 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2761 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2762
2763 +++
2764 *** New faces.
2765
2766 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2767
2768 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2769
2770 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2771 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2772
2773 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2774
2775 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2776
2777 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2778
2779 6. Foreground color.
2780
2781 7. Background color.
2782
2783 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2784
2785 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2786
2787 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2788
2789 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2790
2791 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2792 color.
2793
2794 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2795 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2796
2797 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2798 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2799 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2800 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2801 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2802 attributes mentioned above.
2803
2804 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2805 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2806 created frames.
2807
2808 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2809 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2810 `fully-specified'.
2811
2812 +++
2813 *** Face merging.
2814
2815 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2816 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2817 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2818 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2819 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2820 results in a fully-specified face.
2821
2822 +++
2823 *** Face realization.
2824
2825 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2826 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2827 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2828 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2829 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2830 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2831
2832 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2833 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2834 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2835 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2836
2837 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2838 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2839 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2840 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2841 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2842
2843 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2844 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2845 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2846 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2847 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2848 Emacs.
2849
2850 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2851 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2852 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2853 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2854
2855 +++
2856 **** Clearing face caches.
2857
2858 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2859 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2860 unused fonts.
2861
2862 +++
2863 *** Font selection.
2864
2865 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2866 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2867 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2868
2869 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2870 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2871 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2872 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2873 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2874
2875 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2876 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2877 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2878
2879 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2880
2881 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2882 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2883 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2884 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2885 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2886 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2887 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2888
2889 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
2890 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
2891 doesn't exist. Likewise, `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows to
2892 specify alternative font registry names to try.
2893
2894 +++
2895 **** Scalable fonts
2896
2897 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2898 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2899 servers.
2900
2901 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2902 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2903 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2904 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2905 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2906 that list. Example:
2907
2908 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2909
2910 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2911
2912 +++
2913 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2914
2915 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2916
2917 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2918 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2919 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2920
2921 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2922 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2923 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2924 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2925 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2926 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2927 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2928 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2929 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2930 of the face font sort order.
2931
2932 - Function: x-font-family-list
2933
2934 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2935 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2936 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2937 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2938
2939 - Variable: font-list-limit
2940
2941 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2942 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2943 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2944
2945 +++
2946 *** Setting face attributes.
2947
2948 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2949 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2950 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2951 `face-attribute'.
2952
2953 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2954 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2955
2956 The following attributes are recognized:
2957
2958 `:family'
2959
2960 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2961 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2962 and `?' are allowed.
2963
2964 `:width'
2965
2966 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2967 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2968 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2969 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2970
2971 `:height'
2972
2973 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
2974 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
2975 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
2976 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
2977
2978 `:weight'
2979
2980 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2981 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2982 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2983
2984 `:slant'
2985
2986 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2987 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2988 `reverse-oblique'.
2989
2990 `:foreground', `:background'
2991
2992 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2993
2994 `:underline'
2995
2996 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2997 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2998 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2999 don't underline.
3000
3001 `:overline'
3002
3003 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3004 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3005 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3006 overline.
3007
3008 `:strike-through'
3009
3010 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3011 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3012 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3013 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3014
3015 `:box'
3016
3017 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3018 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3019 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3020 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3021 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3022 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3023 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3024 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3025 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3026 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3027 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3028 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3029 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3030 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3031 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3032 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3033 box.
3034
3035 `:inverse-video'
3036
3037 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3038 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3039
3040 `:stipple'
3041
3042 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3043 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3044 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3045 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3046 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3047 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3048
3049 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3050 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3051
3052 `:font'
3053
3054 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3055 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3056 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3057 versions of Emacs.
3058
3059 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
3060 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
3061 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
3062
3063 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3064 `defface'.
3065
3066 `:inherit'
3067
3068 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
3069 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
3070 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
3071
3072 *** Face attributes and X resources
3073
3074 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3075 from X resources:
3076
3077 Face attribute X resource class
3078 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
3079 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
3080 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
3081 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
3082 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
3083 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
3084 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
3085 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
3086 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
3087 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
3088 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
3089 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
3090 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
3091 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
3092 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
3093 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
3094 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3095 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
3096 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
3097 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3098
3099 +++
3100 *** Text property `face'.
3101
3102 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
3103 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
3104 specification can be
3105
3106 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
3107
3108 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
3109 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
3110 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
3111 for face attribute names.
3112
3113 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
3114 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
3115 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
3116
3117 +++
3118 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
3119
3120 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
3121 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
3122 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
3123 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
3124 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
3125 used to clear the mapping table.
3126
3127 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
3128
3129 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
3130 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
3131 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
3132 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
3133 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
3134 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3135 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3136 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3137 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3138 modify their color-related behavior.
3139
3140 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3141 any frame type.
3142
3143 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3144
3145 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3146 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3147 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3148 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3149 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3150 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3151 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3152 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3153 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3154
3155 +++
3156 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3157
3158 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3159
3160 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3161 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3162 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3163
3164 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3165
3166 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3167 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3168 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3169
3170 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3171 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3172 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3173 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3174 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3175 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3176 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3177 functions.
3178
3179 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3180 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3181 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3182
3183 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3184
3185 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3186
3187 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3188
3189 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3190 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3191 constrained position if that is is different.
3192
3193 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3194 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3195 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3196 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3197 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3198 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3199 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3200 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3201 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3202
3203 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3204 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3205 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3206 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3207 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3208
3209 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3210 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3211
3212 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3213
3214 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3215
3216 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3217 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3218 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3219
3220 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3221
3222 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3223 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3224 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3225 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3226 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3227
3228 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3229
3230 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3231 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3232 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3233 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3234 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3235
3236 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3237
3238 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3239 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3240 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3241
3242 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3243
3244 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3245 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3246 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3247
3248 +++
3249 ** Image support.
3250
3251 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3252 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3253 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3254 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3255
3256 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3257 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3258 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3259 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3260 area.
3261
3262 IMAGE is an image specification.
3263
3264 *** Image specifications
3265
3266 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3267 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3268 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3269 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3270 described below are ignored.
3271
3272 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3273
3274 `:ascent ASCENT'
3275
3276 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3277 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3278 to use for its ascent.
3279
3280 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3281 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3282
3283 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3284 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3285 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3286 overlays that apply to the image.
3287
3288 `:margin MARGIN'
3289
3290 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
3291 margin around the image. Default is 0.
3292
3293 `:relief RELIEF'
3294
3295 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3296 around an image.
3297
3298 `:algorithm ALGO'
3299
3300 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3301
3302 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3303 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3304
3305 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3306 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3307 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3308 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3309 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3310 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3311 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3312 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3313 below.
3314
3315 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3316 x-1/y x/y x+1/y
3317 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3318
3319 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3320 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3321 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3322 of the factors' absolute values.
3323
3324 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3325
3326 (1 0 0
3327 0 0 0
3328 9 9 -1)
3329
3330 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3331
3332 ( 2 -1 0
3333 -1 0 1
3334 0 1 -2)
3335
3336 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3337 ``disabled''.
3338
3339 `:mask MASK'
3340
3341 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3342 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3343 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3344 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3345 image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from the corners is
3346 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3347 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3348 image.
3349
3350 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3351 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3352 `:mask nil'.
3353
3354 `:file FILE'
3355
3356 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3357 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3358 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3359 may be present in the image specification.
3360
3361 `:data DATA'
3362
3363 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3364 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3365 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3366 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3367
3368 *** Supported image types
3369
3370 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3371
3372 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3373 properties supported are
3374
3375 `:foreground FG'
3376
3377 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3378 is the frame's foreground.
3379
3380 `:background BG'
3381
3382 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3383 the frame's background color.
3384
3385 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3386 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3387 instead of a `:file' property.
3388
3389 `:width WIDTH'
3390
3391 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3392
3393 `:height HEIGHT'
3394
3395 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3396
3397 `:data DATA'
3398
3399 DATA must be either
3400
3401 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3402 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3403
3404 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3405
3406 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3407 bitmap.
3408
3409 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3410 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3411 in the file.
3412
3413 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3414
3415 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3416 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3417 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3418 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3419
3420 Additional image properties supported are:
3421
3422 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3423
3424 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3425 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3426 name.
3427
3428 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3429 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3430
3431 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3432 to display compressed images.
3433
3434 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3435
3436 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3437 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
3438 mono images are
3439
3440 `:foreground FG'
3441
3442 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3443 is the frame's foreground.
3444
3445 `:background FG'
3446
3447 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3448 the frame's background color.
3449
3450 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3451
3452 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3453 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3454 are:
3455
3456 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3457
3458 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3459 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3460 properties defined.
3461
3462 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3463
3464 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3465 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3466
3467 Additional image properties supported are:
3468
3469 `:index INDEX'
3470
3471 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3472 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
3473
3474 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3475 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3476 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3477 every 0.1 seconds.
3478
3479 (defun show-anim (file max)
3480 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3481 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3482
3483 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
3484 (when (= idx max)
3485 (setq idx 0))
3486 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
3487 (save-excursion
3488 (set-buffer buffer)
3489 (goto-char (point-min))
3490 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
3491 (insert-image img "x"))
3492 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
3493
3494 **** PNG, image type `png'
3495
3496 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
3497 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3498 properties defined.
3499
3500 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
3501
3502 Additional image properties supported are:
3503
3504 `:pt-width WIDTH'
3505
3506 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
3507 integer. This is a required property.
3508
3509 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
3510
3511 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
3512 must be a integer. This is an required property.
3513
3514 `:bounding-box BOX'
3515
3516 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
3517 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
3518 files. This is an required property.
3519
3520 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
3521 lisp/gs.el.
3522
3523 *** Lisp interface.
3524
3525 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
3526 which are supported in the current configuration.
3527
3528 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
3529 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
3530 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
3531 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
3532 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
3533
3534 *** Simplified image API, image.el
3535
3536 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
3537 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
3538 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
3539 define an image based on available image types. The functions
3540 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
3541 buffer.
3542
3543 +++
3544 ** Display margins.
3545
3546 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
3547 and images.
3548
3549 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
3550 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
3551 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
3552 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
3553 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
3554 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
3555 of the display margins.
3556
3557 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
3558 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
3559 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
3560 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
3561 in this file).
3562
3563 +++
3564 ** Help display
3565
3566 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
3567 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
3568 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
3569 that have a `help-echo' property.
3570
3571 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
3572 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
3573 the window in which the help was found.
3574
3575 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
3576 `help-echo' text property was found.
3577
3578 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
3579 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
3580
3581 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
3582 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
3583 mouse.
3584
3585 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
3586 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
3587
3588 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
3589 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
3590 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
3591 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
3592 used as help string.
3593
3594 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
3595 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
3596 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
3597
3598 +++
3599 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
3600
3601 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
3602 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
3603
3604 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
3605 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
3606 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
3607 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
3608 used.
3609
3610 (global-set-key [A-down]
3611 #'(lambda ()
3612 (interactive)
3613 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3614 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
3615 (global-set-key [A-up]
3616 #'(lambda ()
3617 (interactive)
3618 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
3619 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
3620
3621 +++
3622 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
3623
3624 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
3625 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
3626 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
3627 is called with one argument, POS.
3628
3629 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
3630 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
3631 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
3632 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
3633 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
3634
3635 +++
3636 ** Tool bar support.
3637
3638 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
3639 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
3640 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
3641 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
3642 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
3643 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
3644
3645 *** Tool bar item definitions
3646
3647 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3648 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
3649 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
3650
3651 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
3652 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
3653 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
3654 property (see below).
3655
3656 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
3657 binding are currently ignored.
3658
3659 The following properties are recognized:
3660
3661 `:enable FORM'.
3662
3663 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
3664 or disabled.
3665
3666 `:visible FORM'
3667
3668 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
3669
3670 `:filter FUNCTION'
3671
3672 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
3673 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
3674 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
3675
3676 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
3677
3678 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
3679 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
3680
3681 `:image IMAGES'
3682
3683 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
3684 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
3685 meaning of each of the four elements:
3686
3687 Index Use when item is
3688 ----------------------------------------
3689 0 enabled and selected
3690 1 enabled and deselected
3691 2 disabled and selected
3692 3 disabled and deselected
3693
3694 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3695 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3696
3697 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3698
3699 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3700 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3701
3702 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
3703 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
3704 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
3705 menu bar.
3706
3707 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3708
3709 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3710 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3711 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3712
3713 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3714 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3715
3716 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3717 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3718 pixels. Default is 1.
3719
3720 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3721 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3722
3723 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3724
3725 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3726 a tool bar item. If
3727
3728 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3729 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3730 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3731
3732 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3733
3734 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3735
3736 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3737 item.
3738
3739 ** Mode line changes.
3740
3741 +++
3742 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3743
3744 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3745 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3746 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3747
3748 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3749 a `local-map' text property.
3750
3751 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3752 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3753
3754 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3755 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3756 `local-map' property.
3757
3758 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3759 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3760 example.
3761
3762 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3763 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3764
3765 +++
3766 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3767 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3768
3769 +++
3770 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3771
3772 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3773 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3774 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3775 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3776 line.
3777
3778 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3779 `header-line'.
3780
3781 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3782 position in the header-line.
3783
3784 +++
3785 ** Text property `display'
3786
3787 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
3788 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
3789 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
3790 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3791 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3792
3793 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
3794
3795 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
3796 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
3797
3798 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
3799 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
3800 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
3801 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3802 simpler form STRING as property value.
3803
3804 *** Variable width and height spaces
3805
3806 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3807 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3808 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3809 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3810 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3811 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3812 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3813
3814 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3815 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3816 properties described below.
3817
3818 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3819 characters having the `display' property.
3820
3821 - :width WIDTH
3822
3823 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3824 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3825
3826 - :relative-width FACTOR
3827
3828 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3829 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3830 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3831 width of that character by FACTOR.
3832
3833 - :align-to HPOS
3834
3835 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3836 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3837
3838 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3839
3840 - :height HEIGHT
3841
3842 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3843 normal line height.
3844
3845 - :relative-height FACTOR
3846
3847 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3848 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3849
3850 - :ascent ASCENT
3851
3852 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3853 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3854 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3855 equal to 100.
3856
3857 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3858
3859 *** Images
3860
3861 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3862 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3863 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3864 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3865 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3866 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3867 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3868 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3869 as display specification.
3870
3871 *** Other display properties
3872
3873 - :space-width FACTOR
3874
3875 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3876 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3877 integer or float.
3878
3879 - :height HEIGHT
3880
3881 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3882
3883 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3884 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3885 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3886 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3887 a font is available counts as a step.
3888
3889 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3890 as tall as the frame's default font.
3891
3892 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3893 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3894
3895 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3896 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3897
3898 - :raise FACTOR
3899
3900 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3901 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3902 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3903 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3904 `:height' subproperty.
3905
3906 *** Conditional display properties
3907
3908 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3909 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3910 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3911 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3912 the text having the `display' property.
3913
3914 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3915 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3916
3917 +++
3918 ** New menu separator types.
3919
3920 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3921 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3922 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3923 to specify other menu separator types.
3924
3925 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3926
3927 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3928 separator occurs.
3929
3930 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3931
3932 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3933
3934 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3935
3936 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3937
3938 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3939
3940 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3941
3942 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3943
3944 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3945
3946 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3947
3948 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3949 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3950
3951 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3952
3953 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3954
3955 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3956
3957 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3958
3959 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3960
3961 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3962
3963 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3964
3965 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3966
3967 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3968
3969 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3970
3971 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3972
3973 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3974
3975 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3976
3977 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3978
3979 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3980 the corresponding single-line separators.
3981
3982 +++
3983 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3984
3985 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3986 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3987 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3988 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3989 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3990 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3991 default foreground is black.
3992
3993 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3994 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3995 `ScrollBarBackground').
3996
3997 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3998 settings for scroll bar colors.
3999
4000 +++
4001 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4002 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4003
4004 ---
4005 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4006 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4007 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4008 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4009 the original window start.
4010
4011 ---
4012 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4013 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4014 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4015
4016 +++
4017 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4018
4019 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4020 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4021 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4022 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4023
4024 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4025 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4026
4027 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4028
4029 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4030 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4031 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4032 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4033 temporarily to nil, for example
4034
4035 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4036 (enlarge-window 10))
4037
4038 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4039 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4040
4041 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4042 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4043 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4044 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4045 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4046 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4047
4048
4049 ^L
4050 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4051
4052 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4053 input.
4054
4055 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4056
4057 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4058
4059 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4060 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4061 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4062 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4063 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
4064
4065 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4066 been added.
4067
4068 ^L
4069 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4070
4071 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4072
4073 ^L
4074 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4075
4076 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4077 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4078 \f
4079 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4080
4081 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4082
4083 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
4084 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
4085 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
4086
4087 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4088 is the one that is used.
4089
4090 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
4091 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
4092 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
4093 separate from the command's regular output.
4094 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
4095 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
4096 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
4097 the buffer name.
4098
4099 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
4100 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
4101 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
4102 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
4103
4104 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
4105 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
4106 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
4107 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
4108
4109 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
4110 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
4111 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
4112 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
4113
4114 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
4115 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
4116 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
4117 they never ignore case.
4118
4119 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
4120 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
4121 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
4122 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
4123 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
4124 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
4125 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
4126
4127 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
4128 the same format that was used in the file before.
4129
4130 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
4131 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
4132
4133 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
4134 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
4135 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
4136
4137 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
4138 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
4139 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
4140 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
4141 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
4142 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
4143 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4144
4145 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4146 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4147 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4148 format. You can now customize these variables.
4149
4150 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4151 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4152 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4153 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4154
4155 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4156 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4157 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4158
4159 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4160 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4161 doesn't have any effect.
4162
4163 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4164 not one per buffer.
4165
4166 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4167 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4168 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4169
4170 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4171 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4172 `auto-show-mode' command.
4173
4174 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4175 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4176 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4177 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4178 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4179
4180 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4181 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4182
4183 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4184 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4185 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4186
4187 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4188 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4189 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4190 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4191
4192 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4193
4194 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4195 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4196 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4197 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4198 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4199
4200 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4201 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4202
4203 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4204 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4205 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4206 `?' on other systems.
4207
4208 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4209 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4210 Unix.
4211
4212 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4213 current codepage when it starts.
4214
4215 ** Mail changes
4216
4217 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4218 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4219 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4220 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4221 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4222 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4223 latin-1:
4224
4225 MIME-version: 1.0
4226 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4227 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4228
4229 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4230 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4231 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4232 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4233 buffer-file-coding-system.
4234
4235 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4236 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4237 mail.
4238
4239 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4240 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4241 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4242 list of possible coding systems.
4243
4244 ** CC Mode changes
4245
4246 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4247 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4248 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4249 docstring for details.
4250
4251 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4252 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4253 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4254 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4255 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4256
4257 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4258 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4259
4260 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4261 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4262
4263 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4264 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4265 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4266 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4267 anonymous classes.
4268
4269 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4270 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4271
4272 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4273 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4274 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4275 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4276
4277 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4278 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4279 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4280 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4281 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4282
4283 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4284
4285 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4286
4287 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4288 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4289
4290 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4291
4292 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4293 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4294 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4295 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4296 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4297
4298 ** Gnus changes.
4299
4300 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4301 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4302 Gnus manual for the full story.
4303
4304 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4305 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4306 group, which is created automatically.
4307
4308 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4309 values.
4310
4311 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4312
4313 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4314 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4315
4316 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4317 `C-u C-c C-c'.
4318
4319 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4320
4321 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4322 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4323
4324 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4325
4326 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4327 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4328
4329 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4330 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4331
4332 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4333 control over simplification.
4334
4335 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4336
4337 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4338 limit.
4339
4340 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4341
4342 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4343
4344 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4345 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4346 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4347
4348 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4349 `a' forces normal posting method.
4350
4351 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4352 -- `W d'.
4353
4354 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4355 to a non-nil value.
4356
4357 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4358 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4359
4360 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4361 has been added.
4362
4363 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4364
4365 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4366
4367 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4368 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4369
4370 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4371 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4372
4373 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4374
4375 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4376 been added.
4377
4378 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4379 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4380
4381 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4382 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4383
4384 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4385
4386 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4387
4388 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4389
4390 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4391
4392 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4393 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4394 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4395
4396 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4397 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4398 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4399 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4400 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4401
4402 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4403 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4404 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4405 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4406
4407 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4408 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4409 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4410 mismatch.
4411
4412 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4413
4414 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4415 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4416
4417 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4418 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4419 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4420 removed from the label.
4421
4422 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4423 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4424
4425 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4426 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4427
4428 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4429 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4430 expressions.
4431
4432 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4433
4434 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4435
4436 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4437 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4438
4439 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4440 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4441 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4442
4443 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4444 changes with a special face.
4445
4446 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4447 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4448 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4449 \f
4450 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4451
4452 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4453 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4454 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4455 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4456 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4457
4458 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4459 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4460 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4461
4462 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4463 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4464 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4465 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4466 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4467 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4468 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4469 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4470 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4471
4472 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4473 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4474 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4475 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4476 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
4477 program.
4478
4479 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
4480 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
4481 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
4482 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
4483 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
4484 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
4485
4486 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
4487 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
4488 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
4489 was not documented clearly before.
4490
4491 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
4492 This includes Tetris and Snake.
4493 \f
4494 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
4495
4496 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
4497 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
4498 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
4499 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
4500
4501 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
4502 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
4503 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
4504
4505 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
4506
4507 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
4508 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
4509
4510 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
4511 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
4512 integers.
4513
4514 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
4515 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
4516 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
4517 file names and attributes are returned.
4518
4519 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
4520 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
4521 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
4522 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
4523 returns the result.
4524
4525 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
4526 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
4527
4528 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
4529
4530 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
4531 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
4532 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
4533 optionally.
4534
4535 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
4536 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
4537
4538 **
4539 The new function process-running-child-p
4540 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
4541 terminal to its own child process.
4542
4543 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
4544 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
4545 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
4546 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
4547
4548 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
4549 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
4550
4551 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
4552 :included is an alias for :visible.
4553
4554 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
4555 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
4556 to move or copy menu entries.
4557
4558 ** Multibyte editing changes
4559
4560 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
4561 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
4562 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
4563 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
4564 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
4565 (setq char (sref str idx)
4566 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
4567 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
4568
4569 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
4570 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
4571 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
4572
4573 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
4574 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
4575 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
4576
4577 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
4578
4579 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
4580 across the boundary.
4581
4582 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
4583 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
4584 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
4585 contains 8-bit characters.
4586 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
4587 contains invalid characters.
4588
4589 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
4590 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
4591 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
4592 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
4593 way.
4594
4595 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
4596 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
4597 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
4598 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
4599
4600 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
4601 compose Thai characters in a string.
4602
4603 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
4604 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
4605 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
4606 menus should always use the third argument.
4607
4608 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
4609 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
4610 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
4611 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
4612
4613 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
4614 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
4615 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
4616 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
4617
4618 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
4619 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
4620 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
4621 echo area contents.
4622
4623 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
4624
4625 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
4626 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
4627 requested feature cannot be loaded.
4628
4629 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
4630 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
4631 means to clear out that attribute.
4632
4633 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
4634 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
4635
4636 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
4637 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
4638 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
4639 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
4640
4641 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
4642 the gap of the current buffer.
4643
4644 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
4645 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
4646 current buffer.
4647
4648 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
4649 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
4650 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
4651 it back in after any modifications have been made.
4652 \f
4653 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
4654
4655 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
4656 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
4657 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
4658 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
4659 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
4660
4661 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
4662 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
4663 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
4664 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
4665 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
4666
4667 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
4668 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
4669 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
4670
4671 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
4672 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
4673 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
4674 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
4675 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
4676 results.
4677
4678 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
4679 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
4680 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
4681 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
4682 \f
4683 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
4684
4685 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
4686 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
4687 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
4688 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
4689
4690 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
4691 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
4692 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
4693 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
4694 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
4695 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
4696 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
4697 region.
4698
4699 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
4700 selective undo.
4701
4702 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
4703 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
4704 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
4705 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
4706 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
4707
4708 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4709 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4710 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4711 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4712
4713 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4714 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4715 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4716 something that most users not do.
4717
4718 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4719 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4720 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4721 applications.
4722
4723 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4724 pasting operations.
4725
4726 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4727 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4728 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4729 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4730 `ps-printer-name'.
4731
4732 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4733 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4734 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4735 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4736 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4737 hits a new word.
4738
4739 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4740 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4741 to be confused by TeX commands.
4742
4743 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4744 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4745 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4746 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4747
4748 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4749 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4750 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4751 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4752 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4753
4754 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4755 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4756
4757 ** Changes in input method usage.
4758
4759 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4760 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4761 respectively.
4762
4763 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4764
4765 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4766 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4767
4768 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4769 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4770
4771 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4772
4773 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4774
4775 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4776 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4777
4778 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4779 given in the following case:
4780 o When you are using a complex input method.
4781 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4782
4783 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4784 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4785 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4786 setting it to t is helpful.
4787
4788 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4789
4790 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4791 keys:
4792 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4793 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4794 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4795 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4796 environment.
4797
4798 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4799 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4800 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4801 get
4802
4803 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4804
4805 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4806
4807 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4808 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4809
4810 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4811 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4812 its owner and group.
4813
4814 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4815 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4816
4817 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4818 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4819
4820 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4821 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4822 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4823 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4824
4825 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4826 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4827 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4828 for writing keyboard macros.
4829
4830 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4831 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4832 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4833 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4834 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4835 info.
4836
4837 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4838
4839 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4840 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4841 contents only.
4842
4843 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4844 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4845 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4846 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4847
4848 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4849 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4850 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4851
4852 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4853 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4854 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4855 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4856
4857 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4858 failure if the command produces no output.
4859
4860 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4861 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4862 the mouse.
4863
4864 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4865 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4866 function and variable names.
4867
4868 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4869 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4870 file-coding-system-alist.
4871
4872 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4873 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4874 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4875 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4876 according to the current fontset.
4877
4878 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4879
4880 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4881 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4882 nonascii-insert-offset.
4883
4884 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4885 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4886 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4887 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4888
4889 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4890 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4891
4892 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4893 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4894
4895 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4896 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4897 command keys.
4898
4899 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4900 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4901
4902 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4903 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4904 all variables that have documentation.
4905
4906 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4907 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4908 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4909 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4910 it should show; the default is 20.
4911
4912 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4913 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4914 of your input.
4915
4916 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4917 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4918 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4919 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4920 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4921 Newly added options are included as well.
4922
4923 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4924 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4925 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4926
4927 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4928 Customize menu.
4929
4930 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4931 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4932
4933 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4934 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4935 invoked.
4936
4937 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4938 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4939 The default is 1.
4940
4941 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4942 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4943 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4944 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4945 sensibly.
4946
4947 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4948
4949 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4950 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4951 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4952
4953 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4954 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4955 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4956 every night.
4957
4958 ** Desktop changes
4959
4960 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4961 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4962
4963 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4964 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4965
4966 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4967 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4968
4969 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4970 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4971 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4972 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4973 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4974 made invisible again.
4975
4976 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4977
4978 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4979 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4980 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4981 toggle.
4982
4983 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4984 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4985 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4986 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4987 rmail-default-body-file.
4988
4989 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4990 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4991 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4992
4993 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4994 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4995 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4996
4997 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4998 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4999 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5000 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5001 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5002 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5003
5004 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5005 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5006 provided by feedmail are:
5007
5008 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5009 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5010 there is also a queue for draft messages
5011
5012 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5013 be prompted for confirmation
5014
5015 **** does smart filling of address headers
5016
5017 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5018 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5019 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5020
5021 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5022 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5023 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5024 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5025
5026 ** Dired changes
5027
5028 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5029 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5030
5031 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5032 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5033
5034 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5035 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5036 for a specified regexp.
5037
5038 ** VC Changes
5039
5040 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5041 conveniently.
5042
5043 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5044 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5045 Dired.
5046
5047 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5048 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5049 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5050 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5051
5052 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5053 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5054 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5055 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5056 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5057
5058 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5059 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5060 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5061 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5062 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
5063
5064 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
5065 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
5066 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
5067 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
5068
5069 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
5070 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
5071 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
5072
5073 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
5074 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
5075 session to resolve them.
5076
5077 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
5078 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
5079 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
5080 uses as well).
5081
5082 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
5083 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
5084 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
5085 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
5086 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
5087 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
5088 using ediff.
5089
5090 ** Changes in Font Lock
5091
5092 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
5093 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
5094 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
5095 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
5096 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
5097
5098 ** Frame name display changes
5099
5100 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
5101 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
5102 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
5103 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
5104
5105 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
5106 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
5107 menu.
5108
5109 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5110
5111 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
5112 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
5113 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
5114
5115 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
5116
5117 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
5118 that is, the line after the last line you got.
5119 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
5120
5121 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
5122 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
5123 the following line.
5124
5125 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
5126 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
5127 previously sent input.
5128
5129 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
5130 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
5131 as the search string.
5132
5133 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
5134 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
5135
5136 ** C mode changes
5137
5138 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
5139 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
5140 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
5141 definition.
5142
5143 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
5144 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5145 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5146 style is still the default however.
5147
5148 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5149
5150 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5151 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5152 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5153
5154 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5155 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5156
5157 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5158 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5159
5160 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5161 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5162
5163 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5164 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5165
5166 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5167 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5168 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5169 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5170
5171 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5172
5173 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5174 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5175 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5176
5177 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5178 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5179 expanding dynamically.
5180
5181 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5182 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5183
5184 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5185 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5186 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5187 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5188
5189 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5190
5191 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5192
5193 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5194 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5195 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5196 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5197 against the first word in the title.
5198
5199 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5200 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5201 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5202 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5203 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5204 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5205
5206 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5207 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5208 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5209 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5210
5211 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5212
5213 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5214 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5215 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5216 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5217 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5218 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5219
5220 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5221 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5222
5223 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5224 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5225 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
5226
5227 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5228 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5229
5230 ** Ispell changes.
5231
5232 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5233 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5234 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5235
5236 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5237 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5238 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5239 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5240 include:
5241
5242 o URLs are automatically skipped
5243 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5244
5245 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5246
5247 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5248
5249 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5250 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5251 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5252 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5253
5254 *** New recursive parser.
5255
5256 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5257 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5258 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5259
5260 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5261
5262 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5263 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5264 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5265
5266 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5267
5268 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5269
5270 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5271
5272 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5273
5274 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5275
5276 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5277 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5278
5279 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5280
5281 *** References to external documents.
5282
5283 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5284 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5285 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5286 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5287 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5288 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5289 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5290
5291 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5292
5293 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5294 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5295
5296 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5297 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5298
5299 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5300
5301 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5302 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5303
5304 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5305
5306 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5307 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5308 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5309 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5310 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5311 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5312 more.
5313
5314 *** Support for the varioref package
5315
5316 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5317
5318 *** New hooks
5319
5320 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5321 and citations are created. These hooks are
5322 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5323 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5324
5325 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5326
5327 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5328 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5329
5330 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5331
5332 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5333 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5334 fontified, use
5335
5336 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5337
5338 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5339 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5340 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5341 directories that contain the same file name.
5342
5343 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5344 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5345 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5346 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5347 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5348 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5349 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5350 directory.
5351
5352 ** New modes and packages
5353
5354 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5355 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5356 it, but some do not.
5357
5358 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5359 code.
5360
5361 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5362 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5363 around in a buffer.
5364
5365 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5366
5367 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5368 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5369 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5370 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5371
5372 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5373 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5374 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5375
5376 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5377 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5378 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5379 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5380 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5381 the like.
5382
5383 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5384 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5385
5386 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5387 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5388 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5389 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5390
5391 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5392
5393 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5394 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5395 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5396 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5397 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5398 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5399 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5400 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5401 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5402 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5403 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5404
5405 Platform-specific modes:
5406
5407 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5408 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5409 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5410 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5411 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5412 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5413 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5414 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5415 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5416 \f
5417 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5418
5419 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5420 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5421 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5422 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5423
5424 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5425 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5426 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5427
5428 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5429 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5430 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5431 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5432
5433 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5434 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5435 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5436 environment.
5437
5438 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5439 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5440 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5441 current input method for reading this one event.
5442
5443 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5444 now control whether to output certain characters as
5445 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5446 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5447 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5448 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5449 \f
5450 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5451
5452 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5453 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5454
5455 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5456 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5457 always increases point by 1.
5458
5459 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5460 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5461
5462 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5463
5464 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5465 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5466 default value changed. For example,
5467
5468 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5469 :type 'integer
5470 :group 'foo
5471 :version "20.3")
5472
5473 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5474 :version "20.3")
5475
5476 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5477 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
5478 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
5479 `:version' in the top level group.
5480
5481 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
5482
5483 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
5484 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
5485
5486 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
5487 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
5488 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
5489 to themselves.
5490
5491 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
5492 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
5493 values whatever.
5494
5495 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
5496 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
5497 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
5498
5499 ** Frame-local variables.
5500
5501 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
5502 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
5503 local bindings for that variable.
5504
5505 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
5506 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
5507 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
5508 parameter name.
5509
5510 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
5511 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
5512 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
5513 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
5514
5515 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
5516 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
5517 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
5518 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
5519
5520 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
5521 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
5522 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
5523 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
5524 See the documentation in sregex.el.
5525
5526 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
5527 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
5528 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
5529 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
5530
5531 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
5532 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
5533
5534 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
5535 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
5536 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
5537
5538 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
5539 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
5540 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
5541 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
5542
5543 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
5544 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
5545 empty input.
5546
5547 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
5548 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
5549 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
5550 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
5551 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
5552
5553 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
5554 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
5555 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
5556 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
5557
5558 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
5559 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
5560 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
5561 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
5562 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
5563
5564 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
5565 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
5566 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
5567 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
5568
5569 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
5570 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
5571 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
5572
5573 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
5574 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
5575 was directed to display this buffer.
5576
5577 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
5578 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
5579 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
5580 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
5581 set-window-configuration.
5582
5583 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
5584 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
5585 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
5586 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
5587
5588 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
5589 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
5590 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
5591
5592 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
5593 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
5594 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
5595
5596 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
5597 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
5598
5599 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
5600 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
5601
5602 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
5603 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
5604 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
5605
5606 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
5607 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
5608 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
5609 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
5610
5611 ** Menu changes
5612
5613 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
5614 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
5615 better supported.
5616
5617 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
5618 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
5619 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
5620 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
5621 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
5622
5623 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
5624
5625 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
5626 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
5627 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
5628 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
5629
5630 The format is:
5631 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
5632 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
5633 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
5634 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
5635 The supported properties include
5636
5637 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5638 item is enabled.
5639 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
5640 item should appear in the menu.
5641 :filter FILTER-FN
5642 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
5643 which will be REAL-BINDING.
5644 It should return a binding to use instead.
5645 :keys DESCRIPTION
5646 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
5647 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
5648 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
5649 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
5650 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
5651 keyboard binding.
5652 :key-sequence nil
5653 This means that the command normally has no
5654 keyboard equivalent.
5655 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
5656 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
5657 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
5658 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
5659 value says whether this button is currently selected.
5660
5661 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
5662 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
5663
5664 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
5665
5666 ** New event types
5667
5668 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
5669 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
5670 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
5671 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
5672
5673 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
5674
5675 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5676 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
5677 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
5678 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
5679 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
5680 forward, away from the user.
5681
5682 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5683
5684 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
5685 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
5686 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
5687 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
5688 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
5689
5690 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
5691
5692 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
5693 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
5694 that were dragged and dropped.
5695
5696 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
5697
5698 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
5699
5700 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
5701 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
5702 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
5703
5704 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
5705 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
5706 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
5707
5708 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5709 in Emacs 19 and before.
5710
5711 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5712 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5713
5714 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5715 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5716 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5717 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5718
5719 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5720 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5721 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5722 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5723 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5724
5725 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5726 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5727 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5728 consistent with the new representation.
5729
5730 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5731 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5732 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5733 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5734
5735 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5736 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5737 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5738
5739 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5740 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5741 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5742
5743 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5744 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5745 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5746
5747 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5748 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5749
5750 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5751 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5752
5753 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5754 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5755 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5756 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5757
5758 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5759 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5760
5761 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5762 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5763 buffer or string being searched.
5764
5765 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5766 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5767 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5768 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5769 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5770 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5771 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5772
5773 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5774
5775 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5776 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5777 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5778 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5779 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5780 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5781 define-coding-system-alias.
5782
5783 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5784 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5785 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5786 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5787 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5788 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5789 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5790 `iso-8859-1'.
5791
5792 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5793 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5794 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5795 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5796
5797 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5798 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5799 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5800 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5801
5802 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5803 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5804 This function requires a user interaction.
5805
5806 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5807 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5808 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5809 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5810 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5811 select-safe-coding-system.
5812
5813 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5814 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5815 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5816 was done.
5817
5818 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5819 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5820 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5821
5822 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5823 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5824 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5825 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5826
5827 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5828 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5829 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5830 converted.
5831
5832 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5833 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5834
5835 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5836 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5837 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5838 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5839 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5840 range of characters.
5841
5842 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5843 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5844
5845 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5846 in the current buffer at position POS.
5847
5848 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5849 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5850 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5851 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5852 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5853 binding input-method-function to nil.
5854
5855 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5856 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5857 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5858 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5859 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5860
5861 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5862 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5863
5864 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5865 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5866
5867 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5868 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5869 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5870 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5871 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5872 \f
5873 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5874
5875 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5876 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5877 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5878 tree structure.
5879
5880 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5881 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5882
5883 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5884 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5885 in your .emacs file.)
5886
5887 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5888 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5889
5890 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5891 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5892
5893 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5894 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5895 kills the region.
5896
5897 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5898 delete the character before point, as usual.
5899
5900 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5901 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5902 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5903
5904 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5905 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5906 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5907 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5908 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5909 past.)
5910
5911 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5912 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5913 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5914 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5915 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5916
5917 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5918 and is an alias for it.
5919
5920 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5921 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5922
5923 ** Scrolling changes
5924
5925 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5926 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5927
5928 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5929 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5930 where it started.
5931
5932 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5933 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5934 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5935 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5936
5937 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5938 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5939 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5940 recenters the window.
5941
5942 ** International character set support (MULE)
5943
5944 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5945 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5946 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5947 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5948 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5949 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5950
5951 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5952 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5953 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5954 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5955 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5956
5957 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5958 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5959 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5960 language, to make it possible to type them.
5961
5962 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5963 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5964
5965 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5966 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5967
5968 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5969
5970 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5971
5972 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5973 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5974 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5975 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5976 characters for their work until they want to change.
5977
5978 *** Input methods
5979
5980 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5981 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5982 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5983 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5984 support several input methods.
5985
5986 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5987 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5988 work.
5989
5990 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5991 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5992 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5993 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5994 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5995 letter.
5996
5997 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5998 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5999 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6000 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6001 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6002
6003 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6004 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6005 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6006 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6007
6008 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6009 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6010 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6011 the first guess is wrong.
6012
6013 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6014 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6015
6016 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6017 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6018 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6019 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6020
6021 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6022 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6023 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6024 translate automatically to and from either one.
6025
6026 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6027
6028 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6029 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6030 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6031 what you want.
6032
6033 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6034 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6035 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6036 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6037
6038 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6039 character conversion as well.
6040
6041 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6042
6043 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6044 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6045 requires using many fonts.
6046
6047 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6048 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6049
6050 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6051 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6052 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6053 you would use a font.
6054
6055 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6056 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6057 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6058
6059 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6060 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6061 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6062 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
6063 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
6064
6065 *** Defining fontsets.
6066
6067 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
6068 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
6069 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
6070
6071 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
6072 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
6073 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
6074 standard fontset are created automatically.
6075
6076 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
6077 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
6078 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
6079 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
6080 name is `fontset-startup'.
6081
6082 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
6083 The resource value should have this form:
6084 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
6085 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
6086 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
6087 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
6088 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
6089 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
6090 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
6091 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
6092 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
6093
6094 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
6095 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
6096 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
6097
6098 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
6099 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
6100 following resource,
6101 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
6102 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
6103 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
6104 Here is the substitution rule:
6105 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
6106 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
6107 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
6108 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
6109 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
6110
6111 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
6112 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
6113 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
6114
6115 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
6116 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
6117 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
6118 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
6119 fontsets.
6120
6121 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
6122 defaults for a particular choice of language.
6123
6124 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
6125 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
6126 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
6127 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
6128 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
6129 system for new files that you create.
6130
6131 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
6132 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
6133 whole Emacs session.
6134
6135 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
6136 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
6137 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
6138
6139 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
6140 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
6141 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
6142 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
6143 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6144
6145 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6146 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6147 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6148 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6149 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6150
6151 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6152 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6153
6154 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6155 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6156
6157 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6158 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6159
6160 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6161 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6162 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6163 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6164 of the file.
6165
6166 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6167 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6168 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6169 translated into that character code.
6170
6171 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6172 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6173
6174 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6175
6176 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6177 the coding system for keyboard input.
6178
6179 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6180 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6181 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6182
6183 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6184
6185 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6186 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6187 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6188 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6189 designed to work with terminals.
6190
6191 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6192 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6193 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6194 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6195 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6196 in the corresponding buffer.
6197
6198 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6199
6200 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6201 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6202 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6203
6204 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6205 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6206 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6207 want to use.
6208
6209 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6210 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6211
6212 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6213 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6214 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6215 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6216
6217 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6218 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6219 related information.
6220
6221 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6222 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6223 scripts.
6224
6225 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6226 information about the support for a particular language.
6227 You specify the language as an argument.
6228
6229 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6230 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6231 first dash.
6232
6233 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6234 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6235 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6236 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6237
6238 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6239 B big5 (Chinese)
6240 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6241 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6242 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6243 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6244 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6245 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6246 K euc-korea (Korean)
6247 R koi8 (Russian)
6248 Q tibetan
6249 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6250 T lao
6251 T tis620 (Thai)
6252 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6253 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6254 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6255 v viqr (Vietnamese)
6256 z hz (Chinese)
6257
6258 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6259 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6260 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6261 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6262
6263 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6264 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6265
6266 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6267 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6268 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6269 Rmail files themselves.
6270
6271 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6272 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6273
6274 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6275 for sending mail:
6276
6277 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6278 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6279 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6280 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6281 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6282
6283 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6284 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6285 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6286 translations.
6287
6288 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6289 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6290 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6291 without any conversion.
6292
6293 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6294 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6295 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6296 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6297
6298 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6299 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6300
6301 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6302 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6303
6304 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6305 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6306
6307 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6308 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6309 in the buffer before point.
6310
6311 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6312 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6313 you are using.
6314
6315 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6316 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6317
6318 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6319
6320 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6321 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6322
6323 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6324 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6325 can become a bottleneck.
6326
6327 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6328 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6329 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6330 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6331 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6332 so useful that the change is worth while.
6333
6334 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6335 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6336 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6337 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6338
6339 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6340 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6341 show-paren-mode.
6342
6343 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6344 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6345 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6346
6347 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6348 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6349 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6350
6351 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6352 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6353 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6354
6355 ** Changes in View mode.
6356
6357 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6358 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6359
6360 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6361 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6362
6363 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6364 previous state.
6365
6366 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6367 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6368
6369 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6370 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6371 not just the selected window.
6372
6373 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6374 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6375 turns View mode on or off.
6376
6377 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6378 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6379 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6380
6381 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6382 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6383
6384 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6385 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6386 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6387 which version to compare with.
6388
6389 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6390 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6391
6392 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6393 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6394 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6395 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6396
6397 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6398 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6399 blocks, all of them or none.
6400
6401 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6402 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6403 confirmation first.
6404
6405 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6406 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6407 However, the mode will not be changed if
6408 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6409 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6410 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6411 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6412
6413 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6414
6415 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6416 these commands do not change the major mode.
6417
6418 ** M-x occur changes.
6419
6420 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6421 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6422
6423 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6424 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6425 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6426
6427 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6428 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6429 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6430 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6431 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6432
6433 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6434 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6435 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6436 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6437
6438 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6439 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6440 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6441
6442 ** Outline mode changes.
6443
6444 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6445
6446 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6447
6448 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6449 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6450 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6451 was already active.
6452
6453 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6454 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6455 get confused by it.
6456
6457 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6458 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6459
6460 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6461
6462 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6463 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6464 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6465 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6466
6467 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6468 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6469 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6470
6471 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6472 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6473 values.
6474
6475 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6476 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6477 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
6478 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
6479
6480 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
6481 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
6482 can be. The default value is 30.
6483
6484 ** Changes in Mail mode.
6485
6486 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
6487 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
6488 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
6489 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
6490 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
6491 behavior.
6492
6493 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
6494 compose-mail-other-frame.
6495
6496 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
6497 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
6498 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
6499 buffer that shows the original message.
6500
6501 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
6502 with separator lines around the contents.
6503
6504 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
6505 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
6506 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
6507 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
6508
6509 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
6510
6511 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
6512 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
6513 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
6514 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
6515
6516 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
6517 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
6518 /etc/passwd.
6519
6520 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
6521 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
6522 /etc/passwd.
6523
6524 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
6525 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
6526 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
6527 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
6528
6529 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
6530 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
6531 be taken to be magic.
6532
6533 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
6534 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
6535 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
6536
6537 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
6538 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
6539
6540 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
6541 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
6542
6543 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
6544
6545 new key dired.el binding old key
6546 ------- ---------------- -------
6547 * c dired-change-marks c
6548 * m dired-mark m
6549 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
6550 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
6551 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
6552 * u dired-unmark u
6553 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
6554 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
6555 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
6556 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
6557 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
6558 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
6559
6560 ** Rmail changes.
6561
6562 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
6563 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
6564 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
6565 each time you run it.
6566
6567 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
6568 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
6569
6570 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
6571 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
6572 means to move in the opposite direction.
6573
6574 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
6575 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
6576
6577 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
6578 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
6579 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
6580 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
6581 for output.
6582
6583 ** Gnus changes.
6584
6585 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
6586
6587 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
6588 Gnus.
6589
6590 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
6591 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
6592
6593 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
6594 article mode line.
6595
6596 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
6597
6598 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
6599
6600 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
6601
6602 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
6603 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
6604 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
6605
6606 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
6607
6608 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
6609
6610 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
6611 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
6612
6613 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
6614 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
6615 used to pick articles.
6616
6617 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
6618 another have been added.
6619
6620 `M-x gnus-change-server'
6621
6622 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
6623 generating lines in buffers.
6624
6625 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
6626 `M-C-_'.
6627
6628 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
6629
6630 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
6631
6632 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
6633
6634 *** Scores can be decayed.
6635
6636 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
6637
6638 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
6639 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
6640
6641 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
6642 the native server.
6643
6644 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
6645
6646 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
6647 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
6648
6649 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
6650
6651 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
6652 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
6653
6654 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
6655 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
6656
6657 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
6658 a group.
6659
6660 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
6661 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
6662
6663 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
6664
6665 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
6666
6667 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
6668
6669 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
6670
6671 Use the `Y c' command.
6672
6673 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
6674
6675 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
6676
6677 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
6678
6679 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
6680 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
6681
6682 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
6683
6684 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
6685
6686 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
6687 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
6688
6689 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
6690
6691 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
6692 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
6693 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
6694 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
6695 this issue.)
6696
6697 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
6698 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
6699 particular news group. This can be done by:
6700
6701 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
6702
6703 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
6704 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
6705 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
6706 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
6707 for reading and posting).
6708
6709 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6710 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6711 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6712 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6713 there.
6714
6715 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6716 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6717
6718 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6719 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6720 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6721 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6722 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6723
6724 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6725 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6726
6727 ** CC mode changes.
6728
6729 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6730 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6731 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6732 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6733 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6734 loaded.
6735
6736 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6737 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6738 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6739 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6740 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6741 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6742
6743 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6744 of the current buffer.
6745
6746 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6747 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6748 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6749
6750 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6751 style that the Python developers like.
6752
6753 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6754 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6755 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6756
6757 ** VC Changes [new]
6758
6759 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6760 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6761 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6762
6763 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6764 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6765 developers.
6766
6767 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6768 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6769
6770 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6771 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6772 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6773 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6774
6775 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6776 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6777
6778 ** Calendar changes.
6779
6780 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6781 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6782 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6783
6784 ** ps-print changes
6785
6786 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6787
6788 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6789
6790 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6791 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6792 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6793 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6794 It defaults to `letter'.
6795 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6796
6797 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6798 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6799 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6800
6801 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6802 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6803 It defaults to 1.
6804
6805 *** Horizontal layout
6806
6807 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6808 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6809 All are measured in points.
6810
6811 *** Vertical layout
6812
6813 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6814 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6815 All are measured in points.
6816
6817 *** Headers
6818
6819 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6820 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6821 margin above the text.
6822
6823 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6824 framing box is printed around the header.
6825
6826 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6827 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6828
6829 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6830 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6831 `ps-header-font-size'.
6832
6833 *** Font managing
6834
6835 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6836 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6837 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6838 elements to this alist.
6839
6840 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6841 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6842
6843 ** hideshow changes.
6844
6845 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6846 C++, ; for lisp).
6847
6848 *** Support for java-mode added.
6849
6850 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6851 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6852
6853 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6854 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6855 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6856
6857 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6858 robust and a lot faster.
6859
6860 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6861
6862 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6863 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6864 documentation for more details.
6865
6866 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6867
6868 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6869 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6870 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6871 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6872 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6873
6874 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6875 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6876 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6877 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6878
6879 ** Font Lock mode
6880
6881 *** Custom support
6882
6883 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6884 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6885 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6886 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6887 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6888 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6889
6890 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6891
6892 *** Maximum decoration
6893
6894 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6895 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6896 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6897 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6898 to get the old behavior.
6899
6900 *** New support
6901
6902 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6903
6904 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6905 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6906
6907 *** Configurable support
6908
6909 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6910 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6911 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6912 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6913 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6914 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6915 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6916
6917 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6918 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6919 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6920
6921 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6922
6923 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6924 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6925 for any mode.
6926
6927 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6928
6929 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6930
6931 in your ~/.emacs.
6932
6933 *** New faces
6934
6935 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6936 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6937 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6938 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6939
6940 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6941
6942 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6943 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6944 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6945
6946 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6947
6948 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6949 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6950 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6951 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6952 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6953 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6954 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6955
6956 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6957 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6958 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6959 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6960 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6961 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6962
6963 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6964
6965 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6966 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6967 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6968 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6969
6970 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6971 settings.
6972
6973 ** Ada mode changes.
6974
6975 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6976 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6977 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6978 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6979 stubs.
6980
6981 *** There are two new commands:
6982 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6983 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6984
6985 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6986 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6987 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6988
6989 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6990 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6991 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6992
6993 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6994 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6995 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6996 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6997
6998 ** Scheme mode changes.
6999
7000 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
7001 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
7002 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
7003 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
7004 have any effect.
7005
7006 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
7007 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
7008 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
7009 variables as buffer-local variables.
7010
7011 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
7012 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
7013
7014 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
7015
7016 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
7017 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
7018 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
7019 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
7020
7021 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
7022 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
7023 buffer in Emacs.
7024
7025 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
7026 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
7027 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
7028 option takes precedence.
7029
7030 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
7031 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
7032 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
7033
7034 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
7035 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
7036 the current defun.
7037
7038 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
7039 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
7040
7041 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
7042 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
7043 necessary).
7044
7045 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
7046 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
7047 these register values no longer become completely useless.
7048 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
7049 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
7050 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
7051
7052 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
7053 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
7054 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
7055 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
7056
7057 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
7058 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
7059 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
7060 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
7061 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
7062
7063 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
7064 since it applies only to the current frame.
7065
7066 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
7067 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
7068 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
7069
7070 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
7071 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
7072 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
7073 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
7074 instead of just the file you are editing.
7075
7076 ** RefTeX mode
7077
7078 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
7079 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
7080 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
7081 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
7082 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
7083
7084 C-c ( reftex-label
7085 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
7086 knows which kind of label is needed.
7087
7088 C-c ) reftex-reference
7089 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
7090 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
7091
7092 C-c [ reftex-citation
7093 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
7094 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
7095
7096 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
7097 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
7098
7099 C-c = reftex-toc
7100 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
7101 can quickly jump to every section.
7102
7103 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
7104 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
7105 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
7106 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
7107 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
7108
7109 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7110
7111 *** Info documentation is now available.
7112
7113 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
7114 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
7115
7116 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
7117 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
7118
7119 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
7120 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
7121
7122 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
7123 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
7124 appropriate functions.
7125
7126 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
7127 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
7128
7129 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
7130 been cleaned.
7131
7132 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
7133 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
7134
7135 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
7136 shall be delimited.
7137
7138 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
7139 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
7140 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
7141
7142 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
7143 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
7144 prefixed with `ALT'.
7145
7146 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
7147 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
7148 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
7149 documentation).
7150
7151 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
7152 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
7153 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
7154
7155 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
7156 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
7157
7158 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
7159 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
7160 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
7161
7162 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
7163
7164 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
7165
7166 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
7167 from alien sources.
7168
7169 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
7170 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
7171 crossref entries.
7172
7173 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
7174 region.
7175
7176 *** Added support for imenu.
7177
7178 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
7179 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
7180 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
7181 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
7182
7183 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
7184 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
7185
7186 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
7187
7188 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
7189
7190 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
7191 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
7192 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
7193 as an argument.
7194
7195 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
7196 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
7197
7198 ** browse-url changes
7199
7200 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
7201 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
7202 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
7203 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
7204 customization variables.
7205
7206 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
7207
7208 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
7209 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
7210 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
7211
7212 ** Changes in Ediff
7213
7214 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
7215 pops up the Info file for this command.
7216
7217 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
7218 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
7219 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
7220 directories).
7221
7222 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
7223 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
7224 files in the same directory.
7225
7226 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
7227 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
7228 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
7229
7230 ** Changes in Viper
7231
7232 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
7233 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
7234 instead of vip-.
7235 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
7236 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
7237 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
7238 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
7239 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
7240 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
7241 color when Viper is in insert state.
7242 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
7243 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
7244 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
7245
7246 ** Etags changes.
7247
7248 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
7249 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
7250 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
7251 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
7252 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
7253
7254 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
7255
7256 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
7257 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
7258
7259 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
7260 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
7261 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
7262
7263 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
7264 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
7265 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
7266 methods and protocols.
7267
7268 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
7269 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
7270 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
7271 paragraph name.
7272
7273 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
7274 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
7275 at least M times and as many as N times.
7276
7277 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
7278 in files has changed slightly.
7279
7280 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
7281 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
7282 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
7283 with old time-stamp-format values.
7284
7285 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
7286 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
7287 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
7288 reasons.
7289
7290 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
7291 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
7292 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
7293 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
7294 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
7295 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
7296
7297 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
7298 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
7299 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
7300
7301 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
7302 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
7303 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
7304 recommended now will continue to work then.
7305
7306 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
7307 details.
7308
7309 ** There are some additional major modes:
7310
7311 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
7312 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
7313 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
7314
7315 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
7316 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
7317 into Emacs.
7318
7319 ** New Lisp packages include:
7320
7321 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
7322
7323 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
7324 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
7325
7326 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
7327
7328 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
7329 in shell buffers.
7330
7331 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
7332 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
7333 and `elint-defun'.
7334
7335 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
7336 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
7337 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
7338 strings or comments.
7339
7340 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
7341 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
7342 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
7343 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
7344 at these points.
7345
7346 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
7347 can visit them by short forms of their names.
7348
7349 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
7350 Emacs Lisp function at point.
7351
7352 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
7353
7354 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
7355 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
7356
7357 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
7358
7359 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
7360
7361 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
7362
7363 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
7364 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
7365
7366 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
7367 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
7368 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
7369 original place after inserting the copy.
7370
7371 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
7372 on the buffer.
7373
7374 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
7375 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
7376 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
7377
7378 Enable mouse-drag with:
7379 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
7380 -or-
7381 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
7382
7383 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
7384 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
7385
7386 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
7387 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
7388
7389 *** ogonek
7390
7391 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
7392 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
7393 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
7394 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
7395 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
7396 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
7397 instance) and vice versa.
7398
7399 To use this package load it using
7400 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
7401 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
7402 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
7403 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
7404 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
7405 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
7406
7407 *** Interface to ph.
7408
7409 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
7410
7411 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
7412 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
7413 these servers.
7414
7415 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
7416
7417 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
7418 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
7419 while the real cursor does not move.
7420
7421 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
7422 for visiting your favorite web sites.
7423
7424 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
7425 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
7426
7427 ** movemail change
7428
7429 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
7430 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
7431 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
7432 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
7433
7434 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
7435 \f
7436 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
7437
7438 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
7439
7440 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
7441 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
7442 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
7443 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
7444 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
7445
7446 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
7447 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
7448 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
7449 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
7450 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
7451 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
7452 \f
7453 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
7454
7455 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
7456 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
7457 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
7458 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
7459
7460 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
7461 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
7462
7463 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
7464 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
7465 "win".
7466
7467 ** Basic Lisp changes
7468
7469 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
7470 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
7471
7472 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
7473 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
7474 or by the user.
7475
7476 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
7477
7478 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
7479
7480 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
7481 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
7482
7483 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
7484 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
7485 its argument.
7486
7487 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
7488
7489 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
7490
7491 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
7492
7493 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
7494 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
7495 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
7496 `format' function.
7497
7498 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
7499 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
7500 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
7501
7502 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
7503 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
7504 adding one of these suffixes.
7505
7506 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
7507 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
7508 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
7509
7510 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
7511 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
7512
7513 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
7514
7515 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
7516 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
7517
7518 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
7519 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
7520
7521 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
7522
7523 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
7524 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
7525
7526 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
7527 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
7528 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
7529 works using `save-current-buffer'.
7530
7531 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
7532 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
7533 of the last form.
7534
7535 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
7536 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
7537 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
7538 as the last form.
7539
7540 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
7541 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
7542 matches.
7543
7544 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
7545
7546 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
7547 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
7548 Then it returns that string.
7549
7550 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
7551
7552 (with-output-to-string
7553 (princ "The buffer is ")
7554 (princ (buffer-name)))
7555
7556 returns "The buffer is foo".
7557
7558 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
7559 is non-nil.
7560
7561 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
7562 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
7563 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
7564
7565 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
7566 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
7567
7568 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
7569 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
7570 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
7571 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
7572 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
7573 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
7574
7575 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
7576 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
7577 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
7578 characters".
7579
7580 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
7581 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
7582 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
7583 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
7584 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
7585
7586 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
7587 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
7588 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
7589 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
7590
7591 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
7592 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
7593
7594 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
7595
7596 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
7597 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
7598 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
7599 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
7600 guaranteed.
7601
7602 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
7603 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
7604 character).
7605
7606 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
7607
7608 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
7609 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
7610 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
7611 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
7612 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
7613
7614 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
7615
7616 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
7617 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
7618 more than the number of characters.
7619
7620 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
7621 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
7622 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
7623 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
7624 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
7625 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
7626
7627 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
7628 and returns a string containing those characters.
7629
7630 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
7631 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
7632 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
7633 character, sref signals an error.
7634
7635 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
7636 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
7637 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7638
7639 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
7640 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
7641 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
7642
7643 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
7644 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
7645 to a vector of the characters in it.
7646
7647 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
7648 of a string. You call it as follows:
7649
7650 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
7651
7652 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
7653 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
7654 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
7655 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
7656 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
7657
7658 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
7659 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7660
7661 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
7662 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
7663
7664 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
7665 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
7666 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
7667 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
7668
7669 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
7670
7671 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
7672
7673 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
7674 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
7675 are not included in the resulting value.
7676
7677 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
7678 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
7679 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
7680 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
7681
7682 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
7683 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
7684 character extends across that column), then the padding character
7685 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
7686 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
7687 column START-COLUMN.
7688
7689 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
7690 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
7691 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
7692 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
7693 changed text, before the change.
7694
7695 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
7696 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
7697 one character set for each script, not for each language.
7698
7699 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
7700
7701 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
7702
7703 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
7704 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
7705
7706 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
7707 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
7708 which identify the character within that character set.
7709
7710 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7711 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7712 opposite of split-char.
7713
7714 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7715 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7716
7717 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7718 of all the characters in a string.
7719
7720 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7721 and specifying coding systems.
7722
7723 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7724 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7725 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7726 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7727 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7728 as what to do about code conversion.)
7729
7730 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7731 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7732
7733 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7734 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7735 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7736
7737 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7738 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7739 to match against a file name.
7740
7741 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7742 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7743 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7744 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7745 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7746 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7747
7748 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7749 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7750
7751 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7752 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7753
7754 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7755 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7756 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7757 service names.
7758
7759 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7760 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7761 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7762 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7763 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7764 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7765
7766 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7767 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7768
7769 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7770 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7771 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7772 start the subprocess.
7773
7774 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7775 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7776 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7777 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7778 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7779
7780 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7781 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7782 subprocess.
7783
7784 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7785 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7786 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7787 connection permanently or until overridden.
7788
7789 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7790 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7791 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7792 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7793 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7794 system for one operation at a time.
7795
7796 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7797 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7798
7799 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7800 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7801 The value is a cons cell,
7802 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7803 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7804 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7805 input to the subprocess.
7806
7807 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7808 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7809
7810 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7811 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7812 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7813
7814 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7815 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7816 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7817 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7818 customization.
7819
7820 Thus, instead of writing
7821
7822 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7823 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7824
7825 you would now write this:
7826
7827 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7828 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7829 :type 'boolean
7830 :group foo)
7831
7832 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7833 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7834 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7835 for a description of them.
7836
7837 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7838 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7839
7840 (defgroup ispell nil
7841 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7842 :group 'processes)
7843
7844 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7845 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7846 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7847 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7848 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7849
7850 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7851 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7852 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7853 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7854 first-level subgroups.
7855
7856 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7857
7858 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7859 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7860
7861 ** easy-mmode
7862
7863 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7864 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7865 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7866 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7867 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7868 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7869
7870 ** Text property changes
7871
7872 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7873 text property.
7874
7875 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7876 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7877 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7878 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7879 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7880
7881 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7882 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7883 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7884 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7885
7886 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7887 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7888 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7889
7890 ** Changes in invisibility features
7891
7892 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7893 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7894 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7895 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7896 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7897 make the overlay visible.
7898
7899 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7900 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7901 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7902 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7903 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7904 t when it should hide it.
7905
7906 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7907
7908 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7909 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7910 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7911 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7912 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7913 Here is an example of how to do this:
7914
7915 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7916 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7917 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7918 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7919
7920 ...
7921 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7922
7923 ...
7924 ;; When done with the overlays:
7925 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7926 ;; Or respectively:
7927 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7928
7929 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7930
7931 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7932 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7933 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7934 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7935
7936 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7937 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7938 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7939
7940 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7941 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7942
7943 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7944 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7945
7946 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7947 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7948 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7949
7950 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7951 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7952 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7953 determine the syntax type of the character.
7954
7955 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7956 of the current buffer.
7957
7958 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7959 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7960 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7961
7962 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7963 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7964 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7965 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7966 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7967
7968 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7969 text property.
7970
7971 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7972 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7973 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7974
7975 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7976 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7977 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7978 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7979 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7980
7981 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7982 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7983 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7984
7985 ** Changes in face features
7986
7987 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7988 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7989
7990 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7991 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7992
7993 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7994 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7995
7996 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7997 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7998
7999 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
8000 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
8001 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
8002 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
8003 overlay property).
8004
8005 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
8006 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
8007
8008 ** Changes in file-handling functions
8009
8010 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
8011 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
8012 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
8013 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
8014
8015 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
8016 begins with ~.
8017
8018 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
8019 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
8020
8021 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8022 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
8023
8024 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
8025 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
8026
8027 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
8028 character code conversion as well as other things.
8029
8030 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
8031 (formerly it did not).
8032
8033 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
8034 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
8035
8036 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
8037 instead of constant strings.
8038
8039 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
8040 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
8041 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
8042
8043 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
8044 in the same way as before.
8045
8046 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
8047 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
8048 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
8049
8050 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
8051 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
8052 else, and returns nil.
8053
8054 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
8055 directory cannot be listed.
8056
8057 ** Changes in minibuffer input
8058
8059 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
8060 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
8061 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
8062 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
8063 ways:
8064
8065 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
8066 It is available through the history command M-n.
8067
8068 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
8069 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
8070 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
8071 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
8072 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
8073
8074 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
8075 argument in this way.
8076
8077 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
8078 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
8079 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
8080
8081 ** Echo area features
8082
8083 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
8084 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
8085 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
8086 after the echo area is cleared.
8087
8088 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
8089 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
8090
8091 ** Keyboard input features
8092
8093 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
8094 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
8095
8096 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
8097 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
8098 by keyboard macros.
8099
8100 ** Frame-related changes
8101
8102 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
8103 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
8104 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
8105
8106 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
8107 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
8108 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
8109
8110 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
8111 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
8112 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
8113 in the selected frame.
8114
8115 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
8116 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
8117 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
8118
8119 ** X Windows features
8120
8121 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
8122 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
8123 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
8124
8125 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
8126 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
8127
8128 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
8129 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
8130 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
8131
8132 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
8133 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
8134
8135 ** Subprocess features
8136
8137 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
8138 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
8139 automatically.
8140
8141 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
8142 and returns the output from the command as a string.
8143
8144 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
8145 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
8146
8147 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
8148 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
8149
8150 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
8151 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
8152 goes after the other menu items.
8153
8154 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
8155 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
8156 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
8157 are in use.
8158
8159 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
8160 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
8161
8162 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
8163 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
8164 form.
8165
8166 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
8167 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
8168 but its hook is still run.
8169
8170 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
8171 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
8172
8173 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
8174 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
8175 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
8176
8177 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
8178 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
8179 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
8180 warned.
8181
8182 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
8183 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
8184
8185 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
8186 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
8187 functions like display-time.
8188
8189 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
8190 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
8191
8192 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
8193 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
8194 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
8195
8196 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
8197 if there is an error in compilation.
8198
8199 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
8200 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
8201 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
8202 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
8203
8204 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
8205 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
8206 the *scratch* buffer.
8207
8208 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
8209 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
8210 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
8211 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
8212
8213 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
8214 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
8215 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
8216
8217 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
8218 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
8219 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
8220 and compose-mail-other-frame.
8221
8222 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
8223 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
8224 full name of the specified user will be returned.
8225
8226 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
8227 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
8228 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
8229 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
8230 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
8231 files at all.
8232
8233 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
8234 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
8235 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
8236 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
8237
8238 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
8239 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
8240 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
8241 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
8242
8243 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
8244
8245 ** imenu.el changes.
8246
8247 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
8248 item from menu created by imenu.
8249
8250 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
8251 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
8252 select one of those items.
8253 \f
8254 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
8255 \f
8256 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
8257
8258 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
8259 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
8260
8261 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
8262 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
8263 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
8264 \f
8265 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
8266
8267 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
8268 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
8269
8270 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
8271 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
8272 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
8273 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
8274 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
8275 all caps.
8276
8277 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
8278 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
8279
8280 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
8281 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
8282 as in previous Emacs versions.
8283
8284 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
8285 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
8286 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
8287 frames.
8288
8289 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
8290 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
8291 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
8292 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
8293 accident.
8294
8295 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
8296 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
8297 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
8298 line and then executing the macro.
8299
8300 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
8301
8302 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
8303 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
8304 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
8305 characters.
8306
8307 ** Font Lock mode
8308
8309 *** Font Lock support modes
8310
8311 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
8312 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
8313 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
8314 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
8315 Font Lock mode is enabled.
8316
8317 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
8318
8319 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
8320
8321 in your ~/.emacs.
8322
8323 *** lazy-lock
8324
8325 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
8326 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
8327 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
8328 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
8329 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
8330 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
8331 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
8332
8333 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
8334
8335 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
8336
8337 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
8338
8339 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8340
8341 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
8342 paren and key.
8343
8344 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
8345 supported.
8346
8347 ** Gnus changes.
8348
8349 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
8350 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
8351 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
8352 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
8353
8354 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
8355 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
8356
8357 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
8358 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
8359 obsolete.
8360
8361 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
8362 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
8363
8364 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
8365
8366 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
8367
8368 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
8369
8370 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
8371 referred.
8372
8373 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
8374
8375 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
8376
8377 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
8378
8379 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
8380
8381 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
8382 buffers.
8383
8384 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
8385
8386 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
8387
8388 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
8389
8390 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
8391
8392 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
8393
8394 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
8395
8396 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
8397
8398 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
8399 is possible.
8400
8401 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
8402
8403 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
8404 groups of groups.
8405
8406 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
8407
8408 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
8409 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
8410
8411 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
8412
8413 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
8414
8415 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
8416
8417 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
8418
8419 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
8420 expiration times.
8421
8422 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
8423
8424 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
8425 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
8426
8427 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
8428 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
8429 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
8430
8431 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
8432 articles with the `*' command.
8433
8434 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
8435
8436 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
8437
8438 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
8439
8440 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
8441
8442 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
8443 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
8444
8445 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
8446 buffer.
8447
8448 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
8449
8450 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
8451
8452 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
8453
8454 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
8455
8456 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
8457
8458 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
8459
8460 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
8461
8462 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
8463
8464 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
8465
8466 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
8467 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
8468
8469 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
8470 refetching.
8471
8472 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
8473
8474 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
8475 buffer to allow easier treatment.
8476
8477 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
8478
8479 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
8480
8481 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
8482
8483 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
8484 articles.
8485
8486 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
8487
8488 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
8489
8490 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
8491 cited text to hide is now customizable.
8492
8493 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
8494
8495 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
8496
8497 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
8498
8499 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
8500
8501 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
8502
8503 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
8504 in greater detail.
8505 \f
8506 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
8507
8508 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
8509 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
8510 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
8511 exists.
8512
8513 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
8514 as well as lists.
8515
8516 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
8517 of a given keymap.
8518
8519 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
8520 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
8521 keymap or nil.
8522
8523 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
8524 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
8525 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
8526 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
8527 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
8528 alias.
8529 \f
8530 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
8531
8532 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
8533
8534 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
8535 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
8536 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
8537 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
8538 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
8539
8540 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
8541 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
8542 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
8543
8544 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
8545
8546 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
8547 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
8548 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
8549 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
8550 chapter of the manual for details.
8551
8552 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
8553 customization variables take effect.
8554
8555 ** Marking with the mouse.
8556
8557 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
8558 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
8559 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
8560
8561 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
8562
8563 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
8564
8565 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
8566 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
8567
8568 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
8569 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
8570 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
8571 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
8572 applications, these problems are significant.
8573
8574 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
8575 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
8576 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
8577 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
8578 other DOS application as a subprocess.
8579
8580 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
8581 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
8582
8583 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
8584 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
8585 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
8586 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
8587 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
8588 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
8589
8590 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
8591
8592 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
8593 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
8594 minibuffer contains.
8595
8596 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
8597
8598 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
8599 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
8600 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
8601 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
8602
8603 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
8604 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
8605 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
8606 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
8607
8608 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
8609 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
8610
8611 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
8612 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
8613 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
8614
8615 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
8616 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
8617 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
8618 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
8619
8620 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
8621
8622 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
8623 to replace the characters it "deletes".
8624
8625 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
8626
8627 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
8628 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
8629 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
8630 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
8631 immediately after the selected one.
8632
8633 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
8634 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
8635
8636 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
8637
8638 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
8639 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
8640 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
8641 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
8642 recover-session.
8643
8644 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
8645 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
8646 will not work.
8647
8648 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
8649 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
8650 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
8651 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
8652 now that the bug is fixed.
8653
8654 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
8655
8656 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
8657 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
8658 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
8659 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
8660
8661 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
8662 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
8663 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
8664 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
8665
8666 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
8667 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
8668 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
8669
8670 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
8671 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
8672 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
8673 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
8674 remain normal.
8675
8676 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
8677 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
8678
8679 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
8680 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
8681 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
8682 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
8683
8684 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
8685 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
8686 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
8687 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
8688 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
8689 `mail-directory-stream'.)
8690
8691 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
8692 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
8693 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
8694 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
8695
8696 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
8697 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
8698 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
8699
8700 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
8701 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
8702 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
8703 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
8704 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
8705 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
8706 to a limitation in font-lock).
8707
8708 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8709
8710 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8711 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8712 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8713 this example:
8714
8715 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8716 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8717
8718 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8719
8720 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8721
8722 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8723
8724 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8725
8726 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8727 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8728 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8729 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8730 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8731 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8732
8733 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8734 does the same job.
8735
8736 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8737 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8738
8739 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8740 text.
8741
8742 ** Font Lock mode
8743
8744 *** Global Font Lock mode
8745
8746 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8747 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8748 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8749 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8750 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8751
8752 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8753
8754 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8755
8756 in your ~/.emacs.
8757
8758 *** Local Refontification
8759
8760 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8761 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8762 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8763 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8764
8765 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8766 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8767 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8768 above and below point.
8769
8770 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8771
8772 ** Follow mode
8773
8774 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8775 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8776 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8777 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8778 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8779 follow-mode.
8780
8781 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8782
8783 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8784 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8785
8786 ** hide-show changes.
8787
8788 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8789 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8790 normal hooks.
8791
8792 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8793 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8794
8795 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8796 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8797 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8798
8799 ** MSDOS Changes
8800
8801 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8802 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8803
8804 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8805 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8806
8807 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8808
8809 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8810 pressing both mouse buttons.
8811
8812 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8813 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8814 are:
8815
8816 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8817 now works.
8818
8819 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8820
8821 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8822 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8823
8824 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8825
8826 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8827
8828 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8829
8830 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8831
8832 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8833 \f
8834 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8835
8836 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8837 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8838 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8839 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8840 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8841
8842 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8843
8844 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8845 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8846 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8847 be different.
8848
8849 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8850 than `system-type'.
8851
8852 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8853
8854 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8855 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8856
8857 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8858 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8859
8860 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8861 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8862 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8863
8864 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8865 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8866 like this:
8867
8868 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8869
8870 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8871 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8872 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8873
8874 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8875 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8876 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8877
8878 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8879 up if too much time passes.
8880
8881 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8882
8883 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8884 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8885 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8886 form in BODY.
8887
8888 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8889 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8890 call looks like this:
8891
8892 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8893
8894 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8895 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8896 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8897 ARGS.
8898
8899 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8900 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8901 command.
8902
8903 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8904 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8905 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8906 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8907
8908 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8909 idle for SECS seconds.
8910
8911 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8912 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8913 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8914 instead.
8915
8916 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8917 there is no answer within a certain time.
8918
8919 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8920
8921 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8922 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8923 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8924
8925 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8926 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8927 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8928 arguments in between are ignored.
8929
8930 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8931 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8932
8933 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8934 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8935 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8936 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8937 version.
8938
8939 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8940 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8941 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8942 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8943 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8944 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8945
8946 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8947 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8948 systems with limited file name syntax.
8949
8950 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8951 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8952 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8953 completions.el:
8954
8955 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8956 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8957 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8958
8959 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8960 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8961 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8962 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8963 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8964
8965 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8966 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8967 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8968
8969 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8970 marker from its buffer position.
8971
8972 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8973 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8974 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8975
8976 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8977 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8978 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8979 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8980 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8981 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8982
8983 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8984 errors that happen often during editing.
8985
8986 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8987 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8988 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8989
8990 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8991 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8992
8993 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8994 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8995 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8996 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8997 and not get-buffer-window.
8998
8999 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
9000 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
9001 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
9002
9003 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
9004 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
9005 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
9006 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
9007 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
9008 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
9009 over and over for the same text.
9010
9011 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
9012
9013 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
9014 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
9015
9016 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
9017 ;; $HEADER: text $
9018
9019 in addition to the normal
9020
9021 ;; HEADER: text
9022
9023 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
9024 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
9025 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
9026
9027
9028 \f
9029 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9030
9031 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9032 Copyright information:
9033
9034 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9035
9036 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9037 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9038 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9039 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9040
9041 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9042 of this document, or of portions of it,
9043 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9044 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9045 \f
9046 Local variables:
9047 mode: outline
9048 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
9049 end: