1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2003-05-21
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005
3 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end for copying conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 For older news, see the file ONEWS
8 You can narrow news to the specific version by calling
9 `view-emacs-news' with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
12 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
13 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
14 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
17 Fixme: The notes about Emacs 23 are quite incomplete.
20 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
22 ** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
23 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
25 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
26 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'. utf-8-emacs is backwards
27 compatible with the UTF-8 encoding of Unicode. The `emacs-mule'
28 coding system can still read and write data in the old internal
31 There are still charsets which contain disjoint sets of characters
32 where this is necessary or useful, especially for various Far Eastern
33 sets which are problematic with Unicode.
35 Since the internal encoding is also used by default for byte-compiled
36 files -- i.e. the normal coding system for byte-compiled Lisp files is
37 now utf-8-Emacs -- Lisp containing non-ASCII characters which is
38 compiled by Emacs 23 can't be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files
39 compiled by Emacs 20, 21, or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule
40 (whether or not they contain multibyte characters), which makes loading
41 them somewhat slower than Emacs 23-compiled files. Thus it may be worth
42 recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared with older
45 ** There are assorted new coding systems/aliases -- see
46 M-x list-coding-systems.
48 ** New charset implementation with many new charsets.
49 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
50 as tables of unicodes.
52 The dimension of a charset is now 0, 1, 2, or 3, and the size of each
53 dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
55 Generic characters no longer exist.
57 A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
58 unicodes for display &c.
60 ** The following facilities are obsolete:
62 Minor modes: unify-8859-on-encoding-mode, unify-8859-on-decoding-mode
65 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.1
67 map-char-table's behaviour has changed.
69 New functions: characterp, max-char, map-charset-chars,
70 define-charset-alias, primary-charset, set-primary-charset,
71 unify-charset, clear-charset-maps, charset-priority-list,
72 set-charset-priority, define-coding-system,
73 define-coding-system-alias, coding-system-aliases, langinfo,
76 Changed functions: copy-sequence, decode-char, encode-char,
77 set-fontset-font, new-fontset, modify-syntax-entry, define-charset,
80 Obsoleted: char-bytes, chars-in-region, set-coding-priority,
84 * Incompatible Lisp changes
86 Deleted functions: make-coding-system, register-char-codings,
89 ** The character codes for characters from the
90 eight-bit-control/eight-bit-graphic charsets aren't now in the range
93 * Installation Changes in Emacs 22.1
96 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
97 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
101 ** Emacs can now be built without sound support.
104 ** You can build Emacs with Gtk+ widgets by specifying `--with-x-toolkit=gtk'
105 when you run configure. This requires Gtk+ 2.0 or newer. This port
106 provides a way to display multilingual text in menus (with some caveats).
109 ** The `emacsserver' program has been removed, replaced with Lisp code.
112 ** By default, Emacs now uses a setgid helper program to update game
113 scores. The directory ${localstatedir}/games/emacs is the normal
114 place for game scores to be stored. You can control this with the
115 configure option `--with-game-dir'. The specific user that Emacs uses
116 to own the game scores is controlled by `--with-game-user'. If access
117 to a game user is not available, then scores will be stored separately
118 in each user's home directory.
121 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
122 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
126 ** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
128 The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual in Info format is built as part of the
129 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
130 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
131 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
134 ** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
137 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
138 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
139 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
140 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
143 ** New translations of the Emacs Tutorial are available in the
144 following languages: Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese (both
145 with simplified and traditional characters), French, and Italian.
146 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose one of them in case your language setup
147 doesn't automatically select the right one.
150 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
153 ** Emacs now includes support for loading image libraries on demand.
154 (Currently this feature is only used on MS Windows.) You can configure
155 the supported image types and their associated dynamic libraries by
156 setting the variable `image-library-alist'.
159 ** Support for Cygwin was added.
162 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
165 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on S390 machines was added.
168 ** Support for MacOS X was added.
169 See the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
172 ** Support for GNU/Linux systems on X86-64 machines was added.
175 ** Mac OS 9 port now uses the Carbon API by default. You can also
176 create non-Carbon build by specifying `NonCarbon' as a target. See
177 the files mac/README and mac/INSTALL for build instructions.
180 ** Building with -DENABLE_CHECKING does not automatically build with union
181 types any more. Add -DUSE_LISP_UNION_TYPE if you want union types.
184 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
185 much pure storage it will approximately need.
187 * Startup Changes in Emacs 22.1
189 ** New command line option -Q or --quick.
190 This is like using -q --no-site-file, but in addition it also disables
191 the fancy startup screen.
194 ** New command line option -D or --basic-display.
195 Disables the menu-bar, the tool-bar, the scroll-bars, tool tips, and
199 ** New command line option -nbc or --no-blinking-cursor disables
200 the blinking cursor on graphical terminals.
203 ** The option --script FILE runs Emacs in batch mode and loads FILE.
204 It is useful for writing Emacs Lisp shell script files, because they
205 can start with this line:
207 #!/usr/bin/emacs --script
210 ** The option --directory DIR now modifies `load-path' immediately.
211 Directories are added to the front of `load-path' in the order they
212 appear on the command line. For example, with this command line:
214 emacs -batch -L .. -L /tmp --eval "(require 'foo)"
216 Emacs looks for library `foo' in the parent directory, then in /tmp, then
217 in the other directories in `load-path'. (-L is short for --directory.)
220 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
221 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
224 ** The -f option, used from the command line to call a function,
225 now reads arguments for the function interactively if it is
226 an interactively callable function.
229 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
230 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
231 affects the initial frame.
234 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
235 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
236 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
237 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
238 screen size. (For now, this does not work with some window managers.)
241 ** Emacs now displays a splash screen by default even if command-line
242 arguments were given. The new command-line option --no-splash
243 disables the splash screen; see also the variable
244 `inhibit-startup-message' (which is also aliased as
245 `inhibit-splash-screen').
248 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
249 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
250 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
254 You can now put the init files .emacs and .emacs_SHELL under
255 ~/.emacs.d or directly under ~. Emacs will find them in either place.
258 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
259 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
260 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
261 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
262 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
264 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
267 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
268 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
269 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
270 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
273 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
274 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
276 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
277 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
280 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
281 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
282 the operating system or your X server.
285 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
288 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
289 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
293 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
294 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
297 ** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
298 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
299 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
302 ** The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
303 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
306 ** In incremental search, C-w is changed. M-%, C-M-w and C-M-y are special.
308 See below under "incremental search changes".
311 ** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
313 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
314 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
315 directory with Dired.
318 ** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
319 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
320 it remains unchanged.
323 ** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
324 M-o M-o requests refontification.
327 ** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
329 See below for more details.
332 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
333 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
334 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
335 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
336 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
337 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
339 * Editing Changes in Emacs 22.1
342 ** The max size of buffers and integers has been doubled.
343 On 32bit machines, it is now 256M (i.e. 268435455).
346 ** M-g is now a prefix key.
347 M-g g and M-g M-g run goto-line.
348 M-g n and M-g M-n run next-error (like C-x `).
349 M-g p and M-g M-p run previous-error.
352 ** C-u M-g M-g switches to the most recent previous buffer,
353 and goes to the specified line in that buffer.
355 When goto-line starts to execute, if there's a number in the buffer at
356 point then it acts as the default argument for the minibuffer.
359 ** The old bindings C-M-delete and C-M-backspace have been deleted,
360 since there are situations where one or the other will shut down
361 the operating system or your X server.
364 ** line-move-ignore-invisible now defaults to t.
367 ** When the undo information of the current command gets really large
368 (beyond the value of `undo-outer-limit'), Emacs discards it and warns
372 ** `apply-macro-to-region-lines' now operates on all lines that begin
373 in the region, rather than on all complete lines in the region.
376 ** You can now switch buffers in a cyclic order with C-x C-left and
377 (prev-buffer) and C-x C-right (next-buffer). C-x left and C-x right
381 ** `undo-only' does an undo which does not redo any previous undo.
384 ** M-SPC (just-one-space) when given a numeric argument N
385 converts whitespace around point to N spaces.
388 ** New commands to operate on pairs of open and close characters:
389 `insert-pair', `delete-pair', `raise-sexp'.
392 ** New command `kill-whole-line' kills an entire line at once.
393 By default, it is bound to C-S-<backspace>.
396 ** Yanking text now discards certain text properties that can
397 be inconvenient when you did not expect them. The variable
398 `yank-excluded-properties' specifies which ones. Insertion
399 of register contents and rectangles also discards these properties.
402 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
403 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
404 in Indented-Text mode.
407 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variable references.
409 Substrings of the form `$foo' and `${foo}' in the specified new value
410 now refer to the value of environment variable foo. To include a `$'
411 in the value, use `$$'.
414 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
415 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
419 ** The default for the paper size (variable ps-paper-type) is taken
422 ** Mark command changes:
425 *** A prefix argument is no longer required to repeat a jump to a
426 previous mark, i.e. C-u C-SPC C-SPC C-SPC ... cycles through the
427 mark ring. Use C-u C-u C-SPC to set the mark immediately after a jump.
430 *** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times.
432 If you type C-M-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h
433 (mark-paragraph), or C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region
434 extends each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC
435 M-C-SPC, for example. This feature also works for
436 mark-end-of-sentence, if you bind that to a key. It also extends the
437 region when the mark is active in Transient Mark mode, regardless of
438 the last command. To start a new region with one of marking commands
439 in Transient Mark mode, you can deactivate the active region with C-g,
440 or set the new mark with C-SPC.
443 *** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
445 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
446 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
450 *** Some commands do something special in Transient Mark mode when the
451 mark is active--for instance, they limit their operation to the
452 region. Even if you don't normally use Transient Mark mode, you might
453 want to get this behavior from a particular command. There are two
454 ways you can enable Transient Mark mode and activate the mark, for one
457 One method is to type C-SPC C-SPC; this enables Transient Mark mode
458 and sets the mark at point. The other method is to type C-u C-x C-x.
459 This enables Transient Mark mode temporarily but does not alter the
462 After these commands, Transient Mark mode remains enabled until you
463 deactivate the mark. That typically happens when you type a command
464 that alters the buffer, but you can also deactivate the mark by typing
468 *** Movement commands `beginning-of-buffer', `end-of-buffer',
469 `beginning-of-defun', `end-of-defun' do not set the mark if the mark
470 is already active in Transient Mark mode.
472 ** Help command changes:
475 *** Changes in C-h bindings:
477 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
479 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
482 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
483 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
485 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
486 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
488 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
490 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
491 run by the key sequence.
493 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
494 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
497 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
498 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
500 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
501 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
503 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
504 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
506 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
507 new-kill-line is on C-k
510 *** Help commands `describe-function' and `describe-key' now show function
511 arguments in lowercase italics on displays that support it. To change the
512 default, customize face `help-argument-name' or redefine the function
513 `help-default-arg-highlight'.
516 *** C-h v and C-h f commands now include a hyperlink to the C source for
517 variables and functions defined in C (if the C source is available).
520 *** Help mode now only makes hyperlinks for faces when the face name is
521 preceded or followed by the word `face'. It no longer makes
522 hyperlinks for variables without variable documentation, unless
523 preceded by one of the words `variable' or `option'. It now makes
524 hyperlinks to Info anchors (or nodes) if the anchor (or node) name is
525 enclosed in single quotes and preceded by `info anchor' or `Info
526 anchor' (in addition to earlier `info node' and `Info node').
529 *** The new command `describe-char' (C-u C-x =) pops up a buffer with
530 description various information about a character, including its
531 encodings and syntax, its text properties, how to input, overlays, and
532 widgets at point. You can get more information about some of them, by
533 clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or moving there and pressing RET.
536 *** The command `list-text-properties-at' has been deleted because
537 C-u C-x = gives the same information and more.
540 *** New command `display-local-help' displays any local help at point
541 in the echo area. It is bound to `C-h .'. It normally displays the
542 same string that would be displayed on mouse-over using the
543 `help-echo' property, but, in certain cases, it can display a more
544 keyboard oriented alternative.
547 *** New user option `help-at-pt-display-when-idle' allows to
548 automatically show the help provided by `display-local-help' on
549 point-over, after suitable idle time. The amount of idle time is
550 determined by the user option `help-at-pt-timer-delay' and defaults
551 to one second. This feature is turned off by default.
554 *** The apropos commands now accept a list of words to match.
555 When more than one word is specified, at least two of those words must
556 be present for an item to match. Regular expression matching is still
560 *** The new option `apropos-sort-by-scores' causes the matching items
561 to be sorted according to their score. The score for an item is a
562 number calculated to indicate how well the item matches the words or
563 regular expression that you entered to the apropos command. The best
564 match is listed first, and the calculated score is shown for each
567 ** Incremental Search changes:
570 *** Vertical scrolling is now possible within incremental search.
571 To enable this feature, customize the new user option
572 `isearch-allow-scroll'. User written commands which satisfy stringent
573 constraints can be marked as "scrolling commands". See the Emacs manual
577 *** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
578 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
579 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
580 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
583 *** C-y in incremental search now grabs the next line if point is already
584 at the end of a line.
587 *** C-M-w deletes and C-M-y grabs a character in isearch mode.
588 Another method to grab a character is to enter the minibuffer by `M-e'
589 and to type `C-f' at the end of the search string in the minibuffer.
592 *** M-% typed in isearch mode invokes `query-replace' or
593 `query-replace-regexp' (depending on search mode) with the current
594 search string used as the string to replace.
597 *** Isearch no longer adds `isearch-resume' commands to the command
598 history by default. To enable this feature, customize the new
599 user option `isearch-resume-in-command-history'.
601 ** Replace command changes:
604 *** New user option `query-replace-skip-read-only': when non-nil,
605 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
606 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
609 *** When used interactively, the commands `query-replace-regexp' and
610 `replace-regexp' allow \,expr to be used in a replacement string,
611 where expr is an arbitrary Lisp expression evaluated at replacement
612 time. In many cases, this will be more convenient than using
613 `query-replace-regexp-eval'. `\#' in a replacement string now refers
614 to the count of replacements already made by the replacement command.
615 All regular expression replacement commands now allow `\?' in the
616 replacement string to specify a position where the replacement string
617 can be edited for each replacement.
620 *** query-replace uses isearch lazy highlighting when the new user option
621 `query-replace-lazy-highlight' is non-nil.
624 *** The current match in query-replace is highlighted in new face
625 `query-replace' which by default inherits from isearch face.
627 ** File operation changes:
630 *** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
631 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
632 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
633 is only rarely needed.
636 *** In processing a local variables list, Emacs strips the prefix and
637 suffix are from every line before processing all the lines.
640 *** find-file-read-only visits multiple files in read-only mode,
641 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
644 *** find-alternate-file replaces the current file with multiple files,
645 when the file name contains wildcard characters.
648 *** Auto Compression mode is now enabled by default.
651 *** C-x C-f RET, typing nothing in the minibuffer, is no longer a special case.
653 Since the default input is the current directory, this has the effect
654 of specifying the current directory. Normally that means to visit the
655 directory with Dired.
658 *** When you are root, and you visit a file whose modes specify
659 read-only, the Emacs buffer is now read-only too. Type C-x C-q if you
660 want to make the buffer writable. (As root, you can in fact alter the
664 *** C-x s (save-some-buffers) now offers an option `d' to diff a buffer
665 against its file, so you can see what changes you would be saving.
668 *** The commands copy-file, rename-file, make-symbolic-link and
669 add-name-to-file, when given a directory as the "new name" argument,
670 convert it to a file name by merging in the within-directory part of
671 the existing file's name. (This is the same convention that shell
672 commands cp, mv, and ln follow.) Thus, M-x copy-file RET ~/foo RET
673 /tmp RET copies ~/foo to /tmp/foo.
676 *** When used interactively, `format-write-file' now asks for confirmation
677 before overwriting an existing file, unless a prefix argument is
678 supplied. This behavior is analogous to `write-file'.
681 *** The variable `auto-save-file-name-transforms' now has a third element that
682 controls whether or not the function `make-auto-save-file-name' will
683 attempt to construct a unique auto-save name (e.g. for remote files).
686 *** If the user visits a file larger than `large-file-warning-threshold',
687 Emacs asks for confirmation.
690 *** require-final-newline now has two new possible values:
692 `visit' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's needed
693 when visiting the file.
695 `visit-save' means add a newline (as an undoable change) if it's
696 needed when visiting the file, and also add a newline if it's needed
697 when saving the file.
700 *** The new option mode-require-final-newline controls how certain
701 major modes enable require-final-newline. Any major mode that's
702 designed for a kind of file that should normally end in a newline
703 sets require-final-newline based on mode-require-final-newline.
704 So you can customize mode-require-final-newline to control what these
707 ** Minibuffer changes:
710 *** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
711 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
712 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
716 *** Enhanced visual feedback in `*Completions*' buffer.
718 Completions lists use faces to highlight what all completions
719 have in common and where they begin to differ.
721 The common prefix shared by all possible completions uses the face
722 `completions-common-part', while the first character that isn't the
723 same uses the face `completions-first-difference'. By default,
724 `completions-common-part' inherits from `default', and
725 `completions-first-difference' inherits from `bold'. The idea of
726 `completions-common-part' is that you can use it to make the common
727 parts less visible than normal, so that the rest of the differing
728 parts is, by contrast, slightly highlighted.
731 *** File-name completion can now ignore specified directories.
732 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
733 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
734 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
735 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
736 candidate is a directory.
739 *** The completion commands TAB, SPC and ? in the minibuffer apply only
740 to the text before point. If there is text in the buffer after point,
741 it remains unchanged.
744 *** New user option `history-delete-duplicates'.
745 If set to t when adding a new history element, all previous identical
746 elements are deleted.
748 ** Redisplay changes:
751 *** The mode line position information now comes before the major mode.
752 When the file is maintained under version control, that information
753 appears between the position information and the major mode.
756 *** New face `escape-glyph' highlights control characters and escape glyphs.
759 *** Non-breaking space and hyphens are now prefixed with an escape
760 character, unless the new user variable `show-nonbreak-escape' is set
764 *** The parameters of automatic hscrolling can now be customized.
765 The variable `hscroll-margin' determines how many columns away from
766 the window edge point is allowed to get before automatic hscrolling
767 will horizontally scroll the window. The default value is 5.
769 The variable `hscroll-step' determines how many columns automatic
770 hscrolling scrolls the window when point gets too close to the
771 window edge. If its value is zero, the default, Emacs scrolls the
772 window so as to center point. If its value is an integer, it says how
773 many columns to scroll. If the value is a floating-point number, it
774 gives the fraction of the window's width to scroll the window.
776 The variable `automatic-hscrolling' was renamed to
777 `auto-hscroll-mode'. The old name is still available as an alias.
779 *** Moving or scrolling through images (and other lines) taller that
780 the window now works sensibly, by automatically adjusting the window's
784 *** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
785 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
786 the mode line of the currently selected window.
788 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
789 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
792 *** You can now customize the use of window fringes. To control this
793 for all frames, use M-x fringe-mode or the Show/Hide submenu of the
794 top-level Options menu, or customize the `fringe-mode' variable. To
795 control this for a specific frame, use the command M-x
799 *** Angle icons in the fringes can indicate the buffer boundaries. In
800 addition, up and down arrow bitmaps in the fringe indicate which ways
801 the window can be scrolled.
803 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
804 `indicate-buffer-boundaries' to a non-nil value. The default value of
805 this variable is found in `default-indicate-buffer-boundaries'.
807 If value is `left' or `right', both angle and arrow bitmaps are
808 displayed in the left or right fringe, resp.
810 The value can also be an alist which specifies the presense and
811 position of each bitmap individually.
813 For example, ((top . left) (t . right)) places the top angle bitmap
814 in left fringe, the bottom angle bitmap in right fringe, and both
815 arrow bitmaps in right fringe. To show just the angle bitmaps in the
816 left fringe, but no arrow bitmaps, use ((top . left) (bottom . left)).
819 *** On window systems, lines which are exactly as wide as the window
820 (not counting the final newline character) are no longer broken into
821 two lines on the display (with just the newline on the second line).
822 Instead, the newline now "overflows" into the right fringe, and the
823 cursor will be displayed in the fringe when positioned on that newline.
825 The new user option 'overflow-newline-into-fringe' can be set to nil to
826 revert to the old behavior of continuing such lines.
829 *** When a window has display margin areas, the fringes are now
830 displayed between the margins and the buffer's text area, rather than
831 outside those margins.
834 *** A window can now have individual fringe and scroll-bar settings,
835 in addition to the individual display margin settings.
837 Such individual settings are now preserved when windows are split
838 horizontally or vertically, a saved window configuration is restored,
839 or when the frame is resized.
841 ** Cursor display changes:
844 *** On X, MS Windows, and Mac OS, the blinking cursor's "off" state is
845 now controlled by the variable `blink-cursor-alist'.
848 *** The X resource cursorBlink can be used to turn off cursor blinking.
851 *** Emacs can produce an underscore-like (horizontal bar) cursor.
852 The underscore cursor is set by putting `(cursor-type . hbar)' in
853 default-frame-alist. It supports variable heights, like the `bar'
857 *** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
858 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
862 *** The variable `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' can now be set to any
863 of the recognized cursor types.
865 ** Font-Lock changes:
868 *** M-o now is the prefix key for setting text properties;
869 M-o M-o requests refontification.
872 *** All modes now support using M-x font-lock-mode to toggle
873 fontification, even those such as Occur, Info, and comint-derived
874 modes that do their own fontification in a special way.
876 The variable `Info-fontify' is no longer applicable; to disable
877 fontification in Info, remove `turn-on-font-lock' from
881 *** font-lock-lines-before specifies a number of lines before the
882 current line that should be refontified when you change the buffer.
883 The default value is 1.
886 *** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
887 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
888 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
889 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
890 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
893 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-preprocessor-face'.
895 *** New standard font-lock face `font-lock-comment-delimiter-face'.
897 *** Easy to overlook single character negation can now be font-locked.
898 You can use the new variable `font-lock-negation-char-face' and the face of
899 the same name to customize this. Currently the cc-modes, sh-script-mode,
900 cperl-mode and make-mode support this.
903 *** The default settings for JIT stealth lock parameters are changed.
904 The default value for the user option jit-lock-stealth-time is now 16
905 instead of 3, and the default value of jit-lock-stealth-nice is now
906 0.5 instead of 0.125. The new defaults should lower the CPU usage
907 when Emacs is fontifying in the background.
910 *** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
912 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
913 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
914 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
915 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
918 *** contextual refontification is now separate from stealth fontification.
920 jit-lock-defer-contextually is renamed jit-lock-contextually and
921 jit-lock-context-time determines the delay after which contextual
922 refontification takes place.
927 *** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
928 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (such
929 as the fringes, the tool bar, the speedbar, and the menu bar itself).
930 You can also move the vertical scroll bar to either side here or turn
931 it off completely. There is also a menu-item to toggle displaying of
932 current date and time, current line and column number in the
936 *** Speedbar has moved from the "Tools" top level menu to "Show/Hide".
939 *** You can exit dialog windows and menus by typing C-g.
942 *** The menu item "Open File..." has been split into two items, "New File..."
943 and "Open File...". "Open File..." now opens only existing files. This is
944 to support existing GUI file selection dialogs better.
947 *** The file selection dialog for Gtk+, Mac, W32 and Motif/Lesstif can be
948 disabled by customizing the variable `use-file-dialog'.
951 *** The pop up menus for Lucid now stay up if you do a fast click and can
952 be navigated with the arrow keys (like Gtk+, Mac and W32).
955 *** The Lucid menus can display multilingual text in your locale. You have
956 to explicitly specify a fontSet resource for this to work, for example
957 `-xrm "Emacs*fontSet: -*-helvetica-medium-r-*--*-120-*-*-*-*-*-*,*"'.
960 *** Dialogs for Lucid/Athena and Lesstif/Motif now pops down when pressing
961 ESC, like they do for Gtk+, Mac and W32.
964 *** For Gtk+ version 2.4, you can make Emacs use the old file dialog
965 by setting the variable `x-use-old-gtk-file-dialog' to t. Default is to use
971 *** New display feature: focus follows the mouse from one Emacs window
972 to another, even within a frame. If you set the variable
973 mouse-autoselect-window to non-nil value, moving the mouse to a
974 different Emacs window will select that window (minibuffer window can
975 be selected only when it is active). The default is nil, so that this
976 feature is not enabled.
979 *** On X, when the window manager requires that you click on a frame to
980 select it (give it focus), the selected window and cursor position
981 normally changes according to the mouse click position. If you set
982 the variable x-mouse-click-focus-ignore-position to t, the selected
983 window and cursor position do not change when you click on a frame
987 *** You can now follow links by clicking Mouse-1 on the link.
989 Traditionally, Emacs uses a Mouse-1 click to set point and a Mouse-2
990 click to follow a link, whereas most other applications use a Mouse-1
991 click for both purposes, depending on whether you click outside or
992 inside a link. Now the behavior of a Mouse-1 click has been changed
993 to match this context-sentitive dual behavior. (If you prefer the old
994 behavior, set the user option `mouse-1-click-follows-link' to nil.)
996 Depending on the current mode, a Mouse-2 click in Emacs can do much
997 more than just follow a link, so the new Mouse-1 behavior is only
998 activated for modes which explicitly mark a clickable text as a "link"
999 (see the new function `mouse-on-link-p' for details). The Lisp
1000 packages that are included in release 22.1 have been adapted to do
1001 this, but external packages may not yet support this. However, there
1002 is no risk in using such packages, as the worst thing that could
1003 happen is that you get the original Mouse-1 behavior when you click
1004 on a link, which typically means that you set point where you click.
1006 If you want to get the original Mouse-1 action also inside a link, you
1007 just need to press the Mouse-1 button a little longer than a normal
1008 click (i.e. press and hold the Mouse-1 button for half a second before
1011 Dragging the Mouse-1 inside a link still performs the original
1012 drag-mouse-1 action, typically copy the text.
1014 You can customize the new Mouse-1 behavior via the new user options
1015 `mouse-1-click-follows-link' and `mouse-1-click-in-non-selected-windows'.
1018 *** Emacs normally highlights mouse sensitive text whenever the mouse
1019 is over the text. By setting the new variable `mouse-highlight', you
1020 can optionally enable mouse highlighting only after you move the
1021 mouse, so that highlighting disappears when you press a key. You can
1022 also disable mouse highlighting.
1025 *** You can now customize if selecting a region by dragging the mouse
1026 shall not copy the selected text to the kill-ring by setting the new
1027 variable mouse-drag-copy-region to nil.
1030 *** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
1031 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
1034 *** Emacs ignores mouse-2 clicks while the mouse wheel is being moved.
1036 People tend to push the mouse wheel (which counts as a mouse-2 click)
1037 unintentionally while turning the wheel, so these clicks are now
1038 ignored. You can customize this with the mouse-wheel-click-event and
1039 mouse-wheel-inhibit-click-time variables.
1042 *** Under X, mouse-wheel-mode is turned on by default.
1047 *** Language environment and various default coding systems are setup
1048 more correctly according to the current locale name. If the locale
1049 name doesn't specify a charset, the default is what glibc defines.
1050 This change can result in using the different coding systems as
1051 default in some locale (e.g. vi_VN).
1054 *** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on your
1055 current locale settings if you are not using a window system. This
1056 can mean that the META key doesn't work but generates non-ASCII
1057 characters instead, depending on how the terminal (or terminal
1058 emulator) works. Use `set-keyboard-coding-system' (or customize
1059 keyboard-coding-system) if you prefer META to work (the old default)
1060 or if the locale doesn't describe the character set actually generated
1061 by the keyboard. See Info node `Single-Byte Character Support'.
1064 *** The new command `revert-buffer-with-coding-system' (C-x RET r)
1065 revisits the current file using a coding system that you specify.
1068 *** New command `recode-region' decodes the region again by a specified
1072 *** The new command `recode-file-name' changes the encoding of the name
1076 *** New command `ucs-insert' inserts a character specified by its
1080 *** The new command `set-file-name-coding-system' (C-x RET F) sets
1081 coding system for encoding and decoding file names. A new menu item
1082 (Options->Mule->Set Coding Systems->For File Name) invokes this
1086 *** New command quail-show-key shows what key (or key sequence) to type
1087 in the current input method to input a character at point.
1090 *** Limited support for character `unification' has been added.
1091 Emacs now knows how to translate between different representations of
1092 the same characters in various Emacs charsets according to standard
1093 Unicode mappings. This applies mainly to characters in the ISO 8859
1094 sets plus some other 8-bit sets, but can be extended. For instance,
1095 translation works amongst the Emacs ...-iso8859-... charsets and the
1096 mule-unicode-... ones.
1098 By default this translation happens automatically on encoding.
1099 Self-inserting characters are translated to make the input conformant
1100 with the encoding of the buffer in which it's being used, where
1103 You can force a more complete unification with the user option
1104 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode. That maps all the Latin-N character sets
1105 into Unicode characters (from the latin-iso8859-1 and
1106 mule-unicode-0100-24ff charsets) on decoding. Note that this mode
1107 will often effectively clobber data with an iso-2022 encoding.
1110 *** There is support for decoding Greek and Cyrillic characters into
1111 either Unicode (the mule-unicode charsets) or the iso-8859 charsets,
1112 when possible. The latter are more space-efficient. This is
1113 controlled by user option utf-fragment-on-decoding.
1116 *** New language environments: French, Ukrainian, Tajik,
1117 Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, UTF-8, Windows-1255, Welsh, Latin-6,
1118 Latin-7, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish, Slovenian, Croatian, Georgian,
1119 Italian, Russian, Malayalam, Tamil, Russian, Chinese-EUC-TW. (Set up
1120 automatically according to the locale.)
1123 *** New input methods: latin-alt-postfix, latin-postfix, latin-prefix,
1124 ukrainian-computer, belarusian, bulgarian-bds, russian-computer,
1125 vietnamese-telex, lithuanian-numeric, lithuanian-keyboard,
1126 latvian-keyboard, welsh, georgian, rfc1345, ucs, sgml,
1127 bulgarian-phonetic, dutch, slovenian, croatian, malayalam-inscript,
1131 *** New input method chinese-sisheng for inputting Chinese Pinyin
1135 *** Improved Thai support. A new minor mode `thai-word-mode' (which is
1136 automatically activated if you select Thai as a language
1137 environment) changes key bindings of most word-oriented commands to
1138 versions which recognize Thai words. Affected commands are
1142 M-DEL (backward-kill-word)
1143 M-t (transpose-words)
1144 M-q (fill-paragraph)
1147 *** Indian support has been updated.
1148 The in-is13194 coding system is now Unicode-based. CDAC fonts are
1149 assumed. There is a framework for supporting various
1150 Indian scripts, but currently only Devanagari, Malayalam and Tamil are
1154 *** A UTF-7 coding system is available in the library `utf-7'.
1157 *** The utf-8/16 coding systems have been enhanced.
1158 By default, untranslatable utf-8 sequences are simply composed into
1159 single quasi-characters. User option `utf-translate-cjk-mode' (it is
1160 turned on by default) arranges to translate many utf-8 CJK character
1161 sequences into real Emacs characters in a similar way to the Mule-UCS
1162 system. As this loads a fairly big data on demand, people who are not
1163 interested in CJK characters may want to customize it to nil.
1164 You can augment/amend the CJK translation via hash tables
1165 `ucs-mule-cjk-to-unicode' and `ucs-unicode-to-mule-cjk'. The utf-8
1166 coding system now also encodes characters from most of Emacs's
1167 one-dimensional internal charsets, specifically the ISO-8859 ones.
1168 The utf-16 coding system is affected similarly.
1171 *** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
1172 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
1173 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
1176 *** Many new coding systems are available by loading the `code-pages'
1177 library. These include complete versions of most of those in
1178 codepage.el, based on Unicode mappings. `codepage-setup' is now
1179 obsolete and is used only in the MS-DOS port of Emacs. windows-1252
1180 and windows-1251 are preloaded since the former is so common and the
1181 latter is used by GNU locales.
1184 *** New variable `utf-translate-cjk-unicode-range' controls which
1185 Unicode characters to translate in `utf-translate-cjk-mode'.
1188 *** iso-10646-1 (`Unicode') fonts can be used to display any range of
1189 characters encodable by the utf-8 coding system. Just specify the
1190 fontset appropriately.
1192 ** Customize changes:
1195 *** The commands M-x customize-face and M-x customize-face-other-window
1196 now look at the character after point. If a face or faces are
1197 specified for that character, the commands by default customize those
1201 *** The face-customization widget has been reworked to be less confusing.
1202 In particular, when you enable a face attribute using the corresponding
1203 check-box, there's no longer a redundant `*' option in value selection
1204 for that attribute; the values you can choose are only those which make
1205 sense for the attribute. When an attribute is de-selected by unchecking
1206 its check-box, then the (now ignored, but still present temporarily in
1207 case you re-select the attribute) value is hidden.
1210 *** When you set or reset a variable's value in a Customize buffer,
1211 the previous value becomes the "backup value" of the variable.
1212 You can go back to that backup value by selecting "Use Backup Value"
1213 under the "[State]" button.
1215 ** Buffer Menu changes:
1218 *** New command `Buffer-menu-toggle-files-only' toggles display of file
1219 buffers only in the Buffer Menu. It is bound to `T' in Buffer Menu
1223 *** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
1224 with a space, when those buffers are visiting files. Normally buffers
1225 whose names begin with space are omitted.
1228 *** The new options `buffers-menu-show-directories' and
1229 `buffers-menu-show-status' let you control how buffers are displayed
1230 in the menu dropped down when you click "Buffers" from the menu bar.
1232 `buffers-menu-show-directories' controls whether the menu displays
1233 leading directories as part of the file name visited by the buffer.
1234 If its value is `unless-uniquify', the default, directories are
1235 shown unless uniquify-buffer-name-style' is non-nil. The value of nil
1236 and t turn the display of directories off and on, respectively.
1238 `buffers-menu-show-status' controls whether the Buffers menu includes
1239 the modified and read-only status of the buffers. By default it is
1240 t, and the status is shown.
1242 Setting these variables directly does not take effect until next time
1243 the Buffers menu is regenerated.
1248 *** New faces dired-header, dired-mark, dired-marked, dired-flagged,
1249 dired-ignored, dired-directory, dired-symlink, dired-warning
1250 introduced for Dired mode instead of font-lock faces.
1253 *** New Dired command `dired-compare-directories' marks files
1254 with different file attributes in two dired buffers.
1257 *** New Dired command `dired-do-touch' (bound to T) changes timestamps
1258 of marked files with the value entered in the minibuffer.
1261 *** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
1262 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
1263 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
1264 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
1265 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
1266 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
1269 *** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
1270 into the kill ring. With a zero prefix arg, copies absolute file names.
1273 *** In Dired-x, Omitting files is now a minor mode, dired-omit-mode.
1275 The mode toggling command is bound to M-o. A new command
1276 dired-mark-omitted, bound to * O, marks omitted files. The variable
1277 dired-omit-files-p is obsoleted, use the mode toggling function
1281 *** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
1282 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
1283 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
1284 directory listing into a buffer.
1289 *** The comint prompt can now be made read-only, using the new user
1290 option `comint-prompt-read-only'. This is not enabled by default,
1291 except in IELM buffers. The read-only status of IELM prompts can be
1292 controlled with the new user option `ielm-prompt-read-only', which
1293 overrides `comint-prompt-read-only'.
1295 The new commands `comint-kill-whole-line' and `comint-kill-region'
1296 support editing comint buffers with read-only prompts.
1298 `comint-kill-whole-line' is like `kill-whole-line', but ignores both
1299 read-only and field properties. Hence, it always kill entire
1300 lines, including any prompts.
1302 `comint-kill-region' is like `kill-region', except that it ignores
1303 read-only properties, if it is safe to do so. This means that if any
1304 part of a prompt is deleted, then the entire prompt must be deleted
1305 and that all prompts must stay at the beginning of a line. If this is
1306 not the case, then `comint-kill-region' behaves just like
1307 `kill-region' if read-only are involved: it copies the text to the
1308 kill-ring, but does not delete it.
1311 *** The new command `comint-insert-previous-argument' in comint-derived
1312 modes (shell-mode etc) inserts arguments from previous command lines,
1313 like bash's `ESC .' binding. It is bound by default to `C-c .', but
1314 otherwise behaves quite similarly to the bash version.
1316 *** `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields' has been renamed
1317 `comint-use-prompt-regexp'. The old name has been kept as an alias,
1318 but declared obsolete.
1320 ** M-x Compile changes:
1323 *** M-x compile has become more robust and reliable
1325 Quite a few more kinds of messages are recognized. Messages that are
1326 recognized as warnings or informational come in orange or green, instead of
1327 red. Informational messages are by default skipped with `next-error'
1328 (controlled by `compilation-skip-threshold').
1330 Location data is collected on the fly as the *compilation* buffer changes.
1331 This means you could modify messages to make them point to different files.
1332 This also means you can not go to locations of messages you may have deleted.
1334 The variable `compilation-error-regexp-alist' has now become customizable. If
1335 you had added your own regexps to this, you'll probably need to include a
1336 leading `^', otherwise they'll match anywhere on a line. There is now also a
1337 `compilation-mode-font-lock-keywords' and it nicely handles all the checks
1338 that configure outputs and -o options so you see at a glance where you are.
1340 The new file etc/compilation.txt gives examples of each type of message.
1343 *** New user option `compilation-environment'.
1344 This option allows you to specify environment variables for inferior
1345 compilation processes without affecting the environment that all
1346 subprocesses inherit.
1349 *** New options `next-error-highlight' and `next-error-highlight-no-select'
1350 specify the method of highlighting of the corresponding source line
1351 in new face `next-error'.
1354 *** A new minor mode `next-error-follow-minor-mode' can be used in
1355 compilation-mode, grep-mode, occur-mode, and diff-mode (i.e. all the
1356 modes that can use `next-error'). In this mode, cursor motion in the
1357 buffer causes automatic display in another window of the corresponding
1358 matches, compilation errors, etc. This minor mode can be toggled with
1361 *** When the left fringe is displayed, an arrow points to current message in
1362 the compilation buffer.
1364 *** The new variable `compilation-context-lines' controls lines of leading
1365 context before the current message. If nil and the left fringe is displayed,
1366 it doesn't scroll the compilation output window. If there is no left fringe,
1367 no arrow is displayed and a value of nil means display the message at the top
1370 ** Occur mode changes:
1373 *** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
1374 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
1378 *** You can now use next-error (C-x `) and previous-error to advance to
1379 the next/previous matching line found by M-x occur.
1382 *** The new command `multi-occur' is just like `occur', except it can
1383 search multiple buffers. There is also a new command
1384 `multi-occur-by-filename-regexp' which allows you to specify the
1385 buffers to search by their filename. Internally, Occur mode has been
1386 rewritten, and now uses font-lock, among other changes.
1391 *** Grep has been decoupled from compilation mode setup.
1393 There's a new separate package grep.el, with its own submenu and
1394 customization group.
1397 *** M-x grep provides highlighting support.
1399 Hits are fontified in green, and hits in binary files in orange. Grep buffers
1400 can be saved and automatically revisited.
1403 *** `grep-find' is now also available under the name `find-grep' where
1404 people knowing `find-grep-dired' would probably expect it.
1407 *** The new variables `grep-window-height', `grep-auto-highlight', and
1408 `grep-scroll-output' override the corresponding compilation mode
1409 settings, for grep commands only.
1412 *** New option `grep-highlight-matches' highlightes matches in *grep*
1413 buffer. It uses a special feature of some grep programs which accept
1414 --color option to output markers around matches. When going to the next
1415 match with `next-error' the exact match is highlighted in the source
1416 buffer. Otherwise, if `grep-highlight-matches' is nil, the whole
1417 source line is highlighted.
1420 *** New key bindings in grep output window:
1421 SPC and DEL scrolls window up and down. C-n and C-p moves to next and
1422 previous match in the grep window. RET jumps to the source line of
1423 the current match. `n' and `p' shows next and previous match in
1424 other window, but does not switch buffer. `{' and `}' jumps to the
1425 previous or next file in the grep output. TAB also jumps to the next
1429 *** M-x grep now tries to avoid appending `/dev/null' to the command line
1430 by using GNU grep `-H' option instead. M-x grep automatically
1431 detects whether this is possible or not the first time it is invoked.
1432 When `-H' is used, the grep command line supplied by the user is passed
1433 unchanged to the system to execute, which allows more complicated
1434 command lines to be used than was possible before.
1436 ** X Windows Support:
1439 *** Emacs now supports drag and drop for X. Dropping a file on a window
1440 opens it, dropping text inserts the text. Dropping a file on a dired
1441 buffer copies or moves the file to that directory.
1444 *** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
1445 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
1446 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
1447 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
1449 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
1450 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
1453 *** The X resource useXIM can be used to turn off use of XIM, which can
1454 speed up Emacs with slow networking to the X server.
1456 If the configure option `--without-xim' was used to turn off use of
1457 XIM by default, the X resource useXIM can be used to turn it on.
1460 *** The new variable `x-select-request-type' controls how Emacs
1461 requests X selection. The default value is nil, which means that
1462 Emacs requests X selection with types COMPOUND_TEXT and UTF8_STRING,
1463 and use the more appropriately result.
1466 *** The scrollbar under LessTif or Motif has a smoother drag-scrolling.
1467 On the other hand, the size of the thumb does not represent the actual
1468 amount of text shown any more (only a crude approximation of it).
1473 *** Emacs now responds to mouse-clicks on the mode-line, header-line and
1474 display margin, when run in an xterm.
1477 *** Improved key bindings support when running in an xterm.
1478 When emacs is running in an xterm more key bindings are available. The
1479 following should work:
1480 {C,S,C-S,A}-{right,left,up,down,prior,next,delete,insert,F1-12}.
1481 These key bindings work on xterm from X.org 6.8, they might not work on
1482 some older versions of xterm, or on some proprietary versions.
1484 ** Character terminal color support changes:
1487 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
1488 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
1489 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
1490 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
1491 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
1492 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
1493 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
1494 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
1495 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
1498 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
1499 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
1500 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
1501 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
1502 all of these colors.
1505 *** Emacs now uses the full range of available colors for the default
1506 faces when running on a color terminal, including 16-, 88-, and
1507 256-color xterms. This means that when you run "emacs -nw" on an
1508 88-color or 256-color xterm, you will see essentially the same face
1512 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
1514 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1
1517 ** Filesets are collections of files. You can define a fileset in
1518 various ways, such as based on a directory tree or based on
1519 program files that include other program files.
1521 Once you have defined a fileset, you can perform various operations on
1522 all the files in it, such as visiting them or searching and replacing
1526 ** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1528 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
1529 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
1530 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
1531 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
1534 ** The new package ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
1535 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
1538 ** Ido mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1540 The ido (interactively do) package is an extension of the iswitchb
1541 package to do interactive opening of files and directories in addition
1542 to interactive buffer switching. Ido is a superset of iswitchb (with
1543 a few exceptions), so don't enable both packages.
1546 ** Image files are normally visited in Image mode, which lets you toggle
1547 between viewing the image and viewing the text using C-c C-c.
1550 ** CUA mode is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1552 The new cua package provides CUA-like keybindings using C-x for
1553 cut (kill), C-c for copy, C-v for paste (yank), and C-z for undo.
1554 With cua, the region can be set and extended using shifted movement
1555 keys (like pc-selection-mode) and typed text replaces the active
1556 region (like delete-selection-mode). Do not enable these modes with
1557 cua-mode. Customize the variable `cua-mode' to enable cua.
1559 In addition, cua provides unified rectangle support with visible
1560 rectangle highlighting: Use C-return to start a rectangle, extend it
1561 using the movement commands (or mouse-3), and cut or copy it using C-x
1562 or C-c (using C-w and M-w also works).
1564 Use M-o and M-c to `open' or `close' the rectangle, use M-b or M-f, to
1565 fill it with blanks or another character, use M-u or M-l to upcase or
1566 downcase the rectangle, use M-i to increment the numbers in the
1567 rectangle, use M-n to fill the rectangle with a numeric sequence (such
1568 as 10 20 30...), use M-r to replace a regexp in the rectangle, and use
1569 M-' or M-/ to restrict command on the rectangle to a subset of the
1570 rows. See the commentary in cua-base.el for more rectangle commands.
1572 Cua also provides unified support for registers: Use a numeric
1573 prefix argument between 0 and 9, i.e. M-0 .. M-9, for C-x, C-c, and
1574 C-v to cut or copy into register 0-9, or paste from register 0-9.
1576 The last text deleted (not killed) is automatically stored in
1577 register 0. This includes text deleted by typing text.
1579 Finally, cua provides a global mark which is set using S-C-space.
1580 When the global mark is active, any text which is cut or copied is
1581 automatically inserted at the global mark position. See the
1582 commentary in cua-base.el for more global mark related commands.
1584 The features of cua also works with the standard emacs bindings for
1585 kill, copy, yank, and undo. If you want to use cua mode, but don't
1586 want the C-x, C-c, C-v, and C-z bindings, you can customize the
1587 `cua-enable-cua-keys' variable.
1589 Note: This version of cua mode is not backwards compatible with older
1590 versions of cua.el and cua-mode.el. To ensure proper operation, you
1591 must remove older versions of cua.el or cua-mode.el as well as the
1592 loading and customization of those packages from the .emacs file.
1595 ** The new package dns-mode.el add syntax highlight of DNS master files.
1596 The key binding C-c C-s (`dns-mode-soa-increment-serial') can be used
1597 to increment the SOA serial.
1600 ** The new global minor mode `file-name-shadow-mode' modifies the way
1601 filenames being entered by the user in the minibuffer are displayed, so
1602 that it's clear when part of the entered filename will be ignored due to
1603 emacs' filename parsing rules. The ignored portion can be made dim,
1604 invisible, or otherwise less visually noticable. The display method can
1605 be displayed by customizing the variable `file-name-shadow-properties'.
1608 ** The new package flymake.el does on-the-fly syntax checking of program
1609 source files. See the Flymake's Info manual for more details.
1612 ** The new keypad setup package provides several common bindings for
1613 the numeric keypad which is available on most keyboards. The numeric
1614 keypad typically has the digits 0 to 9, a decimal point, keys marked
1615 +, -, /, and *, an Enter key, and a NumLock toggle key. The keypad
1616 package only controls the use of the digit and decimal keys.
1618 By customizing the variables `keypad-setup', `keypad-shifted-setup',
1619 `keypad-numlock-setup', and `keypad-numlock-shifted-setup', or by
1620 using the function `keypad-setup', you can rebind all digit keys and
1621 the decimal key of the keypad in one step for each of the four
1622 possible combinations of the Shift key state (not pressed/pressed) and
1623 the NumLock toggle state (off/on).
1625 The choices for the keypad keys in each of the above states are:
1626 `Plain numeric keypad' where the keys generates plain digits,
1627 `Numeric keypad with decimal key' where the character produced by the
1628 decimal key can be customized individually (for internationalization),
1629 `Numeric Prefix Arg' where the keypad keys produce numeric prefix args
1630 for emacs editing commands, `Cursor keys' and `Shifted Cursor keys'
1631 where the keys work like (shifted) arrow keys, home/end, etc., and
1632 `Unspecified/User-defined' where the keypad keys (kp-0, kp-1, etc.)
1633 are left unspecified and can be bound individually through the global
1637 ** The new kmacro package provides a simpler user interface to
1638 emacs' keyboard macro facilities.
1640 Basically, it uses two function keys (default F3 and F4) like this:
1641 F3 starts a macro, F4 ends the macro, and pressing F4 again executes
1642 the last macro. While defining the macro, F3 inserts a counter value
1643 which automatically increments every time the macro is executed.
1645 There is now a keyboard macro ring which stores the most recently
1648 The C-x C-k sequence is now a prefix for the kmacro keymap which
1649 defines bindings for moving through the keyboard macro ring,
1650 C-x C-k C-p and C-x C-k C-n, editing the last macro C-x C-k C-e,
1651 manipulating the macro counter and format via C-x C-k C-c,
1652 C-x C-k C-a, and C-x C-k C-f. See the commentary in kmacro.el
1655 The normal macro bindings C-x (, C-x ), and C-x e now interfaces to
1656 the keyboard macro ring.
1658 The C-x e command now automatically terminates the current macro
1659 before calling it, if used while defining a macro.
1661 In addition, when ending or calling a macro with C-x e, the macro can
1662 be repeated immediately by typing just the `e'. You can customize
1663 this behavior via the variable kmacro-call-repeat-key and
1664 kmacro-call-repeat-with-arg.
1666 Keyboard macros can now be debugged and edited interactively.
1667 C-x C-k SPC steps through the last keyboard macro one key sequence
1668 at a time, prompting for the actions to take.
1671 ** New minor mode, Visible mode, toggles invisibility in the current buffer.
1672 When enabled, it makes all invisible text visible. When disabled, it
1673 restores the previous value of `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
1676 ** The wdired.el package allows you to use normal editing commands on Dired
1677 buffers to change filenames, permissions, etc...
1680 ** The new package longlines.el provides a minor mode for editing text
1681 files composed of long lines, based on the `use-hard-newlines'
1682 mechanism. The long lines are broken up by inserting soft newlines,
1683 which are automatically removed when saving the file to disk or
1684 copying into the kill ring, clipboard, etc. By default, Longlines
1685 mode inserts soft newlines automatically during editing, a behavior
1686 referred to as "soft word wrap" in other text editors. This is
1687 similar to Refill mode, but more reliable. To turn the word wrap
1688 feature off, set `longlines-auto-wrap' to nil.
1690 ** The printing package is now part of the Emacs distribution.
1692 If you enable the printing package by including (require 'printing) in
1693 the .emacs file, the normal Print item on the File menu is replaced
1694 with a Print sub-menu which allows you to preview output through
1695 ghostview, use ghostscript to print (if you don't have a PostScript
1696 printer) or send directly to printer a PostScript code generated by
1697 `ps-print' package. Use M-x pr-help for more information.
1700 ** The minor mode Reveal mode makes text visible on the fly as you
1701 move your cursor into hidden regions of the buffer.
1702 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
1703 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
1705 There is also Global Reveal mode which affects all buffers.
1708 ** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
1709 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
1710 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
1714 ** SES mode (ses-mode) is a new major mode for creating and editing
1715 spreadsheet files. Besides the usual Emacs features (intuitive command
1716 letters, undo, cell formulas in Lisp, plaintext files, etc.) it also offers
1717 viral immunity and import/export of tab-separated values.
1720 ** The new global minor mode `size-indication-mode' (off by default)
1721 shows the size of accessible part of the buffer on the mode line.
1724 ** The new package table.el implements editable, WYSIWYG, embedded
1725 `text tables' in Emacs buffers. It simulates the effect of putting
1726 these tables in a special major mode. The package emulates WYSIWYG
1727 table editing available in modern word processors. The package also
1728 can generate a table source in typesetting and markup languages such
1729 as latex and html from the visually laid out text table.
1732 ** The thumbs.el package allows you to preview image files as thumbnails
1733 and can be invoked from a Dired buffer.
1736 ** Tramp is now part of the distribution.
1738 This package is similar to Ange-FTP: it allows you to edit remote
1739 files. But whereas Ange-FTP uses FTP to access the remote host,
1740 Tramp uses a shell connection. The shell connection is always used
1741 for filename completion and directory listings and suchlike, but for
1742 the actual file transfer, you can choose between the so-called
1743 `inline' methods (which transfer the files through the shell
1744 connection using base64 or uu encoding) and the `out-of-band' methods
1745 (which invoke an external copying program such as `rcp' or `scp' or
1746 `rsync' to do the copying).
1748 Shell connections can be acquired via `rsh', `ssh', `telnet' and also
1749 `su' and `sudo'. Ange-FTP is still supported via the `ftp' method.
1751 If you want to disable Tramp you should set
1753 (setq tramp-default-method "ftp")
1756 ** The URL package (which had been part of W3) is now part of Emacs.
1759 ** `cfengine-mode' is a major mode for editing GNU Cfengine
1760 configuration files.
1763 ** The new package conf-mode.el handles thousands of configuration files, with
1764 varying syntaxes for comments (;, #, //, /* */ or !), assignment (var = value,
1765 var : value, var value or keyword var value) and sections ([section] or
1766 section { }). Many files under /etc/, or with suffixes like .cf through
1767 .config, .properties (Java), .desktop (KDE/Gnome), .ini and many others are
1771 ** GDB-Script-mode is used for files like .gdbinit.
1774 ** The new python.el package is used to edit Python and Jython programs.
1777 ** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
1778 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
1780 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 22.1:
1782 ** Makefile mode has submodes for automake, gmake, makepp and BSD make.
1784 The former two couldn't be differentiated before, and the latter two
1785 are new. Font-locking is robust now and offers new customizable
1789 ** In Outline mode, `hide-body' no longer hides lines at the top
1790 of the file that precede the first header line.
1793 ** Telnet now prompts you for a port number with C-u M-x telnet.
1796 ** The terminal emulation code in term.el has been improved; it can
1797 run most curses applications now.
1800 ** M-x diff uses Diff mode instead of Compilation mode.
1803 ** You can now customize `fill-nobreak-predicate' to control where
1804 filling can break lines. The value is now normally a list of
1805 functions, but it can also be a single function, for compatibility.
1807 Emacs provide two predicates, `fill-single-word-nobreak-p' and
1808 `fill-french-nobreak-p', for use as the value of
1809 `fill-nobreak-predicate'.
1812 ** M-x view-file and commands that use it now avoid interfering
1813 with special modes such as Tar mode.
1816 ** Commands `winner-redo' and `winner-undo', from winner.el, are now
1817 bound to C-c <left> and C-c <right>, respectively. This is an
1818 incompatible change.
1821 ** `global-whitespace-mode' is a new alias for `whitespace-global-mode'.
1824 ** M-x compare-windows now can automatically skip non-matching text to
1825 resync points in both windows.
1828 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
1830 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry always
1831 starts a new record regardless of when the last record is.
1834 ** PO translation files are decoded according to their MIME headers
1835 when Emacs visits them.
1837 ** Info mode changes:
1840 *** A numeric prefix argument of `info' selects an Info buffer
1841 with the number appended to the `*info*' buffer name (e.g. "*info*<2>").
1844 *** isearch in Info uses Info-search and searches through multiple nodes.
1846 Before leaving the initial Info node isearch fails once with the error
1847 message [initial node], and with subsequent C-s/C-r continues through
1848 other nodes. When isearch fails for the rest of the manual, it wraps
1849 aroung the whole manual to the top/final node. The user option
1850 `Info-isearch-search' controls whether to use Info-search for isearch,
1851 or the default isearch search function that wraps around the current
1854 *** New search commands: `Info-search-case-sensitively' (bound to S),
1855 `Info-search-backward', and `Info-search-next' which repeats the last
1856 search without prompting for a new search string.
1858 *** New command `Info-history-forward' (bound to r and new toolbar icon)
1859 moves forward in history to the node you returned from after using
1860 `Info-history-back' (renamed from `Info-last').
1862 *** New command `Info-history' (bound to L) displays a menu of visited nodes.
1864 *** New command `Info-toc' (bound to T) creates a node with table of contents
1865 from the tree structure of menus of the current Info file.
1867 *** New command `info-apropos' searches the indices of the known
1868 Info files on your system for a string, and builds a menu of the
1871 *** New command `Info-copy-current-node-name' (bound to w) copies
1872 the current Info node name into the kill ring. With a zero prefix
1873 arg, puts the node name inside the `info' function call.
1876 *** New face `info-xref-visited' distinguishes visited nodes from unvisited
1877 and a new option `Info-fontify-visited-nodes' to control this.
1879 *** http and ftp links in Info are now operational: they look like cross
1880 references and following them calls `browse-url'.
1883 *** Info now hides node names in menus and cross references by default.
1885 If you prefer the old behavior, you can set the new user option
1886 `Info-hide-note-references' to nil.
1889 *** Images in Info pages are supported.
1891 Info pages show embedded images, in Emacs frames with image support.
1892 Info documentation that includes images, processed with makeinfo
1893 version 4.7 or newer, compiles to Info pages with embedded images.
1896 *** The default value for `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' is now nil.
1899 *** `Info-index' offers completion.
1901 ** Lisp mode changes:
1904 *** Lisp mode now uses `font-lock-doc-face' for doc strings.
1907 *** C-u C-M-q in Emacs Lisp mode pretty-prints the list after point.
1909 *** New features in evaluation commands
1912 **** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) called on defface reinitializes
1913 the face to the value specified in the defface expression.
1916 **** Typing C-x C-e twice prints the value of the integer result
1917 in additional formats (octal, hexadecimal, character) specified
1918 by the new function `eval-expression-print-format'. The same
1919 function also defines the result format for `eval-expression' (M-:),
1920 `eval-print-last-sexp' (C-j) and some edebug evaluation functions.
1925 *** Font lock support.
1926 CC Mode now provides font lock support for all its languages. This
1927 supersedes the font lock patterns that have been in the core font lock
1928 package for C, C++, Java and Objective-C. Like indentation, font
1929 locking is done in a uniform way across all languages (except the new
1930 AWK mode - see below). That means that the new font locking will be
1931 different from the old patterns in various details for most languages.
1933 The main goal of the font locking in CC Mode is accuracy, to provide a
1934 dependable aid in recognizing the various constructs. Some, like
1935 strings and comments, are easy to recognize while others like
1936 declarations and types can be very tricky. CC Mode can go to great
1937 lengths to recognize declarations and casts correctly, especially when
1938 the types aren't recognized by standard patterns. This is a fairly
1939 demanding analysis which can be slow on older hardware, and it can
1940 therefore be disabled by choosing a lower decoration level with the
1941 variable font-lock-maximum-decoration.
1943 Note that the most demanding font lock level has been tuned with lazy
1944 fontification in mind, i.e. there should be a support mode that waits
1945 with the fontification until the text is actually shown
1946 (e.g. Just-in-time Lock mode, which is the default, or Lazy Lock
1947 mode). Fontifying a file with several thousand lines in one go can
1948 take the better part of a minute.
1950 **** The (c|c++|objc|java|idl|pike)-font-lock-extra-types variables
1951 are now used by CC Mode to recognize identifiers that are certain to
1952 be types. (They are also used in cases that aren't related to font
1953 locking.) At the maximum decoration level, types are often recognized
1954 properly anyway, so these variables should be fairly restrictive and
1955 not contain patterns for uncertain types.
1957 **** Support for documentation comments.
1958 There is a "plugin" system to fontify documentation comments like
1959 Javadoc and the markup within them. It's independent of the host
1960 language, so it's possible to e.g. turn on Javadoc font locking in C
1961 buffers. See the variable c-doc-comment-style for details.
1963 Currently two kinds of doc comment styles are recognized: Suns Javadoc
1964 and Autodoc which is used in Pike. This is by no means a complete
1965 list of the most common tools; if your doc comment extractor of choice
1966 is missing then please drop a note to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
1968 **** Better handling of C++ templates.
1969 As a side effect of the more accurate font locking, C++ templates are
1970 now handled much better. The angle brackets that delimit them are
1971 given parenthesis syntax so that they can be navigated like other
1974 This also improves indentation of templates, although there still is
1975 work to be done in that area. E.g. it's required that multiline
1976 template clauses are written in full and then refontified to be
1977 recognized, and the indentation of nested templates is a bit odd and
1978 not as configurable as it ought to be.
1980 **** Improved handling of Objective-C and CORBA IDL.
1981 Especially the support for Objective-C and IDL has gotten an overhaul.
1982 The special "@" declarations in Objective-C are handled correctly.
1983 All the keywords used in CORBA IDL, PSDL, and CIDL are recognized and
1984 handled correctly, also wrt indentation.
1986 *** Support for the AWK language.
1987 Support for the AWK language has been introduced. The implementation is
1988 based around GNU AWK version 3.1, but it should work pretty well with
1989 any AWK. As yet, not all features of CC Mode have been adapted for AWK.
1992 **** Indentation Engine
1993 The CC Mode indentation engine fully supports AWK mode.
1995 AWK mode handles code formatted in the conventional AWK fashion: `{'s
1996 which start actions, user-defined functions, or compound statements are
1997 placed on the same line as the associated construct; the matching `}'s
1998 are normally placed under the start of the respective pattern, function
1999 definition, or structured statement.
2001 The predefined indentation functions haven't yet been adapted for AWK
2002 mode, though some of them may work serendipitously. There shouldn't be
2003 any problems writing custom indentation functions for AWK mode.
2005 The command C-c C-q (c-indent-defun) hasn't yet been adapted for AWK,
2006 though in practice it works properly nearly all the time. Should it
2007 fail, explicitly set the region around the function (using C-u C-SPC:
2008 C-M-h probably won't work either) then do C-M-\ (indent-region).
2011 There is a single level of font locking in AWK mode, rather than the
2012 three distinct levels the other modes have. There are several
2013 idiosyncrasies in AWK mode's font-locking due to the peculiarities of
2014 the AWK language itself.
2016 **** Comment Commands
2017 M-; (indent-for-comment) works fine. None of the other CC Mode
2018 comment formatting commands have yet been adapted for AWK mode.
2020 **** Movement Commands
2021 Most of the movement commands work in AWK mode. The most important
2022 exceptions are M-a (c-beginning-of-statement) and M-e
2023 (c-end-of-statement) which haven't yet been adapted.
2025 The notion of "defun" has been augmented to include AWK pattern-action
2026 pairs. C-M-a (c-awk-beginning-of-defun) and C-M-e (c-awk-end-of-defun)
2027 recognise these pattern-action pairs, as well as user defined
2030 **** Auto-newline Insertion and Clean-ups
2031 Auto-newline insertion hasn't yet been adapted for AWK. Some of
2032 the clean-ups can actually convert good AWK code into syntactically
2033 invalid code. These features are best disabled in AWK buffers.
2035 *** New syntactic symbols in IDL mode.
2036 The top level constructs "module" and "composition" (from CIDL) are
2037 now handled like "namespace" in C++: They are given syntactic symbols
2038 module-open, module-close, inmodule, composition-open,
2039 composition-close, and incomposition.
2041 *** New functions to do hungry delete without enabling hungry delete mode.
2042 The functions `c-hungry-backspace' and `c-hungry-delete-forward' can be
2043 bound to keys to get this feature without toggling a mode.
2045 *** Better control over `require-final-newline'.
2047 The variable `c-require-final-newline' specifies which of the modes
2048 implemented by CC mode should insert final newlines. Its value is a
2049 list of modes, and only those modes should do it. By default the list
2050 includes C, C++ and Objective-C modes.
2052 Whichever modes are in this list will set `require-final-newline'
2053 based on `mode-require-final-newline'.
2055 *** Format change for syntactic context elements.
2057 The elements in the syntactic context returned by `c-guess-basic-syntax'
2058 and stored in `c-syntactic-context' has been changed somewhat to allow
2059 attaching more information. They are now lists instead of single cons
2060 cells. E.g. a line that previously had the syntactic analysis
2062 ((inclass . 11) (topmost-intro . 13))
2066 ((inclass 11) (topmost-intro 13))
2068 In some cases there are more than one position given for a syntactic
2071 This change might affect code that call `c-guess-basic-syntax' directly,
2072 and custom lineup functions if they use `c-syntactic-context'. However,
2073 the argument given to lineup functions is still a single cons cell
2074 with nil or an integer in the cdr.
2076 *** API changes for derived modes.
2078 There have been extensive changes "under the hood" which can affect
2079 derived mode writers. Some of these changes are likely to cause
2080 incompatibilities with existing derived modes, but on the other hand
2081 care has now been taken to make it possible to extend and modify CC
2082 Mode with less risk of such problems in the future.
2084 **** New language variable system.
2085 See the comment blurb near the top of cc-langs.el.
2087 **** New initialization functions.
2088 The initialization procedure has been split up into more functions to
2089 give better control: `c-basic-common-init', `c-font-lock-init', and
2090 `c-init-language-vars'.
2092 *** Changes in analysis of nested syntactic constructs.
2093 The syntactic analysis engine has better handling of cases where
2094 several syntactic constructs appear nested on the same line. They are
2095 now handled as if each construct started on a line of its own.
2097 This means that CC Mode now indents some cases differently, and
2098 although it's more consistent there might be cases where the old way
2099 gave results that's more to one's liking. So if you find a situation
2100 where you think that the indentation has become worse, please report
2101 it to bug-cc-mode@gnu.org.
2103 **** New syntactic symbol substatement-label.
2104 This symbol is used when a label is inserted between a statement and
2105 its substatement. E.g:
2111 *** Better handling of multiline macros.
2113 **** Syntactic indentation inside macros.
2114 The contents of multiline #define's are now analyzed and indented
2115 syntactically just like other code. This can be disabled by the new
2116 variable `c-syntactic-indentation-in-macros'. A new syntactic symbol
2117 `cpp-define-intro' has been added to control the initial indentation
2120 **** New lineup function `c-lineup-cpp-define'.
2122 Now used by default to line up macro continuation lines. The behavior
2123 of this function closely mimics the indentation one gets if the macro
2124 is indented while the line continuation backslashes are temporarily
2125 removed. If syntactic indentation in macros is turned off, it works
2126 much line `c-lineup-dont-change', which was used earlier, but handles
2127 empty lines within the macro better.
2129 **** Automatically inserted newlines continues the macro if used within one.
2130 This applies to the newlines inserted by the auto-newline mode, and to
2131 `c-context-line-break' and `c-context-open-line'.
2133 **** Better alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2134 `c-backslash-region' tries to adapt to surrounding backslashes. New
2135 variable `c-backslash-max-column' which put a limit on how far out
2136 backslashes can be moved.
2138 **** Automatic alignment of line continuation backslashes.
2139 This is controlled by the new variable `c-auto-align-backslashes'. It
2140 affects `c-context-line-break', `c-context-open-line' and newlines
2141 inserted in Auto-Newline mode.
2142 **** Line indentation works better inside macros.
2144 Regardless whether syntactic indentation and syntactic indentation
2145 inside macros are enabled or not, line indentation now ignores the
2146 line continuation backslashes. This is most noticeable when syntactic
2147 indentation is turned off and there are empty lines (save for the
2148 backslash) in the macro.
2150 *** indent-for-comment is more customizable.
2151 The behavior of M-; (indent-for-comment) is now configurable through
2152 the variable `c-indent-comment-alist'. The indentation behavior based
2153 on the preceding code on the line, e.g. to get two spaces after #else
2154 and #endif but indentation to `comment-column' in most other cases
2155 (something which was hardcoded earlier).
2157 *** New function `c-context-open-line'.
2158 It's the open-line equivalent of `c-context-line-break'.
2160 *** New lineup functions
2162 **** `c-lineup-string-cont'
2163 This lineup function lines up a continued string under the one it
2166 result = prefix + "A message "
2167 "string."; <- c-lineup-string-cont
2169 **** `c-lineup-cascaded-calls'
2170 Lines up series of calls separated by "->" or ".".
2172 **** `c-lineup-knr-region-comment'
2173 Gives (what most people think is) better indentation of comments in
2174 the "K&R region" between the function header and its body.
2176 **** `c-lineup-gcc-asm-reg'
2177 Provides better indentation inside asm blocks.
2179 **** `c-lineup-argcont'
2180 Lines up continued function arguments after the preceding comma.
2182 *** Better caching of the syntactic context.
2183 CC Mode caches the positions of the opening parentheses (of any kind)
2184 of the lists surrounding the point. Those positions are used in many
2185 places as anchor points for various searches. The cache is now
2186 improved so that it can be reused to a large extent when the point is
2187 moved. The less it moves, the less needs to be recalculated.
2189 The effect is that CC Mode should be fast most of the time even when
2190 opening parens are hung (i.e. aren't in column zero). It's typically
2191 only the first time after the point is moved far down in a complex
2192 file that it'll take noticeable time to find out the syntactic
2195 *** Statements are recognized in a more robust way.
2196 Statements are recognized most of the time even when they occur in an
2197 "invalid" context, e.g. in a function argument. In practice that can
2198 happen when macros are involved.
2200 *** Improved the way `c-indent-exp' chooses the block to indent.
2201 It now indents the block for the closest sexp following the point
2202 whose closing paren ends on a different line. This means that the
2203 point doesn't have to be immediately before the block to indent.
2204 Also, only the block and the closing line is indented; the current
2205 line is left untouched.
2207 *** Added toggle for syntactic indentation.
2208 The function `c-toggle-syntactic-indentation' can be used to toggle
2209 syntactic indentation.
2212 ** Perl mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
2215 ** The old Octave mode bindings C-c f and C-c i have been changed
2216 to C-c C-f and C-c C-i. The C-c C-i subcommands now have duplicate
2217 bindings on control characters--thus, C-c C-i C-b is the same as
2218 C-c C-i b, and so on.
2220 ** Fortran mode changes:
2223 *** Fortran mode does more font-locking by default. Use level 3
2224 highlighting for the old default.
2227 *** Fortran mode has a new variable `fortran-directive-re'.
2228 Adapt this to match the format of any compiler directives you use.
2229 Lines that match are never indented, and are given distinctive font-locking.
2232 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have new navigation commands
2233 `f90-end-of-block', `f90-beginning-of-block', `f90-next-block',
2234 `f90-previous-block', `fortran-end-of-block',
2235 `fortran-beginning-of-block'.
2238 *** F90 mode and Fortran mode have support for `hs-minor-mode' (hideshow).
2239 It cannot deal with every code format, but ought to handle a sizeable
2243 *** The new function `f90-backslash-not-special' can be used to change
2244 the syntax of backslashes in F90 buffers.
2247 ** Prolog mode has a new variable `prolog-font-lock-keywords'
2248 to support use of font-lock.
2250 ** HTML/SGML changes:
2253 *** Emacs now tries to set up buffer coding systems for HTML/XML files
2257 *** SGML mode has indentation and supports XML syntax.
2258 The new variable `sgml-xml-mode' tells SGML mode to use XML syntax.
2259 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
2260 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
2261 By default, its setting is inferred on a buffer-by-buffer basis
2262 from the file name or buffer contents.
2265 *** `xml-mode' is now an alias for `sgml-mode', which has XML support.
2270 *** C-c C-c prompts for a command to run, and tries to offer a good default.
2273 *** The user option `tex-start-options-string' has been replaced
2274 by two new user options: `tex-start-options', which should hold
2275 command-line options to feed to TeX, and `tex-start-commands' which should hold
2276 TeX commands to use at startup.
2279 *** verbatim environments are now highlighted in courier by font-lock
2280 and super/sub-scripts are made into super/sub-scripts.
2283 *** New major mode Doctex mode, for *.dtx files.
2287 *** The new command `bibtex-url' browses a URL for the BibTeX entry at
2288 point (bound to C-c C-l and mouse-2, RET on clickable fields).
2290 *** The new command `bibtex-entry-update' (bound to C-c C-u) updates
2291 an existing BibTeX entry.
2293 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `required-fields', enabled by default.
2295 *** `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' can take values `plain',
2296 `crossref', and `entry-class' which control the sorting scheme used
2297 for BibTeX entries. `bibtex-sort-entry-class' controls the sorting
2298 scheme `entry-class'. TAB completion for reference keys and
2299 automatic detection of duplicates does not require anymore that
2300 `bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries' is non-nil.
2302 *** If the new variable `bibtex-parse-keys-fast' is non-nil,
2303 use fast but simplified algorithm for parsing BibTeX keys.
2305 *** If the new variable `bibtex-autoadd-commas' is non-nil,
2306 automatically add missing commas at end of BibTeX fields.
2308 *** The new variable `bibtex-autofill-types' contains a list of entry
2309 types for which fields are filled automatically (if possible).
2311 *** The new command `bibtex-complete' completes word fragment before
2312 point according to context (bound to M-tab).
2314 *** The new commands `bibtex-find-entry' and `bibtex-find-crossref'
2315 locate entries and crossref'd entries (bound to C-c C-s and C-c C-x).
2316 Crossref fields are clickable (bound to mouse-2, RET).
2318 *** In BibTeX mode the command `fill-paragraph' (M-q) fills
2319 individual fields of a BibTeX entry.
2321 *** The new variables `bibtex-files' and `bibtex-file-path' define a set
2322 of BibTeX files that are searched for entry keys.
2324 *** The new command `bibtex-validate-globally' checks for duplicate keys
2325 in multiple BibTeX files.
2327 *** The new command `bibtex-copy-summary-as-kill' pushes summary
2328 of BibTeX entry to kill ring (bound to C-c C-t).
2331 ** In Enriched mode, `set-left-margin' and `set-right-margin' are now
2332 by default bound to `C-c [' and `C-c ]' instead of the former `C-c C-l'
2338 *** In GUD mode, when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
2339 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
2342 *** GUD mode has its own tool bar for controlling execution of the inferior
2343 and other common debugger commands.
2346 *** The new package gdb-ui.el provides an enhanced graphical interface to
2347 GDB. You can interact with GDB through the GUD buffer in the usual way, but
2348 there are also further buffers which control the execution and describe the
2349 state of your program. It can separate the input/output of your program from
2350 that of GDB and watches expressions in the speedbar. It also uses features of
2351 Emacs 21/22 such as the the toolbar, and bitmaps in the fringe to indicate
2354 Use M-x gdb to start GDB-UI.
2356 *** The variable tooltip-gud-tips-p has been removed. GUD tooltips can now be
2357 toggled independently of normal tooltips with the minor mode
2361 *** In graphical mode, with a C program, GUD Tooltips have been extended to
2362 display the #define directive associated with an identifier when program is
2366 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
2368 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
2369 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
2370 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
2371 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2372 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
2374 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
2375 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
2376 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
2379 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
2382 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
2383 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
2384 Set `gud-jdb-use-classpath' to nil.
2386 Added Customization Variables
2388 *** `gud-jdb-command-name'. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
2390 *** `gud-jdb-use-classpath'. Allows selection of java source file searching
2391 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan `gud-jdb-directories' for
2392 java sources (previous method).
2394 *** `gud-jdb-directories'. List of directories to scan and search for java
2395 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
2400 *** The STARTTLS wrapper (starttls.el) can now use GNUTLS
2401 instead of the OpenSSL based `starttls' tool. For backwards
2402 compatibility, it prefers `starttls', but you can toggle
2403 `starttls-use-gnutls' to switch to GNUTLS (or simply remove the
2406 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
2408 ** Auto-Revert changes:
2411 *** You can now use Auto Revert mode to `tail' a file.
2413 If point is at the end of a file buffer before reverting, Auto Revert
2414 mode keeps it at the end after reverting. Similarly if point is
2415 displayed at the end of a file buffer in any window, it stays at
2416 the end of the buffer in that window. This allows to tail a file:
2417 just put point at the end of the buffer and it stays there. This
2418 rule applies to file buffers. For non-file buffers, the behavior can
2421 If you are sure that the file will only change by growing at the end,
2422 then you can tail the file more efficiently by using the new minor
2423 mode Auto Revert Tail mode. The function `auto-revert-tail-mode'
2427 *** Auto Revert mode is now more careful to avoid excessive reverts and
2428 other potential problems when deciding which non-file buffers to
2429 revert. This matters especially if Global Auto Revert mode is enabled
2430 and `global-auto-revert-non-file-buffers' is non-nil. Auto Revert
2431 mode only reverts a non-file buffer if the buffer has a non-nil
2432 `revert-buffer-function' and a non-nil `buffer-stale-function', which
2433 decides whether the buffer should be reverted. Currently, this means
2434 that auto reverting works for Dired buffers (although this may not
2435 work properly on all operating systems) and for the Buffer Menu.
2438 *** If the new user option `auto-revert-check-vc-info' is non-nil, Auto
2439 Revert mode reliably updates version control info (such as the version
2440 control number in the mode line), in all version controlled buffers in
2441 which it is active. If the option is nil, the default, then this info
2442 only gets updated whenever the buffer gets reverted.
2447 The recent file list is now automatically cleanup when recentf mode is
2448 enabled. The new option `recentf-auto-cleanup' controls when to do
2451 The `recentf-keep' option replaces `recentf-keep-non-readable-files-p'
2452 and provides a more general mechanism to customize which file names to
2453 keep in the recent list.
2455 With the more advanced option: `recentf-filename-handler', you can
2456 specify a function that transforms filenames handled by recentf. For
2457 example, if set to `file-truename', the same file will not be in the
2458 recent list with different symbolic links.
2460 To follow naming convention, `recentf-menu-append-commands-flag'
2461 replaces the misnamed option `recentf-menu-append-commands-p'. The
2462 old name remains available as alias, but has been marked obsolete.
2468 *** Desktop saving is now a minor mode, `desktop-save-mode'.
2470 *** The variable `desktop-enable' is obsolete.
2472 Customize `desktop-save-mode' to enable desktop saving.
2475 *** Buffers are saved in the desktop file in the same order as that in the
2479 *** The desktop package can be customized to restore only some buffers
2480 immediately, remaining buffers are restored lazily (when Emacs is
2485 - desktop-revert reverts to the last loaded desktop.
2486 - desktop-change-dir kills current desktop and loads a new.
2487 - desktop-save-in-desktop-dir saves desktop in the directory from which
2489 - desktop-lazy-complete runs the desktop load to completion.
2490 - desktop-lazy-abort aborts lazy loading of the desktop.
2493 *** New customizable variables:
2494 - desktop-save. Determins whether the desktop should be saved when it is
2496 - desktop-file-name-format. Format in which desktop file names should be saved.
2497 - desktop-path. List of directories in which to lookup the desktop file.
2498 - desktop-locals-to-save. List of local variables to save.
2499 - desktop-globals-to-clear. List of global variables that `desktop-clear' will clear.
2500 - desktop-clear-preserve-buffers-regexp. Regexp identifying buffers that `desktop-clear'
2502 - desktop-restore-eager. Number of buffers to restore immediately. Remaining buffers are
2503 restored lazily (when Emacs is idle).
2504 - desktop-lazy-verbose. Verbose reporting of lazily created buffers.
2505 - desktop-lazy-idle-delay. Idle delay before starting to create buffers.
2508 *** New command line option --no-desktop
2512 - desktop-after-read-hook run after a desktop is loaded.
2513 - desktop-no-desktop-file-hook run when no desktop file is found.
2516 ** The saveplace.el package now filters out unreadable files.
2518 When you exit Emacs, the saved positions in visited files no longer
2519 include files that aren't readable, e.g. files that don't exist.
2520 Customize the new option `save-place-forget-unreadable-files' to nil
2521 to get the old behavior. The new options `save-place-save-skipped'
2522 and `save-place-skip-check-regexp' allow further fine-tuning of this
2528 *** When comparing directories.
2529 Typing D brings up a buffer that lists the differences between the contents of
2530 directories. Now it is possible to use this buffer to copy the missing files
2531 from one directory to another.
2534 *** When comparing files or buffers.
2535 Typing the = key now offers to perform the word-by-word comparison of the
2536 currently highlighted regions in an inferior Ediff session. If you answer 'n'
2537 then it reverts to the old behavior and asks the user to select regions for
2540 *** The new command `ediff-backup' compares a file with its most recent
2541 backup using `ediff'. If you specify the name of a backup file,
2542 `ediff-backup' compares it with the file of which it is a backup.
2547 *** New regular expressions features
2549 **** New syntax for regular expressions, multi-line regular expressions.
2551 The syntax --ignore-case-regexp=/regex/ is now undocumented and retained
2552 only for backward compatibility. The new equivalent syntax is
2553 --regex=/regex/i. More generally, it is --regex=/TAGREGEX/TAGNAME/MODS,
2554 where `/TAGNAME' is optional, as usual, and MODS is a string of 0 or
2555 more characters among `i' (ignore case), `m' (multi-line) and `s'
2556 (single-line). The `m' and `s' modifiers behave as in Perl regular
2557 expressions: `m' allows regexps to match more than one line, while `s'
2558 (which implies `m') means that `.' matches newlines. The ability to
2559 span newlines allows writing of much more powerful regular expressions
2560 and rapid prototyping for tagging new languages.
2562 **** Regular expressions can use char escape sequences as in GCC.
2564 The escaped character sequence \a, \b, \d, \e, \f, \n, \r, \t, \v,
2565 respectively, stand for the ASCII characters BEL, BS, DEL, ESC, FF, NL,
2568 **** Regular expressions can be bound to a given language.
2570 The syntax --regex={LANGUAGE}REGEX means that REGEX is used to make tags
2571 only for files of language LANGUAGE, and ignored otherwise. This is
2572 particularly useful when storing regexps in a file.
2574 **** Regular expressions can be read from a file.
2576 The --regex=@regexfile option means read the regexps from a file, one
2577 per line. Lines beginning with space or tab are ignored.
2579 *** New language parsing features
2581 **** The `::' qualifier triggers C++ parsing in C file.
2583 Previously, only the `template' and `class' keywords had this effect.
2585 **** The GCC __attribute__ keyword is now recognised and ignored.
2587 **** New language HTML.
2589 Tags are generated for `title' as well as `h1', `h2', and `h3'. Also,
2590 when `name=' is used inside an anchor and whenever `id=' is used.
2592 **** In Makefiles, constants are tagged.
2594 If you want the old behavior instead, thus avoiding to increase the
2595 size of the tags file, use the --no-globals option.
2597 **** New language Lua.
2599 All functions are tagged.
2601 **** In Perl, packages are tags.
2603 Subroutine tags are named from their package. You can jump to sub tags
2604 as you did before, by the sub name, or additionally by looking for
2607 **** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
2609 **** New language PHP.
2611 Functions, classes and defines are tags. If the --members option is
2612 specified to etags, variables are tags also.
2614 **** New default keywords for TeX.
2616 The new keywords are def, newcommand, renewcommand, newenvironment and
2619 *** Honour #line directives.
2621 When Etags parses an input file that contains C preprocessor's #line
2622 directives, it creates tags using the file name and line number
2623 specified in those directives. This is useful when dealing with code
2624 created from Cweb source files. When Etags tags the generated file, it
2625 writes tags pointing to the source file.
2627 *** New option --parse-stdin=FILE.
2629 This option is mostly useful when calling etags from programs. It can
2630 be used (only once) in place of a file name on the command line. Etags
2631 reads from standard input and marks the produced tags as belonging to
2637 *** The key C-x C-q only changes the read-only state of the buffer
2638 (toggle-read-only). It no longer checks files in or out.
2640 We made this change because we held a poll and found that many users
2641 were unhappy with the previous behavior. If you do prefer this
2642 behavior, you can bind `vc-toggle-read-only' to C-x C-q in your
2645 (global-set-key "\C-x\C-q" 'vc-toggle-read-only)
2647 The function `vc-toggle-read-only' will continue to exist.
2650 *** The new variable `vc-cvs-global-switches' specifies switches that
2651 are passed to any CVS command invoked by VC.
2653 These switches are used as "global options" for CVS, which means they
2654 are inserted before the command name. For example, this allows you to
2655 specify a compression level using the `-z#' option for CVS.
2658 *** New backends for Subversion and Meta-CVS.
2661 *** VC-Annotate mode enhancements
2663 In VC-Annotate mode, you can now use the following key bindings for
2664 enhanced functionality to browse the annotations of past revisions, or
2665 to view diffs or log entries directly from vc-annotate-mode:
2667 P: annotates the previous revision
2668 N: annotates the next revision
2669 J: annotates the revision at line
2670 A: annotates the revision previous to line
2671 D: shows the diff of the revision at line with its previous revision
2672 L: shows the log of the revision at line
2673 W: annotates the workfile (most up to date) version
2678 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d y' command to view the diffs
2679 between the local version of the file and yesterday's head revision
2683 *** In pcl-cvs mode, there is a new `d r' command to view the changes
2684 anyone has committed to the repository since you last executed
2685 `checkout', `update' or `commit'. That means using cvs diff options
2689 ** The new variable `mail-default-directory' specifies
2690 `default-directory' for mail buffers. This directory is used for
2691 auto-save files of mail buffers. It defaults to "~/".
2694 ** The mode line can indicate new mail in a directory or file.
2696 See the documentation of the user option
2697 `display-time-mail-directory'.
2702 *** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
2705 *** Support for `movemail' from GNU mailutils was added to Rmail.
2707 This version of `movemail' allows to read mail from a wide range of
2708 mailbox formats, including remote POP3 and IMAP4 mailboxes with or
2709 without TLS encryption. If GNU mailutils is installed on the system
2710 and its version of `movemail' can be found in exec-path, it will be
2711 used instead of the native one.
2716 *** Gnus now includes Sieve and PGG
2718 Sieve is a library for managing Sieve scripts. PGG is a library to handle
2722 *** There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements.
2724 See the file GNUS-NEWS or the node "Oort Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
2729 Upgraded to MH-E version 7.82. There have been major changes since
2730 version 5.0.2; see MH-E-NEWS for details.
2732 ** Calendar changes:
2735 *** There is a new calendar package, icalendar.el, that can be used to
2736 convert Emacs diary entries to/from the iCalendar format.
2739 *** Diary sexp entries can have custom marking in the calendar.
2740 Diary sexp functions which only apply to certain days (such as
2741 `diary-block' or `diary-cyclic') now take an optional parameter MARK,
2742 which is the name of a face or a single-character string indicating
2743 how to highlight the day in the calendar display. Specifying a
2744 single-character string as @var{mark} places the character next to the
2745 day in the calendar. Specifying a face highlights the day with that
2746 face. This lets you have different colors or markings for vacations,
2747 appointments, paydays or anything else using a sexp.
2750 *** The new function `calendar-goto-day-of-year' (g D) prompts for a
2751 year and day number, and moves to that date. Negative day numbers
2752 count backward from the end of the year.
2755 *** The new Calendar function `calendar-goto-iso-week' (g w)
2756 prompts for a year and a week number, and moves to the first
2757 day of that ISO week.
2760 *** The new variable `calendar-minimum-window-height' affects the
2761 window generated by the function `generate-calendar-window'.
2764 *** The functions `holiday-easter-etc' and `holiday-advent' now take
2765 optional arguments, in order to only report on the specified holiday
2766 rather than all. This makes customization of variables such as
2767 `christian-holidays' simpler.
2770 *** The function `simple-diary-display' now by default sets a header line.
2771 This can be controlled through the variables `diary-header-line-flag'
2772 and `diary-header-line-format'.
2775 *** The procedure for activating appointment reminders has changed:
2776 use the new function `appt-activate'. The new variable
2777 `appt-display-format' controls how reminders are displayed, replacing
2778 `appt-issue-message', `appt-visible', and `appt-msg-window'.
2781 *** The new functions `diary-from-outlook', `diary-from-outlook-gnus',
2782 and `diary-from-outlook-rmail' can be used to import diary entries
2783 from Outlook-format appointments in mail messages. The variable
2784 `diary-outlook-formats' can be customized to recognize additional
2790 *** The variable `sql-product' controls the highlightng of different
2791 SQL dialects. This variable can be set globally via Customize, on a
2792 buffer-specific basis via local variable settings, or for the current
2793 session using the new SQL->Product submenu. (This menu replaces the
2794 SQL->Highlighting submenu.)
2796 The following values are supported:
2798 ansi ANSI Standard (default)
2812 The current product name will be shown on the mode line following the
2815 The technique of setting `sql-mode-font-lock-defaults' directly in
2816 your `.emacs' will no longer establish the default highlighting -- Use
2817 `sql-product' to accomplish this.
2819 ANSI keywords are always highlighted.
2821 *** The function `sql-add-product-keywords' can be used to add
2822 font-lock rules to the product specific rules. For example, to have
2823 all identifiers ending in `_t' under MS SQLServer treated as a type,
2824 you would use the following line in your .emacs file:
2826 (sql-add-product-keywords 'ms
2827 '(("\\<\\w+_t\\>" . font-lock-type-face)))
2829 *** Oracle support includes keyword highlighting for Oracle 9i.
2831 Most SQL and PL/SQL keywords are implemented. SQL*Plus commands are
2832 highlighted in `font-lock-doc-face'.
2834 *** Microsoft SQLServer support has been significantly improved.
2836 Keyword highlighting for SqlServer 2000 is implemented.
2837 sql-interactive-mode defaults to use osql, rather than isql, because
2838 osql flushes its error stream more frequently. Thus error messages
2839 are displayed when they occur rather than when the session is
2842 If the username and password are not provided to `sql-ms', osql is
2843 called with the `-E' command line argument to use the operating system
2844 credentials to authenticate the user.
2846 *** Postgres support is enhanced.
2847 Keyword highlighting of Postgres 7.3 is implemented. Prompting for
2848 the username and the pgsql `-U' option is added.
2850 *** MySQL support is enhanced.
2851 Keyword higlighting of MySql 4.0 is implemented.
2853 *** Imenu support has been enhanced to locate tables, views, indexes,
2854 packages, procedures, functions, triggers, sequences, rules, and
2857 *** Added SQL->Start SQLi Session menu entry which calls the
2858 appropriate `sql-interactive-mode' wrapper for the current setting of
2862 *** sql.el supports the SQLite interpreter--call 'sql-sqlite'.
2867 *** New ffap commands and keybindings:
2869 C-x C-r (`ffap-read-only'),
2870 C-x C-v (`ffap-alternate-file'), C-x C-d (`ffap-list-directory'),
2871 C-x 4 r (`ffap-read-only-other-window'), C-x 4 d (`ffap-dired-other-window'),
2872 C-x 5 r (`ffap-read-only-other-frame'), C-x 5 d (`ffap-dired-other-frame').
2875 *** FFAP accepts wildcards in a file name by default.
2877 C-x C-f passes the file name to `find-file' with non-nil WILDCARDS
2878 argument, which visits multiple files, and C-x d passes it to `dired'.
2881 ** In skeleton.el, `-' marks the `skeleton-point' without interregion interaction.
2883 `@' has reverted to only setting `skeleton-positions' and no longer
2884 sets `skeleton-point'. Skeletons which used @ to mark
2885 `skeleton-point' independent of `_' should now use `-' instead. The
2886 updated `skeleton-insert' docstring explains these new features along
2887 with other details of skeleton construction.
2890 ** New variable `hs-set-up-overlay' allows customization of the overlay
2891 used to effect hiding for hideshow minor mode. Integration with isearch
2892 handles the overlay property `display' specially, preserving it during
2893 temporary overlay showing in the course of an isearch operation.
2896 ** `hide-ifdef-mode' now uses overlays rather than selective-display
2897 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
2898 changes the behavior of motion commands like C-e and C-p.
2901 ** `partial-completion-mode' now handles partial completion on directory names.
2904 ** The type-break package now allows `type-break-file-name' to be nil
2905 and if so, doesn't store any data across sessions. This is handy if
2906 you don't want the `.type-break' file in your home directory or are
2907 annoyed by the need for interaction when you kill Emacs.
2910 ** `ps-print' can now print characters from the mule-unicode charsets.
2912 Printing text with characters from the mule-unicode-* sets works with
2913 `ps-print', provided that you have installed the appropriate BDF
2914 fonts. See the file INSTALL for URLs where you can find these fonts.
2917 ** New command `strokes-global-set-stroke-string'.
2918 This is like `strokes-global-set-stroke', but it allows you to bind
2919 the stroke directly to a string to insert. This is convenient for
2920 using strokes as an input method.
2922 ** Emacs server changes:
2925 *** You can have several Emacs servers on the same machine.
2927 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "foo")' -f server-start &
2928 % emacs --eval '(setq server-name "bar")' -f server-start &
2929 % emacsclient -s foo file1
2930 % emacsclient -s bar file2
2933 *** The `emacsclient' command understands the options `--eval' and
2934 `--display' which tell Emacs respectively to evaluate the given Lisp
2935 expression and to use the given display when visiting files.
2938 *** User option `server-mode' can be used to start a server process.
2941 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
2944 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
2946 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
2947 argument it toggles the mode. Turning off PC-Selection mode restores
2948 the global key bindings that were replaced by turning on the mode.
2951 ** `uniquify-strip-common-suffix' tells uniquify to prefer
2952 `file|dir1' and `file|dir2' to `file|dir1/subdir' and `file|dir2/subdir'.
2955 ** Support for `magic cookie' standout modes has been removed.
2957 Emacs still works on terminals that require magic cookies in order to
2958 use standout mode, but they can no longer display mode-lines in
2962 ** The game `mpuz' is enhanced.
2964 `mpuz' now allows the 2nd factor not to have two identical digits. By
2965 default, all trivial operations involving whole lines are performed
2966 automatically. The game uses faces for better visual feedback.
2969 ** display-battery-mode replaces display-battery.
2972 ** calculator.el now has radix grouping mode.
2974 To enable this, set `calculator-output-radix' non-nil. In this mode a
2975 separator character is used every few digits, making it easier to see
2976 byte boundries etc. For more info, see the documentation of the
2977 variable `calculator-radix-grouping-mode'.
2980 ** fast-lock.el and lazy-lock.el are obsolete. Use jit-lock.el instead.
2983 ** iso-acc.el is now obsolete. Use one of the latin input methods instead.
2986 ** cplus-md.el has been deleted.
2988 * Changes in Emacs 22.1 on non-free operating systems
2991 ** Passing resources on the command line now works on MS Windows.
2993 You can use --xrm to pass resource settings to Emacs, overriding any
2994 existing values. For example:
2996 emacs --xrm "Emacs.Background:red" --xrm "Emacs.Geometry:100x20"
2998 will start up Emacs on an initial frame of 100x20 with red background,
2999 irrespective of geometry or background setting on the Windows registry.
3002 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
3004 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
3005 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
3008 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
3010 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
3013 ** Images are now supported on MS Windows.
3015 PBM and XBM images are supported out of the box. Other image formats
3016 depend on external libraries. All of these libraries have been ported
3017 to Windows, and can be found in both source and binary form at
3018 http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/. Note that libpng also depends on
3019 zlib, and tiff depends on the version of jpeg that it was compiled
3020 against. For additional information, see nt/INSTALL.
3023 ** Sound is now supported on MS Windows.
3025 WAV format is supported on all versions of Windows, other formats such
3026 as AU, AIFF and MP3 may be supported in the more recent versions of
3027 Windows, or when other software provides hooks into the system level
3028 sound support for those formats.
3031 ** Different shaped mouse pointers are supported on MS Windows.
3033 The mouse pointer changes shape depending on what is under the pointer.
3036 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
3038 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
3039 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
3040 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
3043 ** Emacs takes note of colors defined in Control Panel on MS-Windows.
3045 The Control Panel defines some default colors for applications in much
3046 the same way as wildcard X Resources do on X. Emacs now adds these
3047 colors to the colormap prefixed by System (eg SystemMenu for the
3048 default Menu background, SystemMenuText for the foreground), and uses
3049 some of them to initialize some of the default faces.
3050 `list-colors-display' shows the list of System color names, in case
3051 you wish to use them in other faces.
3054 ** On MS Windows NT/W2K/XP, Emacs uses Unicode for clipboard operations.
3056 Those systems use Unicode internally, so this allows Emacs to share
3057 multilingual text with other applications. On other versions of
3058 MS Windows, Emacs now uses the appropriate locale coding-system, so
3059 the clipboard should work correctly for your local language without
3063 ** On Mac OS, `keyboard-coding-system' changes based on the keyboard script.
3066 ** The variable `mac-keyboard-text-encoding' and the constants
3067 `kTextEncodingMacRoman', `kTextEncodingISOLatin1', and
3068 `kTextEncodingISOLatin2' are obsolete.
3070 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3073 ** `suppress-keymap' now works by remapping `self-insert-command' to
3074 the command `undefined'. (In earlier Emacs versions, it used
3075 `substitute-key-definition' to rebind self inserting characters to
3079 ** Mode line display ignores text properties as well as the
3080 :propertize and :eval forms in the value of a variable whose
3081 `risky-local-variable' property is nil.
3084 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
3086 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 22.1
3088 ** General Lisp changes:
3091 *** The variables post-command-idle-hook and post-command-idle-delay have
3092 been removed. Use run-with-idle-timer instead.
3095 *** The function `eql' is now available without requiring the CL package.
3098 *** `makehash' is now obsolete. Use `make-hash-table' instead.
3101 *** `add-to-list' takes an optional third argument, APPEND.
3103 If APPEND is non-nil, the new element gets added at the end of the
3104 list instead of at the beginning. This change actually occurred in
3105 Emacs 21.1, but was not documented then.
3108 *** New function `copy-tree' makes a copy of a tree.
3110 It recursively copyies through both CARs and CDRs.
3113 *** New function `delete-dups' deletes `equal' duplicate elements from a list.
3115 It modifies the list destructively, like `delete'. Of several `equal'
3116 occurrences of an element in the list, the one that's kept is the
3120 *** New function `rassq-delete-all'.
3122 (rassq-delete-all VALUE ALIST) deletes, from ALIST, each element whose
3123 CDR is `eq' to the specified value.
3126 *** The function `number-sequence' makes a list of equally-separated numbers.
3128 For instance, (number-sequence 4 9) returns (4 5 6 7 8 9). By
3129 default, the separation is 1, but you can specify a different
3130 separation as the third argument. (number-sequence 1.5 6 2) returns
3134 *** New variables `most-positive-fixnum' and `most-negative-fixnum'.
3136 They hold the largest and smallest possible integer values.
3139 *** Minor change in the function `format'.
3141 Some flags that were accepted but not implemented (such as "*") are no
3145 *** Functions `get' and `plist-get' no longer give errors for bad plists.
3147 They return nil for a malformed property list or if the list is
3151 *** New functions `lax-plist-get' and `lax-plist-put'.
3153 They are like `plist-get' and `plist-put', except that they compare
3154 the property name using `equal' rather than `eq'.
3157 *** New variable `print-continuous-numbering'.
3159 When this is non-nil, successive calls to print functions use a single
3160 numbering scheme for circular structure references. This is only
3161 relevant when `print-circle' is non-nil.
3163 When you bind `print-continuous-numbering' to t, you should
3164 also bind `print-number-table' to nil.
3167 *** New function `macroexpand-all' expands all macros in a form.
3169 It is similar to the Common-Lisp function of the same name.
3170 One difference is that it guarantees to return the original argument
3171 if no expansion is done, which can be tested using `eq'.
3174 *** The function `atan' now accepts an optional second argument.
3176 When called with 2 arguments, as in `(atan Y X)', `atan' returns the
3177 angle in radians between the vector [X, Y] and the X axis. (This is
3178 equivalent to the standard C library function `atan2'.)
3181 *** A function or macro's doc string can now specify the calling pattern.
3183 You put this info in the doc string's last line. It should be
3184 formatted so as to match the regexp "\n\n(fn .*)\\'". If you don't
3185 specify this explicitly, Emacs determines it from the actual argument
3186 names. Usually that default is right, but not always.
3189 *** New macro `with-local-quit' temporarily allows quitting.
3191 A quit inside the body of `with-local-quit' is caught by the
3192 `with-local-quit' form itself, but another quit will happen later once
3193 the code that has inhibitted quitting exits.
3195 This is for use around potentially blocking or long-running code
3196 inside timer functions and `post-command-hook' functions.
3199 *** New macro `define-obsolete-function-alias'.
3201 This combines `defalias' and `make-obsolete'.
3204 *** New function `unsafep' determines whether a Lisp form is safe.
3206 It returns nil if the given Lisp form can't possibly do anything
3207 dangerous; otherwise it returns a reason why the form might be unsafe
3208 (calls unknown function, alters global variable, etc).
3210 ** Lisp code indentation features:
3213 *** The `defmacro' form can contain indentation and edebug declarations.
3215 These declarations specify how to indent the macro calls in Lisp mode
3216 and how to debug them with Edebug. You write them like this:
3218 (defmacro NAME LAMBDA-LIST [DOC-STRING] [DECLARATION ...] ...)
3220 DECLARATION is a list `(declare DECLARATION-SPECIFIER ...)'. The
3221 possible declaration specifiers are:
3224 Set NAME's `lisp-indent-function' property to INDENT.
3227 Set NAME's `edebug-form-spec' property to DEBUG. (This is
3228 equivalent to writing a `def-edebug-spec' for the macro,
3229 but this is cleaner.)
3232 *** cl-indent now allows customization of Indentation of backquoted forms.
3234 See the new user option `lisp-backquote-indentation'.
3237 *** cl-indent now handles indentation of simple and extended `loop' forms.
3239 The new user options `lisp-loop-keyword-indentation',
3240 `lisp-loop-forms-indentation', and `lisp-simple-loop-indentation' can
3241 be used to customize the indentation of keywords and forms in loop
3245 ** Variable aliases:
3247 *** New function: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR [DOCSTRING]
3249 This function defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for
3250 symbol BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR
3251 returns the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR
3252 changes the value of BASE-VAR.
3254 DOCSTRING, if present, is the documentation for ALIAS-VAR; else it has
3255 the same documentation as BASE-VAR.
3257 *** New function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
3259 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
3260 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
3261 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
3263 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
3264 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
3267 *** The macro `define-obsolete-variable-alias' combines `defvaralias' and
3268 `make-obsolete-variable'.
3270 ** defcustom changes:
3273 *** The new customization type `float' requires a floating point number.
3278 *** The escape sequence \s is now interpreted as a SPACE character.
3280 Exception: In a character constant, if it is followed by a `-' in a
3281 character constant (e.g. ?\s-A), it is still interpreted as the super
3282 modifier. In strings, \s is always interpreted as a space.
3285 *** A hex escape in a string constant forces the string to be multibyte.
3288 *** An octal escape in a string constant forces the string to be unibyte.
3291 *** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if
3292 the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for
3293 SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is
3294 nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all
3295 empty matches are omitted from the returned list.
3298 *** New function `string-to-multibyte' converts a unibyte string to a
3299 multibyte string with the same individual character codes.
3302 *** New function `substring-no-properties' returns a substring without
3306 *** The new function `assoc-string' replaces `assoc-ignore-case' and
3307 `assoc-ignore-representation', which are still available, but have
3308 been declared obsolete.
3311 ** Displaying warnings to the user.
3313 See the functions `warn' and `display-warning', or the Lisp Manual.
3314 If you want to be sure the warning will not be overlooked, this
3315 facility is much better than using `message', since it displays
3316 warnings in a separate window.
3319 ** Progress reporters.
3321 These provide a simple and uniform way for commands to present
3322 progress messages for the user.
3324 See the new functions `make-progress-reporter',
3325 `progress-reporter-update', `progress-reporter-force-update',
3326 `progress-reporter-done', and `dotimes-with-progress-reporter'.
3328 ** Buffer positions:
3331 *** Function `compute-motion' now calculates the usable window
3332 width if the WIDTH argument is nil. If the TOPOS argument is nil,
3333 the usable window height and width is used.
3336 *** The `line-move', `scroll-up', and `scroll-down' functions will now
3337 modify the window vscroll to scroll through display rows that are
3338 taller that the height of the window, for example in the presence of
3339 large images. To disable this feature, bind the new variable
3340 `auto-window-vscroll' to nil.
3343 *** The argument to `forward-word', `backward-word' is optional.
3348 *** Argument to `forward-to-indentation' and `backward-to-indentation' is optional.
3353 *** New function `mouse-on-link-p' test if a position is in a clickable link.
3355 This is the function used by the new `mouse-1-click-follows-link'
3359 *** New function `line-number-at-pos' returns the line number of a position.
3361 It an optional buffer position argument that defaults to point.
3364 *** `field-beginning' and `field-end' take new optional argument, LIMIT.
3366 This argument tells them not to search beyond LIMIT. Instead they
3367 give up and return LIMIT.
3370 *** Function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now returns the pixel coordinates
3371 and partial visiblity state of the corresponding row, if the PARTIALLY
3375 *** New functions `posn-at-point' and `posn-at-x-y' return
3376 click-event-style position information for a given visible buffer
3377 position or for a given window pixel coordinate.
3379 ** Text modification:
3382 *** The new function `insert-for-yank' normally works like `insert', but
3383 removes the text properties in the `yank-excluded-properties' list
3384 and handles the `yank-handler' text property.
3387 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-as-yank' is like
3388 `insert-for-yank' except that it gets the text from another buffer as
3389 in `insert-buffer-substring'.
3392 *** The new function `insert-buffer-substring-no-properties' is like
3393 `insert-buffer-substring', but removes all text properties from the
3397 *** The new function `filter-buffer-substring' extracts a buffer
3398 substring, passes it through a set of filter functions, and returns
3399 the filtered substring. Use it instead of `buffer-substring' or
3400 `delete-and-extract-region' when copying text into a user-accessible
3401 data structure, such as the kill-ring, X clipboard, or a register.
3403 The list of filter function is specified by the new variable
3404 `buffer-substring-filters'. For example, Longlines mode adds to
3405 `buffer-substring-filters' to remove soft newlines from the copied
3409 *** Function `translate-region' accepts also a char-table as TABLE
3413 *** The new translation table `translation-table-for-input'
3414 is used for customizing self-insertion. The character to
3415 be inserted is translated through it.
3420 The new function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
3421 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
3425 *** The function `insert-string' is now obsolete.
3428 ** Atomic change groups.
3430 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
3431 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
3432 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
3434 (atomic-change-group
3436 (delete-region x y))
3438 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
3439 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
3440 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
3441 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
3443 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
3444 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
3446 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
3447 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
3448 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
3449 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
3451 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
3452 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
3455 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
3456 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
3457 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
3458 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
3460 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
3461 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
3462 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
3463 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
3464 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
3465 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
3468 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
3469 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
3470 returned values, like this:
3472 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
3473 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
3475 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
3476 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
3477 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
3479 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
3480 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
3481 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
3482 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
3485 ** Buffer-related changes:
3488 *** `list-buffers-noselect' now takes an additional argument, BUFFER-LIST.
3490 If it is non-nil, it specifies which buffers to list.
3493 *** `kill-buffer-hook' is now a permanent local.
3496 *** The new function `buffer-local-value' returns the buffer-local
3497 binding of VARIABLE (a symbol) in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not
3498 have a buffer-local binding in buffer BUFFER, it returns the default
3499 value of VARIABLE instead.
3501 ** Local variables lists:
3504 *** Text properties in local variables.
3506 A file local variables list cannot specify a string with text
3507 properties--any specified text properties are discarded.
3510 *** The variable `safe-local-eval-forms' specifies a list of forms that
3511 are ok to evaluate when they appear in an `eval' local variables
3512 specification. Normally Emacs asks for confirmation before evaluating
3513 such a form, but if the form appears in this list, no confirmation is
3517 *** If a function has a non-nil `safe-local-eval-function' property,
3518 that means it is ok to evaluate some calls to that function when it
3519 appears in an `eval' local variables specification. If the property
3520 is t, then any form calling that function with constant arguments is
3521 ok. If the property is a function or list of functions, they are called
3522 with the form as argument, and if any returns t, the form is ok to call.
3524 If the form is not "ok to call", that means Emacs asks for
3525 confirmation as before.
3527 ** Searching and matching changes:
3530 *** New function `looking-back' checks whether a regular expression matches
3531 the text before point. Specifying the LIMIT argument bounds how far
3532 back the match can start; this is a way to keep it from taking too long.
3535 *** The new variable `search-spaces-regexp' controls how to search
3536 for spaces in a regular expression. If it is non-nil, it should be a
3537 regular expression, and any series of spaces stands for that regular
3538 expression. If it is nil, spaces stand for themselves.
3540 Spaces inside of constructs such as `[..]' and inside loops such as
3541 `*', `+', and `?' are never replaced with `search-spaces-regexp'.
3544 *** New regular expression operators, `\_<' and `\_>'.
3546 These match the beginning and end of a symbol. A symbol is a
3547 non-empty sequence of either word or symbol constituent characters, as
3548 specified by the syntax table.
3551 *** rx.el has new corresponding `symbol-end' and `symbol-start' elements.
3554 *** `skip-chars-forward' and `skip-chars-backward' now handle
3555 character classes such as `[:alpha:]', along with individual
3556 characters and ranges.
3559 *** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
3560 properties from surrounding text.
3563 *** The list returned by `(match-data t)' now has the buffer as a final
3564 element, if the last match was on a buffer. `set-match-data'
3565 accepts such a list for restoring the match state.
3568 *** The default value of `sentence-end' is now defined using the new
3569 variable `sentence-end-without-space', which contains such characters
3570 that end a sentence without following spaces.
3572 The function `sentence-end' should be used to obtain the value of the
3573 variable `sentence-end'. If the variable `sentence-end' is nil, then
3574 this function returns the regexp constructed from the variables
3575 `sentence-end-without-period', `sentence-end-double-space' and
3576 `sentence-end-without-space'.
3581 *** `buffer-undo-list' can allows programmable elements.
3583 These elements have the form (apply FUNNAME . ARGS), where FUNNAME is
3584 a symbol other than t or nil. That stands for a high-level change
3585 that should be undone by evaluating (apply FUNNAME ARGS).
3587 These entries can also have the form (apply DELTA BEG END FUNNAME . ARGS)
3588 which indicates that the change which took place was limited to the
3589 range BEG...END and increased the buffer size by DELTA.
3592 *** If the buffer's undo list for the current command gets longer than
3593 `undo-outer-limit', garbage collection empties it. This is to prevent
3594 it from using up the available memory and choking Emacs.
3597 ** New `yank-handler' text property can be used to control how
3598 previously killed text on the kill ring is reinserted.
3600 The value of the `yank-handler' property must be a list with one to four
3601 elements with the following format:
3602 (FUNCTION PARAM NOEXCLUDE UNDO).
3604 The `insert-for-yank' function looks for a yank-handler property on
3605 the first character on its string argument (typically the first
3606 element on the kill-ring). If a `yank-handler' property is found,
3607 the normal behavior of `insert-for-yank' is modified in various ways:
3609 When FUNCTION is present and non-nil, it is called instead of `insert'
3610 to insert the string. FUNCTION takes one argument--the object to insert.
3611 If PARAM is present and non-nil, it replaces STRING as the object
3612 passed to FUNCTION (or `insert'); for example, if FUNCTION is
3613 `yank-rectangle', PARAM should be a list of strings to insert as a
3615 If NOEXCLUDE is present and non-nil, the normal removal of the
3616 `yank-excluded-properties' is not performed; instead FUNCTION is
3617 responsible for removing those properties. This may be necessary
3618 if FUNCTION adjusts point before or after inserting the object.
3619 If UNDO is present and non-nil, it is a function that will be called
3620 by `yank-pop' to undo the insertion of the current object. It is
3621 called with two arguments, the start and end of the current region.
3622 FUNCTION can set `yank-undo-function' to override the UNDO value.
3624 *** The functions `kill-new', `kill-append', and `kill-region' now have an
3625 optional argument to specify the `yank-handler' text property to put on
3628 *** The function `yank-pop' will now use a non-nil value of the variable
3629 `yank-undo-function' (instead of `delete-region') to undo the previous
3630 `yank' or `yank-pop' command (or a call to `insert-for-yank'). The function
3631 `insert-for-yank' automatically sets that variable according to the UNDO
3632 element of the string argument's `yank-handler' text property if present.
3634 *** The function `insert-for-yank' now supports strings where the
3635 `yank-handler' property does not span the first character of the
3636 string. The old behavior is available if you call
3637 `insert-for-yank-1' instead.
3639 ** Syntax table changes:
3642 *** The macro `with-syntax-table' no longer copies the syntax table.
3645 *** The new function `syntax-after' returns the syntax code
3646 of the character after a specified buffer position, taking account
3647 of text properties as well as the character code.
3650 *** `syntax-class' extracts the class of a syntax code (as returned
3653 *** The new function `syntax-ppss' rovides an efficient way to find the
3654 current syntactic context at point.
3656 ** File operation changes:
3659 *** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
3660 searching for an executable or an Emacs Lisp file.
3663 *** The new primitive `set-file-times' sets a file's access and
3664 modification times. Magic file name handlers can handle this
3668 *** The new function `file-remote-p' tests a file name and returns
3669 non-nil if it specifies a remote file (one that Emacs accesses using
3670 its own special methods and not directly through the file system).
3671 The value in that case is an identifier for the remote file system.
3674 *** `buffer-auto-save-file-format' is the new name for what was
3675 formerly called `auto-save-file-format'. It is now a permanent local.
3678 *** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
3679 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
3680 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
3683 *** `copy-file' now takes an additional option arg MUSTBENEW.
3685 This argument works like the MUSTBENEW argument of write-file.
3688 *** `visited-file-modtime' and `calendar-time-from-absolute' now return
3689 a list of two integers, instead of a cons.
3692 *** `file-chase-links' now takes an optional second argument LIMIT which
3693 specifies the maximum number of links to chase through. If after that
3694 many iterations the file name obtained is still a symbolic link,
3695 `file-chase-links' returns it anyway.
3698 *** The new hook `before-save-hook' is invoked by `basic-save-buffer'
3699 before saving buffers. This allows packages to perform various final
3700 tasks, for example; it can be used by the copyright package to make
3701 sure saved files have the current year in any copyright headers.
3704 *** If `buffer-save-without-query' is non-nil in some buffer,
3705 `save-some-buffers' will always save that buffer without asking (if
3708 *** New function `locate-file' searches for a file in a list of directories.
3709 `locate-file' accepts a name of a file to search (a string), and two
3710 lists: a list of directories to search in and a list of suffixes to
3711 try; typical usage might use `exec-path' and `load-path' for the list
3712 of directories, and `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' for the list
3713 of suffixes. The function also accepts a predicate argument to
3714 further filter candidate files.
3716 One advantage of using this function is that the list of suffixes in
3717 `exec-suffixes' is OS-dependant, so this function will find
3718 executables without polluting Lisp code with OS dependancies.
3721 *** The precedence of file name handlers has been changed.
3723 Instead of choosing the first handler that matches,
3724 `find-file-name-handler' now gives precedence to a file name handler
3725 that matches nearest the end of the file name. More precisely, the
3726 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen. In case
3727 of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
3730 *** A file name handler can declare which operations it handles.
3732 You do this by putting an `operation' property on the handler name
3733 symbol. The property value should be a list of the operations that
3734 the handler really handles. It won't be called for any other
3737 This is useful for autoloaded handlers, to prevent them from being
3738 autoloaded when not really necessary.
3743 *** An interactive specification can now use the code letter 'U' to get
3744 the up-event that was discarded in case the last key sequence read for a
3745 previous `k' or `K' argument was a down-event; otherwise nil is used.
3748 *** The new interactive-specification `G' reads a file name
3749 much like `F', but if the input is a directory name (even defaulted),
3750 it returns just the directory name.
3753 *** Functions `y-or-n-p', `read-char', `read-key-sequence' and the like, that
3754 display a prompt but don't use the minibuffer, now display the prompt
3755 using the text properties (esp. the face) of the prompt string.
3758 *** (while-no-input BODY...) runs BODY, but only so long as no input
3759 arrives. If the user types or clicks anything, BODY stops as if a
3760 quit had occurred. `while-no-input' returns the value of BODY, if BODY
3761 finishes. It returns nil if BODY was aborted.
3763 ** Minibuffer changes:
3766 *** The new function `minibufferp' returns non-nil if its optional
3767 buffer argument is a minibuffer. If the argument is omitted, it
3768 defaults to the current buffer.
3771 *** New function `minibuffer-selected-window' returns the window which
3772 was selected when entering the minibuffer.
3775 *** `read-from-minibuffer' now accepts an additional argument KEEP-ALL
3776 saying to put all inputs in the history list, even empty ones.
3779 *** The `read-file-name' function now takes an additional argument which
3780 specifies a predicate which the file name read must satify. The
3781 new variable `read-file-name-predicate' contains the predicate argument
3782 while reading the file name from the minibuffer; the predicate in this
3783 variable is used by read-file-name-internal to filter the completion list.
3786 *** The new variable `read-file-name-function' can be used by Lisp code
3787 to override the built-in `read-file-name' function.
3790 *** The new variable `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' specifies
3791 whether completion ignores case when reading a file name with the
3792 `read-file-name' function.
3795 *** The new function `read-directory-name' for reading a directory name.
3797 It is like `read-file-name' except that the defaulting works better
3798 for directories, and completion inside it shows only directories.
3800 ** Completion changes:
3803 *** The functions `all-completions' and `try-completion' now accept lists
3804 of strings as well as hash-tables additionally to alists, obarrays
3805 and functions. Furthermore, the function `test-completion' is now
3806 exported to Lisp. The keys in alists and hash tables can be either
3807 strings or symbols, which are automatically converted with to strings.
3810 *** The new macro `dynamic-completion-table' supports using functions
3811 as a dynamic completion table.
3813 (dynamic-completion-table FUN)
3815 FUN is called with one argument, the string for which completion is required,
3816 and it should return an alist containing all the intended possible
3817 completions. This alist can be a full list of possible completions so that FUN
3818 can ignore the value of its argument. If completion is performed in the
3819 minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer from which the minibuffer was
3820 entered. `dynamic-completion-table' then computes the completion.
3823 *** The new macro `lazy-completion-table' initializes a variable
3824 as a lazy completion table.
3826 (lazy-completion-table VAR FUN &rest ARGS)
3828 If the completion table VAR is used for the first time (e.g., by passing VAR
3829 as an argument to `try-completion'), the function FUN is called with arguments
3830 ARGS. FUN must return the completion table that will be stored in VAR. If
3831 completion is requested in the minibuffer, FUN will be called in the buffer
3832 from which the minibuffer was entered. The return value of
3833 `lazy-completion-table' must be used to initialize the value of VAR.
3836 ** Enhancements to keymaps.
3838 *** Cleaner way to enter key sequences.
3840 You can enter a constant key sequence in a more natural format, the
3841 same one used for saving keyboard macros, using the macro `kbd'. For
3844 (kbd "C-x C-f") => "\^x\^f"
3846 *** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
3848 This is an alternative to using `defadvice' or `substitute-key-definition'
3849 to modify the behavior of a key binding using the normal keymap
3850 binding and lookup functionality.
3852 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
3853 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
3857 Suppose that minor mode `my-mode' has defined the commands
3858 `my-kill-line' and `my-kill-word', and it wants C-k (and any other key
3859 bound to `kill-line') to run the command `my-kill-line' instead of
3860 `kill-line', and likewise it wants to run `my-kill-word' instead of
3863 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
3864 command remapping allows you to directly map `kill-line' into
3865 `my-kill-line' and `kill-word' into `my-kill-word' using `define-key':
3867 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-line] 'my-kill-line)
3868 (define-key my-mode-map [remap kill-word] 'my-kill-word)
3870 When `my-mode' is enabled, its minor mode keymap is enabled too. So
3871 when the user types C-k, that runs the command `my-kill-line'.
3873 Only one level of remapping is supported. In the above example, this
3874 means that if `my-kill-line' is remapped to `other-kill', then C-k still
3875 runs `my-kill-line'.
3877 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
3879 - Command remappings are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
3880 `remap', i.e. `(define-key MAP [remap CMD] DEF)' remaps command CMD
3881 to definition DEF in keymap MAP. The definition is not limited to
3882 another command; it can be anything accepted for a normal binding.
3884 - The new function `command-remapping' returns the binding for a
3885 remapped command in the current keymaps, or nil if not remapped.
3887 - `key-binding' now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
3888 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil.
3890 - `where-is-internal' now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
3891 `kill-line', when `my-mode' is enabled), and the actual key binding for
3892 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
3893 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
3894 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns "C-k" for `kill-line', and
3895 "<kill-line>" for `my-kill-line').
3897 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
3898 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
3899 command was not remapped.
3901 *** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
3902 over minor mode keymaps.
3904 *** The `keymap' property now also works at the ends of overlays and
3905 text properties, according to their stickiness. This also means that it
3906 works with empty overlays. The same hold for the `local-map' property.
3908 *** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
3910 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
3911 bindings of the parent keymap.
3913 *** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
3915 *** New function `current-active-maps' returns a list of currently
3918 *** New function `describe-buffer-bindings' inserts the list of all
3919 defined keys and their definitions.
3921 *** New function `keymap-prompt' returns the prompt string of a keymap.
3923 *** (map-keymap FUNCTION KEYMAP) applies the function to each binding
3926 *** New variable `emulation-mode-map-alists'.
3928 Lisp packages using many minor mode keymaps can now maintain their own
3929 keymap alist separate from `minor-mode-map-alist' by adding their
3930 keymap alist to this list.
3935 *** The new function `copy-abbrev-table' copies an abbrev table.
3937 It returns a new abbrev table that is a copy of a given abbrev table.
3940 *** `define-abbrev' now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG.
3942 If non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means
3943 that it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the
3944 abbrevs. Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always
3948 ** Enhancements to process support
3950 *** Function `list-processes' now has an optional argument; if non-nil,
3951 it lists only the processes whose query-on-exit flag is set.
3953 *** New fns `set-process-query-on-exit-flag' and `process-query-on-exit-flag'.
3955 These replace the old function `process-kill-without-query'. That
3956 function is still supported, but new code should use the new
3959 *** Function `signal-process' now accepts a process object or process
3960 name in addition to a process id to identify the signalled process.
3962 *** Processes now have an associated property list where programs can
3963 maintain process state and other per-process related information.
3965 Use the new functions `process-get' and `process-put' to access, add,
3966 and modify elements on this property list. Use the new functions
3967 `process-plist' and `set-process-plist' to access and replace the
3968 entire property list of a process.
3970 *** Function `accept-process-output' has a new optional fourth arg
3971 JUST-THIS-ONE. If non-nil, only output from the specified process
3972 is handled, suspending output from other processes. If value is an
3973 integer, also inhibit running timers. This feature is generally not
3974 recommended, but may be necessary for specific applications, such as
3977 *** Adaptive read buffering of subprocess output.
3979 On some systems, when emacs reads the output from a subprocess, the
3980 output data is read in very small blocks, potentially resulting in
3981 very poor performance. This behavior can be remedied to some extent
3982 by setting the new variable `process-adaptive-read-buffering' to a
3983 non-nil value (the default), as it will automatically delay reading
3984 from such processes, to allowing them to produce more output before
3985 emacs tries to read it.
3987 *** The new function `call-process-shell-command'.
3989 This executes a shell command command synchronously in a separate
3992 *** The new function `process-file' is similar to `call-process', but
3993 obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
3994 `default-directory'.
3996 *** A process filter function gets the output as multibyte string
3997 if the process specifies t for its filter's multibyteness.
3999 That multibyteness is decided by the value of
4000 `default-enable-multibyte-characters' when the process is created, and
4001 you can change it later with `set-process-filter-multibyte'.
4003 *** The new function `set-process-filter-multibyte' sets the
4004 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4006 *** The new function `process-filter-multibyte-p' returns the
4007 multibyteness of the strings passed to the process's filter.
4009 *** If a process's coding system is `raw-text' or `no-conversion' and its
4010 buffer is multibyte, the output of the process is at first converted
4011 to multibyte by `string-to-multibyte' then inserted in the buffer.
4012 Previously, it was converted to multibyte by `string-as-multibyte',
4013 which was not compatible with the behavior of file reading.
4016 ** Enhanced networking support.
4018 *** The new `make-network-process' function makes network connections.
4019 It allows opening of stream and datagram connections to a server, as well as
4020 create a stream or datagram server inside emacs.
4022 - A server is started using :server t arg.
4023 - Datagram connection is selected using :type 'datagram arg.
4024 - A server can open on a random port using :service t arg.
4025 - Local sockets are supported using :family 'local arg.
4026 - Non-blocking connect is supported using :nowait t arg.
4027 - The process' property list can be initialized using :plist PLIST arg;
4028 a copy of the server process' property list is automatically inherited
4029 by new client processes created to handle incoming connections.
4031 To test for the availability of a given feature, use featurep like this:
4032 (featurep 'make-network-process '(:type datagram))
4034 *** The old `open-network-stream' now uses `make-network-process'.
4036 *** New functions `process-datagram-address', `set-process-datagram-address'.
4038 These functions are used with datagram-based network processes to get
4039 and set the current address of the remote partner.
4041 *** New function `format-network-address'.
4043 This function reformats the Lisp representation of a network address
4044 to a printable string. For example, an IP address A.B.C.D and port
4045 number P is represented as a five element vector [A B C D P], and the
4046 printable string returned for this vector is "A.B.C.D:P". See the doc
4047 string for other formatting options.
4049 *** `process-contact' has an optional KEY argument.
4051 Depending on this argument, you can get the complete list of network
4052 process properties or a specific property. Using :local or :remote as
4053 the KEY, you get the address of the local or remote end-point.
4055 An Inet address is represented as a 5 element vector, where the first
4056 4 elements contain the IP address and the fifth is the port number.
4058 *** New functions `stop-process' and `continue-process'.
4060 These functions stop and restart communication through a network
4061 connection. For a server process, no connections are accepted in the
4062 stopped state. For a client process, no input is received in the
4065 *** New function `network-interface-list'.
4067 This function returns a list of network interface names and their
4068 current network addresses.
4070 *** New function `network-interface-info'.
4072 This function returns the network address, hardware address, current
4073 status, and other information about a specific network interface.
4075 *** Deleting a network process with `delete-process' calls the sentinel.
4077 The status message passed to the sentinel for a deleted network
4078 process is "deleted". The message passed to the sentinel when the
4079 connection is closed by the remote peer has been changed to
4080 "connection broken by remote peer".
4082 ** Using window objects:
4085 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4087 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line or the
4091 *** New function `window-body-height'.
4093 This is like `window-height' but does not count the mode line
4097 *** You can now make a window as short as one line.
4099 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
4100 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
4101 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
4102 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
4103 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
4106 *** The new function `window-inside-edges' returns the edges of the
4107 actual text portion of the window, not including the scroll bar or
4108 divider line, the fringes, the display margins, the header line and
4112 *** The new functions `window-pixel-edges' and `window-inside-pixel-edges'
4113 return window edges in units of pixels, rather than columns and lines.
4116 *** The new macro `with-selected-window' temporarily switches the
4117 selected window without impacting the order of `buffer-list'.
4120 *** `select-window' takes an optional second argument NORECORD.
4122 This is like `switch-to-buffer'.
4125 *** `save-selected-window' now saves and restores the selected window
4126 of every frame. This way, it restores everything that can be changed
4127 by calling `select-window'.
4130 *** `set-window-buffer' has an optional argument KEEP-MARGINS.
4132 If non-nil, that says to preserve the window's current margin, fringe,
4133 and scroll-bar settings.
4136 ** Customizable fringe bitmaps
4138 *** New function `define-fringe-bitmap' can now be used to create new
4139 fringe bitmaps, as well as change the built-in fringe bitmaps.
4141 To change a built-in bitmap, do (require 'fringe) and use the symbol
4142 identifing the bitmap such as `left-truncation or `continued-line'.
4144 *** New function `destroy-fringe-bitmap' deletes a fringe bitmap
4145 or restores a built-in one to its default value.
4147 *** New function `set-fringe-bitmap-face' specifies the face to be
4148 used for a specific fringe bitmap. The face is automatically merged
4149 with the `fringe' face, so normally, the face should only specify the
4150 foreground color of the bitmap.
4152 *** There are new display properties, `left-fringe' and `right-fringe',
4153 that can be used to show a specific bitmap in the left or right fringe
4154 bitmap of the display line.
4156 Format is `display (left-fringe BITMAP [FACE])', where BITMAP is a
4157 symbol identifying a fringe bitmap, either built-in or defined with
4158 `define-fringe-bitmap', and FACE is an optional face name to be used
4159 for displaying the bitmap instead of the default `fringe' face.
4160 When specified, FACE is automatically merged with the `fringe' face.
4162 *** New function `fringe-bitmaps-at-pos' returns the current fringe
4163 bitmaps in the display line at a given buffer position.
4165 ** Other window fringe features:
4168 *** Controlling the default left and right fringe widths.
4170 The default left and right fringe widths for all windows of a frame
4171 can now be controlled by setting the `left-fringe' and `right-fringe'
4172 frame parameters to an integer value specifying the width in pixels.
4173 Setting the width to 0 effectively removes the corresponding fringe.
4175 The actual default fringe widths for the frame may deviate from the
4176 specified widths, since the combined fringe widths must match an
4177 integral number of columns. The extra width is distributed evenly
4178 between the left and right fringe. For force a specific fringe width,
4179 specify the width as a negative integer (if both widths are negative,
4180 only the left fringe gets the specified width).
4182 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
4183 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
4184 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
4185 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
4188 *** Per-window fringe and scrollbar settings
4190 **** Windows can now have their own individual fringe widths and
4193 To control the fringe widths of a window, either set the buffer-local
4194 variables `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', or call
4195 `set-window-fringes'.
4197 To control the fringe position in a window, that is, whether fringes
4198 are positioned between the display margins and the window's text area,
4199 or at the edges of the window, either set the buffer-local variable
4200 `fringes-outside-margins' or call `set-window-fringes'.
4202 The function `window-fringes' can be used to obtain the current
4203 settings. To make `left-fringe-width', `right-fringe-width', and
4204 `fringes-outside-margins' take effect, you must set them before
4205 displaying the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force
4206 an update of the display margins.
4208 **** Windows can now have their own individual scroll-bar settings
4209 controlling the width and position of scroll-bars.
4211 To control the scroll-bar of a window, either set the buffer-local
4212 variables `scroll-bar-mode' and `scroll-bar-width', or call
4213 `set-window-scroll-bars'. The function `window-scroll-bars' can be
4214 used to obtain the current settings. To make `scroll-bar-mode' and
4215 `scroll-bar-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4216 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4217 of the display margins.
4219 ** Redisplay features:
4222 *** `sit-for' can now be called with args (SECONDS &optional NODISP).
4225 *** New function `force-window-update' can initiate a full redisplay of
4226 one or all windows. Normally, this is not needed as changes in window
4227 contents are detected automatically. However, certain implicit
4228 changes to mode lines, header lines, or display properties may require
4229 forcing an explicit window update.
4232 *** (char-displayable-p CHAR) returns non-nil if Emacs ought to be able
4233 to display CHAR. More precisely, if the selected frame's fontset has
4234 a font to display the character set that CHAR belongs to.
4236 Fontsets can specify a font on a per-character basis; when the fontset
4237 does that, this value cannot be accurate.
4240 *** You can define multiple overlay arrows via the new
4241 variable `overlay-arrow-variable-list'.
4243 It contains a list of varibles which contain overlay arrow position
4244 markers, including the original `overlay-arrow-position' variable.
4246 Each variable on this list can have individual `overlay-arrow-string'
4247 and `overlay-arrow-bitmap' properties that specify an overlay arrow
4248 string (for non-window terminals) or fringe bitmap (for window
4249 systems) to display at the corresponding overlay arrow position.
4250 If either property is not set, the default `overlay-arrow-string' or
4251 'overlay-arrow-fringe-bitmap' will be used.
4254 *** New `line-height' and `line-spacing' properties for newline characters
4256 A newline can now have `line-height' and `line-spacing' text or overlay
4257 properties that control the height of the corresponding display row.
4259 If the `line-height' property value is t, the newline does not
4260 contribute to the height of the display row; instead the height of the
4261 newline glyph is reduced. Also, a `line-spacing' property on this
4262 newline is ignored. This can be used to tile small images or image
4263 slices without adding blank areas between the images.
4265 If the `line-height' property value is a positive integer, the value
4266 specifies the minimum line height in pixels. If necessary, the line
4267 height it increased by increasing the line's ascent.
4269 If the `line-height' property value is a float, the minimum line
4270 height is calculated by multiplying the default frame line height by
4273 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (FACE . RATIO), the
4274 minimum line height is calculated as RATIO * height of named FACE.
4275 RATIO is int or float. If FACE is t, it specifies the current face.
4277 If the `line-height' property value is a cons (nil . RATIO), the line
4278 height is calculated as RATIO * actual height of the line's contents.
4280 If the `line-height' value is a cons (HEIGHT . TOTAL), HEIGHT specifies
4281 the line height as described above, while TOTAL is any of the forms
4282 described above and specifies the total height of the line, causing a
4283 varying number of pixels to be inserted after the line to make it line
4284 exactly that many pixels high.
4286 If the `line-spacing' property value is an positive integer, the value
4287 is used as additional pixels to insert after the display line; this
4288 overrides the default frame `line-spacing' and any buffer local value of
4289 the `line-spacing' variable.
4291 If the `line-spacing' property is a float or cons, the line spacing
4292 is calculated as specified above for the `line-height' property.
4295 *** The buffer local `line-spacing' variable can now have a float value,
4296 which is used as a height relative to the default frame line height.
4299 *** Enhancements to stretch display properties
4301 The display property stretch specification form `(space PROPS)', where
4302 PROPS is a property list now allows pixel based width and height
4303 specifications, as well as enhanced horizontal text alignment.
4305 The value of these properties can now be a (primitive) expression
4306 which is evaluated during redisplay. The following expressions
4309 EXPR ::= NUM | (NUM) | UNIT | ELEM | POS | IMAGE | FORM
4310 NUM ::= INTEGER | FLOAT | SYMBOL
4311 UNIT ::= in | mm | cm | width | height
4312 ELEM ::= left-fringe | right-fringe | left-margin | right-margin
4314 POS ::= left | center | right
4315 FORM ::= (NUM . EXPR) | (OP EXPR ...)
4318 The form `NUM' specifies a fractional width or height of the default
4319 frame font size. The form `(NUM)' specifies an absolute number of
4320 pixels. If a symbol is specified, its buffer-local variable binding
4321 is used. The `in', `mm', and `cm' units specifies the number of
4322 pixels per inch, milli-meter, and centi-meter, resp. The `width' and
4323 `height' units correspond to the width and height of the current face
4324 font. An image specification corresponds to the width or height of
4327 The `left-fringe', `right-fringe', `left-margin', `right-margin',
4328 `scroll-bar', and `text' elements specify to the width of the
4329 corresponding area of the window.
4331 The `left', `center', and `right' positions can be used with :align-to
4332 to specify a position relative to the left edge, center, or right edge
4333 of the text area. One of the above window elements (except `text')
4334 can also be used with :align-to to specify that the position is
4335 relative to the left edge of the given area. Once the base offset for
4336 a relative position has been set (by the first occurrence of one of
4337 these symbols), further occurences of these symbols are interpreted as
4338 the width of the area.
4340 For example, to align to the center of the left-margin, use
4341 :align-to (+ left-margin (0.5 . left-margin))
4343 If no specific base offset is set for alignment, it is always relative
4344 to the left edge of the text area. For example, :align-to 0 in a
4345 header line aligns with the first text column in the text area.
4347 The value of the form `(NUM . EXPR)' is the value of NUM multiplied by
4348 the value of the expression EXPR. For example, (2 . in) specifies a
4349 width of 2 inches, while (0.5 . IMAGE) specifies half the width (or
4350 height) of the specified image.
4352 The form `(+ EXPR ...)' adds up the value of the expressions.
4353 The form `(- EXPR ...)' negates or subtracts the value of the expressions.
4356 *** Normally, the cursor is displayed at the end of any overlay and
4357 text property string that may be present at the current window
4358 position. The cursor can now be placed on any character of such
4359 strings by giving that character a non-nil `cursor' text property.
4362 *** The display space :width and :align-to text properties are now
4363 supported on text terminals.
4366 *** Support for displaying image slices
4368 **** New display property (slice X Y WIDTH HEIGHT) can be used with
4369 an image property to display only a specific slice of the image.
4371 **** Function `insert-image' has new optional fourth arg to
4372 specify image slice (X Y WIDTH HEIGHT).
4374 **** New function `insert-sliced-image' inserts a given image as a
4375 specified number of evenly sized slices (rows x columns).
4378 *** Images can now have an associated image map via the :map property.
4380 An image map is an alist where each element has the format (AREA ID PLIST).
4381 An AREA is specified as either a rectangle, a circle, or a polygon:
4382 A rectangle is a cons (rect . ((X0 . Y0) . (X1 . Y1))) specifying the
4383 pixel coordinates of the upper left and bottom right corners.
4384 A circle is a cons (circle . ((X0 . Y0) . R)) specifying the center
4385 and the radius of the circle; R can be a float or integer.
4386 A polygon is a cons (poly . [X0 Y0 X1 Y1 ...]) where each pair in the
4387 vector describes one corner in the polygon.
4389 When the mouse pointer is above a hot-spot area of an image, the
4390 PLIST of that hot-spot is consulted; if it contains a `help-echo'
4391 property it defines a tool-tip for the hot-spot, and if it contains
4392 a `pointer' property, it defines the shape of the mouse cursor when
4393 it is over the hot-spot. See the variable `void-area-text-pointer'
4394 for possible pointer shapes.
4396 When you click the mouse when the mouse pointer is over a hot-spot,
4397 an event is composed by combining the ID of the hot-spot with the
4398 mouse event, e.g. [area4 mouse-1] if the hot-spot's ID is `area4'.
4400 ** Mouse pointer features:
4404 *** The mouse pointer shape in void text areas (i.e. after the end of a
4405 line or below the last line in the buffer) of the text window is now
4406 controlled by the new variable `void-text-area-pointer'. The default
4407 is to use the `arrow' (non-text) pointer. Other choices are `text'
4408 (or nil), `hand', `vdrag', `hdrag', `modeline', and `hourglass'.
4411 *** The mouse pointer shape over an image can now be controlled by the
4412 :pointer image property.
4415 *** The mouse pointer shape over ordinary text or images can now be
4416 controlled/overriden via the `pointer' text property.
4418 ** Mouse event enhancements:
4421 *** Mouse events for clicks on window fringes now specify `left-fringe'
4422 or `right-fringe' as the area.
4425 *** All mouse events now include a buffer position regardless of where
4426 you clicked. For mouse clicks in window margins and fringes, this is
4427 a sensible buffer position corresponding to the surrounding text.
4430 *** `posn-point' now returns buffer position for non-text area events.
4433 *** Function `mouse-set-point' now works for events outside text area.
4436 *** New function `posn-area' returns window area clicked on (nil means
4440 *** Mouse events include actual glyph column and row for all event types
4444 *** New function `posn-actual-col-row' returns the actual glyph coordinates
4445 of the mouse event position.
4448 *** Mouse events can now indicate an image object clicked on.
4451 *** Mouse events include relative X and Y pixel coordinates relative to
4452 the top left corner of the object (image or character) clicked on.
4455 *** Mouse events include the pixel width and height of the object
4456 (image or character) clicked on.
4459 *** New functions 'posn-object', 'posn-object-x-y', 'posn-object-width-height'.
4461 These return the image or string object of a mouse click, the X and Y
4462 pixel coordinates relative to the top left corner of that object, and
4463 the total width and height of that object.
4465 ** Text property and overlay changes:
4468 *** Arguments for `remove-overlays' are now optional, so that you can
4469 remove all overlays in the buffer with just (remove-overlays).
4472 *** New variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4474 This variable allows you to create alternative names for text
4475 properties. It works at the same level as `default-text-properties',
4476 although it applies to overlays as well. This variable was introduced
4477 to implement the `font-lock-face' property.
4480 *** New function `get-char-property-and-overlay' accepts the same
4481 arguments as `get-char-property' and returns a cons whose car is the
4482 return value of `get-char-property' called with those arguments and
4483 whose cdr is the overlay in which the property was found, or nil if
4484 it was found as a text property or not found at all.
4487 *** The new function `remove-list-of-text-properties'.
4489 It is like `remove-text-properties' except that it takes a list of
4490 property names as argument rather than a property list.
4495 *** The new face attribute condition `min-colors' can be used to tailor
4496 the face color to the number of colors supported by a display, and
4497 define the foreground and background colors accordingly so that they
4498 look best on a terminal that supports at least this many colors. This
4499 is now the preferred method for defining default faces in a way that
4500 makes a good use of the capabilities of the display.
4503 *** New function `display-supports-face-attributes-p' can be used to test
4504 whether a given set of face attributes is actually displayable.
4506 A new predicate `supports' has also been added to the `defface' face
4507 specification language, which can be used to do this test for faces
4508 defined with `defface'.
4511 *** The special treatment of faces whose names are of the form `fg:COLOR'
4512 or `bg:COLOR' has been removed. Lisp programs should use the
4513 `defface' facility for defining faces with specific colors, or use
4514 the feature of specifying the face attributes :foreground and :background
4515 directly in the `face' property instead of using a named face.
4518 *** The first face specification element in a defface can specify
4519 `default' instead of frame classification. Then its attributes act as
4520 defaults that apply to all the subsequent cases (and can be overridden
4524 *** The variable `face-font-rescale-alist' specifies how much larger
4525 (or smaller) font we should use. For instance, if the value is
4526 '((SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN . 1.3)) and a face requests a font of 10
4527 point, we actually use a font of 13 point if the font matches
4528 SOME-FONTNAME-PATTERN.
4531 *** The function `face-differs-from-default-p' now truly checks
4532 whether the given face displays differently from the default face or
4533 not (previously it did only a very cursory check).
4536 *** `face-attribute', `face-foreground', `face-background', `face-stipple'.
4538 These now accept a new optional argument, INHERIT, which controls how
4539 face inheritance is used when determining the value of a face
4543 *** New functions `face-attribute-relative-p' and `merge-face-attribute'
4544 help with handling relative face attributes.
4547 *** The priority of faces in an :inherit attribute face list is reversed.
4549 If a face contains an :inherit attribute with a list of faces, earlier
4550 faces in the list override later faces in the list; in previous
4551 releases of Emacs, the order was the opposite. This change was made
4552 so that :inherit face lists operate identically to face lists in text
4556 *** `set-fontset-font', `fontset-info', `fontset-font' now operate on
4557 the default fontset if the argument NAME is nil..
4559 ** Font-Lock changes:
4562 *** New special text property `font-lock-face'.
4564 This property acts like the `face' property, but it is controlled by
4565 M-x font-lock-mode. It is not, strictly speaking, a builtin text
4566 property. Instead, it is implemented inside font-core.el, using the
4567 new variable `char-property-alias-alist'.
4570 *** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
4572 **** the FACENAME returned in `font-lock-keywords' can be a list of the
4573 form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP2 VAL2 ...) so you can set other
4574 properties than `face'.
4576 **** `font-lock-extra-managed-props' can be set to make sure those
4577 extra properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
4580 *** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
4582 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
4583 (see `jit-lock-defer-contextually'), then all of that text will
4584 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
4585 depends on text several lines further down (and when `font-lock-multiline'
4586 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
4594 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
4595 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a `jit-lock-defer-multiline'
4596 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
4597 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
4599 ** Major mode mechanism changes:
4602 *** `set-auto-mode' now gives the interpreter magic line (if present)
4603 precedence over the file name. Likewise an `<?xml' or `<!DOCTYPE'
4604 declaration will give the buffer XML or SGML mode, based on the new
4605 var `magic-mode-alist'.
4608 *** Use the new function `run-mode-hooks' to run the major mode's mode hook.
4611 *** All major mode functions should now run the new normal hook
4612 `after-change-major-mode-hook', at their very end, after the mode
4613 hooks. `run-mode-hooks' does this automatically.
4616 *** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
4617 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
4621 *** Major modes can define `eldoc-documentation-function'
4622 locally to provide Eldoc functionality by some method appropriate to
4626 *** `define-derived-mode' by default creates a new empty abbrev table.
4627 It does not copy abbrevs from the parent mode's abbrev table.
4630 *** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
4631 are used by `define-derived-mode' to make sure the mode hook for the
4632 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
4634 ** Minor mode changes:
4637 *** `define-minor-mode' now accepts arbitrary additional keyword arguments
4638 and simply passes them to `defcustom', if applicable.
4641 *** `minor-mode-list' now holds a list of minor mode commands.
4644 *** `define-global-minor-mode'.
4646 This is a new name for what was formerly called
4647 `easy-mmode-define-global-mode'. The old name remains as an alias.
4649 ** Command loop changes:
4652 *** The new function `called-interactively-p' does what many people
4653 have mistakenly believed `interactive-p' to do: it returns t if the
4654 calling function was called through `call-interactively'.
4656 Only use this when you cannot solve the problem by adding a new
4657 INTERACTIVE argument to the command.
4660 *** The function `commandp' takes an additional optional argument.
4662 If it is non-nil, then `commandp' checks for a function that could be
4663 called with `call-interactively', and does not return t for keyboard
4667 *** When a command returns, the command loop moves point out from
4668 within invisible text, in the same way it moves out from within text
4669 covered by an image or composition property.
4671 This makes it generally unnecessary to mark invisible text as intangible.
4672 This is particularly good because the intangible property often has
4673 unexpected side-effects since the property applies to everything
4674 (including `goto-char', ...) whereas this new code is only run after
4675 `post-command-hook' and thus does not care about intermediate states.
4678 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to `only', that
4679 enables Transient Mark mode for the following command only.
4680 During that following command, the value of `transient-mark-mode'
4681 is `identity'. If it is still `identity' at the end of the command,
4682 the next return to the command loop changes to nil.
4685 *** Both the variable and the function `disabled-command-hook' have
4686 been renamed to `disabled-command-function'. The variable
4687 `disabled-command-hook' has been kept as an obsolete alias.
4690 *** `emacsserver' now runs `pre-command-hook' and `post-command-hook'
4691 when it receives a request from emacsclient.
4693 ** Lisp file loading changes:
4696 *** `load-history' can now have elements of the form (t . FUNNAME),
4697 which means FUNNAME was previously defined as an autoload (before the
4698 current file redefined it).
4701 *** `load-history' now records (defun . FUNNAME) when a function is
4702 defined. For a variable, it records just the variable name.
4705 *** The function `symbol-file' can now search specifically for function,
4706 variable or face definitions.
4709 *** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
4710 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
4711 and runs any code associated with the provided feature.
4714 *** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
4715 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
4716 than 3 levels of nesting.
4719 ** Byte compiler changes:
4721 *** The byte compiler now displays the actual line and character
4722 position of errors, where possible. Additionally, the form of its
4723 warning and error messages have been brought into line with GNU standards
4724 for these. As a result, you can use next-error and friends on the
4725 compilation output buffer.
4727 *** The new macro `with-no-warnings' suppresses all compiler warnings
4728 inside its body. In terms of execution, it is equivalent to `progn'.
4730 *** You can avoid warnings for possibly-undefined symbols with a
4731 simple convention that the compiler understands. (This is mostly
4732 useful in code meant to be portable to different Emacs versions.)
4733 Write forms like the following, or code that macroexpands into such
4736 (if (fboundp 'foo) <then> <else>)
4737 (if (boundp 'foo) <then> <else)
4739 In the first case, using `foo' as a function inside the <then> form
4740 won't produce a warning if it's not defined as a function, and in the
4741 second case, using `foo' as a variable won't produce a warning if it's
4742 unbound. The test must be in exactly one of the above forms (after
4743 macro expansion), but such tests can be nested. Note that `when' and
4744 `unless' expand to `if', but `cond' doesn't.
4746 *** `(featurep 'xemacs)' is treated by the compiler as nil. This
4747 helps to avoid noisy compiler warnings in code meant to run under both
4748 Emacs and XEmacs and can sometimes make the result significantly more
4749 efficient. Since byte code from recent versions of XEmacs won't
4750 generally run in Emacs and vice versa, this optimization doesn't lose
4753 *** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in Lisp files is now obeyed.
4756 *** When a Lisp file uses CL functions at run-time, compiling the file
4757 now issues warnings about these calls, unless the file performs
4758 (require 'cl) when loaded.
4760 ** Frame operations:
4763 *** New functions `frame-current-scroll-bars' and `window-current-scroll-bars'.
4765 These functions return the current locations of the vertical and
4766 horizontal scroll bars in a frame or window.
4769 *** The new function `modify-all-frames-parameters' modifies parameters
4770 for all (existing and future) frames.
4773 *** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
4774 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
4775 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
4776 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
4779 *** When using non-toolkit scroll bars with the default width,
4780 the `scroll-bar-width' frame parameter value is nil.
4785 *** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
4787 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
4788 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
4789 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
4792 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
4794 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
4795 the time it takes to convert the format.
4797 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
4801 *** `set-buffer-file-coding-system' now takes an additional argument,
4802 NOMODIFY. If it is non-nil, it means don't mark the buffer modified.
4805 *** The new variable `auto-coding-functions' lets you specify functions
4806 to examine a file being visited and deduce the proper coding system
4807 for it. (If the coding system is detected incorrectly for a specific
4808 file, you can put a `coding:' tags to override it.)
4811 *** The new function `merge-coding-systems' fills in unspecified aspects
4812 of one coding system from another coding system.
4815 *** New coding system property `mime-text-unsuitable' indicates that
4816 the coding system's `mime-charset' is not suitable for MIME text
4820 *** New function `decode-coding-inserted-region' decodes a region as if
4821 it is read from a file without decoding.
4824 *** New CCL functions `lookup-character' and `lookup-integer' access
4825 hash tables defined by the Lisp function `define-translation-hash-table'.
4828 *** New function `quail-find-key' returns a list of keys to type in the
4829 current input method to input a character.
4831 ** Mode line changes:
4834 *** New function `format-mode-line'.
4836 This returns the mode line or header line of the selected (or a
4837 specified) window as a string with or without text properties.
4840 *** The new mode-line construct `(:propertize ELT PROPS...)' can be
4841 used to add text properties to mode-line elements.
4844 *** The new `%i' and `%I' constructs for `mode-line-format' can be used
4845 to display the size of the accessible part of the buffer on the mode
4848 ** Menu manipulation changes:
4851 *** To manipulate the File menu using easy-menu, you must specify the
4852 proper name "file". In previous Emacs versions, you had to specify
4853 "files", even though the menu item itself was changed to say "File"
4854 several versions ago.
4857 *** The dummy function keys made by easy-menu are now always lower case.
4858 If you specify the menu item name "Ada", for instance, it uses `ada'
4859 as the "key" bound by that key binding.
4861 This is relevant only if Lisp code looks for the bindings that were
4862 made with easy-menu.
4865 *** `easy-menu-define' now allows you to use nil for the symbol name
4866 if you don't need to give the menu a name. If you install the menu
4867 into other keymaps right away (MAPS is non-nil), it usually doesn't
4868 need to have a name.
4870 ** Operating system access:
4873 *** The new primitive `get-internal-run-time' returns the processor
4874 run time used by Emacs since start-up.
4877 *** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
4878 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
4879 accepts a float as UID parameter.
4882 *** New function `locale-info' accesses locale information.
4885 *** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
4886 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
4887 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
4890 *** New function `redirect-debugging-output' can be used to redirect
4891 debugging output on the stderr file handle to a file.
4896 *** A number of hooks have been renamed to better follow the conventions:
4898 `find-file-hooks' to `find-file-hook',
4899 `find-file-not-found-hooks' to `find-file-not-found-functions',
4900 `write-file-hooks' to `write-file-functions',
4901 `write-contents-hooks' to `write-contents-functions',
4902 `x-lost-selection-hooks' to `x-lost-selection-functions',
4903 `x-sent-selection-hooks' to `x-sent-selection-functions',
4904 `delete-frame-hook' to `delete-frame-functions'.
4906 In each case the old name remains as an alias for the moment.
4909 *** local-write-file-hooks is marked obsolete
4911 Use the LOCAL arg of `add-hook'.
4914 *** New function `x-send-client-message' sends a client message when
4920 *** New variables `gc-elapsed' and `gcs-done' provide extra information
4921 on garbage collection.
4924 *** The normal hook `post-gc-hook' is run at the end of garbage collection.
4926 The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
4928 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 22.1
4931 ** The new library button.el implements simple and fast `clickable
4932 buttons' in emacs buffers. Buttons are much lighter-weight than the
4933 `widgets' implemented by widget.el, and can be used by lisp code that
4934 doesn't require the full power of widgets. Emacs uses buttons for
4935 such things as help and apropos buffers.
4938 ** The new library tree-widget.el provides a widget to display a set
4939 of hierarchical data as an outline. For example, the tree-widget is
4940 well suited to display a hierarchy of directories and files.
4942 ** The new library bindat.el provides functions to unpack and pack
4943 binary data structures, such as network packets, to and from Lisp
4947 ** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
4948 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
4950 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
4951 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
4952 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
4955 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
4956 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
4959 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
4960 (function (lambda ()
4962 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
4963 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
4964 (function (lambda ()
4965 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
4968 ** The new library benchmark.el does timing measurements on Lisp code.
4970 This includes measuring garbage collection time.
4973 ** The new library testcover.el does test coverage checking.
4975 This is so you can tell whether you've tested all paths in your Lisp
4976 code. It works with edebug.
4978 The function `testcover-start' instruments all functions in a given
4979 file. Then test your code. The function `testcover-mark-all' adds
4980 overlay "splotches" to the Lisp file's buffer to show where coverage
4981 is lacking. The command `testcover-next-mark' (bind it to a key!)
4982 will move point forward to the next spot that has a splotch.
4984 Normally, a red splotch indicates the form was never completely
4985 evaluated; a brown splotch means it always evaluated to the same
4986 value. The red splotches are skipped for forms that can't possibly
4987 complete their evaluation, such as `error'. The brown splotches are
4988 skipped for forms that are expected to always evaluate to the same
4989 value, such as (setq x 14).
4991 For difficult cases, you can add do-nothing macros to your code to
4992 help out the test coverage tool. The macro `noreturn' suppresses a
4993 red splotch. It is an error if the argument to `noreturn' does
4994 return. The macro `1value' suppresses a brown splotch for its argument.
4995 This macro is a no-op except during test-coverage -- then it signals
4996 an error if the argument actually returns differing values.
4998 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.3
5000 ** Support for GNU/Linux on little-endian MIPS and on IBM S390 has
5004 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
5006 ** The obsolete C mode (c-mode.el) has been removed to avoid problems
5009 ** UTF-16 coding systems are available, encoding the same characters
5012 ** There is a new language environment for UTF-8 (set up automatically
5015 ** Translation tables are available between equivalent characters in
5016 different Emacs charsets -- for instance `e with acute' coming from the
5017 Latin-1 and Latin-2 charsets. User options `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode'
5018 and `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' respectively turn on translation
5019 between ISO 8859 character sets (`unification') on encoding
5020 (e.g. writing a file) and decoding (e.g. reading a file). Note that
5021 `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is useful and safe, but
5022 `unify-8859-on-decoding-mode' can cause text to change when you read
5023 it and write it out again without edits, so it is not generally advisable.
5024 By default `unify-8859-on-encoding-mode' is turned on.
5026 ** In Emacs running on the X window system, the default value of
5027 `selection-coding-system' is now `compound-text-with-extensions'.
5029 If you want the old behavior, set selection-coding-system to
5030 compound-text, which may be significantly more efficient. Using
5031 compound-text-with-extensions seems to be necessary only for decoding
5032 text from applications under XFree86 4.2, whose behavior is actually
5033 contrary to the compound text specification.
5036 * Installation changes in Emacs 21.2
5038 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 has been added.
5040 ** Support for AIX 5.1 was added.
5043 * Changes in Emacs 21.2
5045 ** Emacs now supports compound-text extended segments in X selections.
5047 X applications can use `extended segments' to encode characters in
5048 compound text that belong to character sets which are not part of the
5049 list of approved standard encodings for X, e.g. Big5. To paste
5050 selections with such characters into Emacs, use the new coding system
5051 compound-text-with-extensions as the value of selection-coding-system.
5053 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
5056 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
5057 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
5059 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
5060 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
5061 instead of using default-major-mode.
5063 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
5064 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
5065 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
5066 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
5067 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
5068 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
5069 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
5071 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
5075 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.2
5077 ** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
5078 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
5079 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
5081 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
5082 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
5085 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
5087 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
5088 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
5089 charsets in this release.
5091 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
5093 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
5095 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
5096 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
5099 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
5100 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
5101 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
5102 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
5103 necessary changes to unexec.
5105 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
5106 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
5108 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
5109 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
5111 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
5112 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
5114 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
5115 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
5116 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
5117 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
5118 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
5120 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
5121 new display features described below.
5124 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
5126 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
5128 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
5129 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
5130 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
5131 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
5134 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
5136 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
5137 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
5138 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
5139 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
5142 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
5143 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
5144 under Lisp changes, below.
5146 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
5148 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
5149 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
5150 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
5151 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
5152 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
5153 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
5156 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
5157 supported on character terminals.
5159 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
5160 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
5161 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
5162 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
5164 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
5168 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
5169 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
5170 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
5171 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
5174 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
5176 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
5177 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
5178 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
5179 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
5181 - User option: max-mini-window-height
5183 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
5184 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
5185 specifies a number of lines.
5189 - User option: resize-mini-windows
5191 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
5192 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
5193 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
5196 Default is `grow-only'.
5200 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
5201 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
5203 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
5205 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
5206 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
5209 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
5211 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
5212 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
5213 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
5215 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
5217 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
5218 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
5219 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
5220 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
5221 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
5224 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
5225 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
5226 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
5227 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
5228 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
5229 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
5231 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
5232 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
5233 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
5234 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
5235 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
5236 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
5238 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
5239 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
5240 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
5241 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
5242 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
5244 ** Tool bar support.
5246 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
5247 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
5248 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
5249 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
5250 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
5253 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
5254 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
5258 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
5259 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
5260 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
5262 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
5263 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
5264 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
5265 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
5267 ** Automatic Hscrolling
5269 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
5270 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
5273 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
5274 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
5275 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
5276 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
5277 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
5279 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
5280 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
5281 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
5282 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
5283 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
5284 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
5286 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
5287 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
5288 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
5289 customizing face `fringe'.
5291 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
5292 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
5293 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
5294 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
5295 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
5296 the window to be partially obscured.)
5298 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
5299 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
5300 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
5301 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
5303 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5305 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
5306 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
5307 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
5308 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
5309 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
5312 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
5314 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
5316 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
5318 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
5319 `*') toggles the status.
5321 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
5323 ** Hourglass pointer
5325 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
5326 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
5330 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
5331 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
5332 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
5335 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
5337 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
5338 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
5339 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
5342 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
5343 have to do anything to activate it.
5345 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
5347 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
5348 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
5350 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
5351 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
5352 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
5353 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
5354 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
5355 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
5356 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
5357 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
5359 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
5360 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
5361 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
5362 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
5363 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
5364 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
5366 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
5367 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
5369 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
5370 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
5373 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
5374 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
5375 beginning and end of the buffer.
5377 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
5378 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
5381 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
5382 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
5384 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
5385 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
5388 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
5389 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
5392 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
5394 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
5395 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
5396 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
5398 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
5399 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
5400 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
5402 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
5405 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
5407 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
5408 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
5409 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
5410 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
5411 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
5414 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
5415 all frames except the selected one.
5417 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
5418 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
5420 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
5421 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
5422 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
5423 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
5424 `Info-use-header-line'.
5426 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
5427 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
5428 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
5430 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
5432 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
5433 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
5436 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
5437 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
5438 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
5439 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
5441 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
5443 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
5444 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
5445 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
5446 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
5448 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
5449 point in a pop-up window.
5451 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
5452 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
5453 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
5455 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
5456 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
5458 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
5459 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
5460 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
5461 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
5463 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
5465 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
5466 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
5468 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
5469 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
5470 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
5472 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
5473 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
5476 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
5477 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
5478 file that is already visited under a different name.
5480 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
5481 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
5483 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
5484 and displays information about that.
5486 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
5487 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
5489 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
5490 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
5491 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
5492 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
5493 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
5494 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
5496 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
5497 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
5499 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
5500 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
5501 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
5502 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
5503 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
5504 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
5505 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
5507 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
5508 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
5510 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
5511 system for keyboard input.
5513 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
5514 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
5515 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
5516 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
5517 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
5518 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
5519 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
5520 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
5521 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
5523 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
5524 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
5526 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
5527 displays all characters in that character set.
5529 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
5530 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
5532 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
5533 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
5534 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
5536 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
5537 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
5538 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
5539 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
5540 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
5541 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
5544 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
5545 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
5548 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
5549 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
5550 Lisp Coding Convention".
5552 new command old-binding
5553 --- ------- -----------
5554 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
5555 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
5556 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
5558 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
5559 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
5560 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
5562 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
5563 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
5564 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
5565 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
5566 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
5567 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
5569 ** There are new Leim input methods.
5570 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
5571 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
5574 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
5575 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
5576 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
5577 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
5578 "`", you must type "=q".
5580 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
5581 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
5582 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
5583 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
5584 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
5587 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
5588 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
5589 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
5590 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
5592 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
5593 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
5594 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
5595 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
5597 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
5598 on the display using several methods
5600 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
5601 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
5602 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
5604 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
5605 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
5607 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
5609 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
5610 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
5612 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
5613 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
5614 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
5615 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
5617 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
5618 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
5619 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
5621 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
5622 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
5624 ** New X resources recognized
5626 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
5627 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
5628 is useful for debugging X problems.
5632 emacs.synchronous: true
5634 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
5635 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
5636 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
5637 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
5638 visual class names are
5647 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
5648 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
5651 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
5652 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
5653 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
5658 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
5660 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
5661 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
5662 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
5663 resource values are `true' or `on'.
5667 emacs.privateColormap: true
5669 ** Faces and frame parameters.
5671 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
5672 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
5673 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
5674 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
5675 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
5676 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
5677 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
5679 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
5680 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
5681 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
5682 `default' face and vice versa.
5686 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
5688 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
5690 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
5691 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
5692 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
5693 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
5695 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
5696 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
5697 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
5699 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
5702 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
5704 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
5705 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
5706 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
5707 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
5709 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
5711 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
5713 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
5715 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
5718 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
5721 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
5723 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
5724 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
5725 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
5727 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
5728 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
5730 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
5731 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
5732 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
5734 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
5736 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
5737 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
5738 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5739 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
5741 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
5742 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
5743 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
5744 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
5746 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
5747 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
5748 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
5751 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
5753 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
5754 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
5755 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
5757 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
5758 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
5759 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
5760 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
5761 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
5762 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
5764 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
5766 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
5767 notably at the end of lines.
5769 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
5770 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
5772 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
5774 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
5775 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
5777 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
5778 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
5779 after each match to get the replacement text.
5781 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
5782 you edit the replacement string.
5784 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
5785 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
5786 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
5788 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
5790 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
5791 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
5793 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
5794 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
5795 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
5796 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
5799 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
5800 read mail from the menu etc.
5802 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
5803 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
5804 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
5805 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
5807 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
5808 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
5810 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
5811 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
5812 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
5813 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
5814 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
5817 ** Customize changes
5819 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
5820 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
5821 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
5822 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
5823 earlier versions of Emacs.
5825 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
5826 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
5829 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
5830 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
5831 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
5832 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
5835 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
5836 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
5837 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
5838 already in your init file.
5840 ** New features in evaluation commands
5842 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
5843 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
5844 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
5845 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
5846 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
5848 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
5849 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
5850 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
5851 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
5854 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
5855 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
5857 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
5858 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
5860 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
5861 code when called with a prefix argument.
5865 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
5866 current user setups (although it's believed that these
5867 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
5868 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
5869 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
5870 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
5873 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
5874 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
5875 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
5878 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
5879 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
5880 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
5881 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
5883 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
5884 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
5886 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
5887 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
5889 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
5890 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
5891 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
5892 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
5894 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
5895 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
5896 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
5897 earlier statement. An example:
5899 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
5901 res += a[i]->offset;
5904 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
5905 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
5906 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
5907 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
5910 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
5913 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
5914 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
5915 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
5916 documentation or other natural language text.
5918 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
5919 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
5920 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
5921 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
5922 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
5923 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
5924 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
5926 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
5927 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
5928 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
5929 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
5931 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
5932 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
5933 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
5934 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
5937 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
5938 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
5939 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
5940 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
5941 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
5942 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
5943 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
5944 is reported afterwards.
5946 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
5947 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
5948 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
5950 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
5951 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
5952 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
5953 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
5954 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
5955 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
5958 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
5959 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
5960 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
5961 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
5962 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
5965 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
5966 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
5967 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
5968 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
5969 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
5970 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
5972 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
5973 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
5974 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
5975 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
5976 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
5977 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
5978 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
5979 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
5981 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
5982 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
5983 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
5984 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
5987 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
5988 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
5989 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
5990 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
5991 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
5992 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
5993 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
5994 function documentation for more info.
5996 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
5997 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
5998 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
5999 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
6000 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
6001 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
6002 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
6003 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
6005 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
6007 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
6008 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
6010 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
6011 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
6012 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
6013 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
6014 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
6017 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
6018 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
6019 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
6022 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
6023 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
6024 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
6025 chapter about this in the manual.
6027 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
6028 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
6029 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
6030 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
6031 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
6033 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
6034 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
6035 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
6037 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
6038 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
6040 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
6041 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
6042 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
6045 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
6046 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
6047 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
6048 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
6051 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
6052 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
6053 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
6054 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
6055 they were before the filling.
6057 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
6058 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
6059 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
6062 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
6063 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
6064 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
6065 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
6068 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
6069 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
6070 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
6071 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
6072 Thanks to Eric Eide.
6074 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
6075 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
6076 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
6078 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
6080 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
6081 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
6082 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
6083 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
6085 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
6086 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
6087 the column specified by comment-column.
6089 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
6090 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
6091 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
6092 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
6093 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
6094 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
6096 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
6097 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
6100 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
6102 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
6103 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
6104 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
6105 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
6108 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
6112 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
6113 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
6114 is, delete only empty directories.
6116 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
6117 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
6118 copy directories recursively.
6120 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
6121 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
6122 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
6124 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
6125 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
6128 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
6129 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
6130 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
6131 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
6132 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
6134 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
6137 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
6138 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
6139 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
6140 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
6144 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
6145 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
6146 internationalization and mail-fetching.
6148 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
6149 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
6151 If you used procmail like in
6153 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
6154 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
6155 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
6156 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
6158 this now has changed to
6161 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
6164 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
6165 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
6167 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
6168 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
6169 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
6170 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
6172 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
6173 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
6174 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
6176 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
6177 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
6178 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
6179 now just a compatibility layer.
6181 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
6184 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
6185 called to position point.
6187 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
6188 summary buffers and NOV files.
6190 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
6191 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
6193 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
6194 subtly different manner.
6196 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
6197 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
6198 ever-changing layouts.
6200 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
6202 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
6204 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
6206 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
6210 -------------------------
6214 C-c C-c q @quotation
6216 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
6219 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
6221 ** Changes in Outline mode.
6223 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
6224 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
6225 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
6227 ** Changes to Emacs Server
6229 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
6230 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
6231 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
6232 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
6233 buffers to kill, as before.
6235 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
6236 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
6239 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
6240 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
6242 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
6244 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
6245 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
6246 use. Default is 1000.
6248 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
6249 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
6251 ** Changes to hideshow.el
6253 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
6255 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
6256 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
6257 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
6258 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
6260 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
6261 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
6262 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
6265 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
6266 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
6267 the normal block-hiding function.
6269 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
6271 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
6272 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
6273 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
6274 for `hs-minor-mode'.
6276 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
6277 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
6279 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
6281 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
6282 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
6283 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
6285 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
6288 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
6291 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
6292 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
6293 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
6294 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
6295 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
6296 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
6298 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
6300 ** Changes to cmuscheme
6302 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
6303 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
6305 ** Changes in Font Lock
6307 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
6308 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
6310 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
6311 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
6313 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
6314 the face used for each string/comment.
6316 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
6317 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
6319 ** Changes to Shell mode
6321 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
6322 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
6323 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
6324 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
6326 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6328 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
6329 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
6331 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
6332 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
6333 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
6334 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
6335 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
6336 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
6338 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
6339 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
6340 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
6341 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
6342 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
6343 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
6344 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
6345 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
6347 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
6348 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
6350 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
6351 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
6352 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
6354 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
6355 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
6356 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
6358 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
6359 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
6360 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
6362 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
6363 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
6364 argument, it appends to the file.
6366 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
6367 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
6370 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
6373 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
6374 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
6375 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
6377 ** Changes to Rmail mode
6379 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
6380 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
6381 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
6382 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
6383 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
6386 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
6387 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
6388 regexp matching your mail addresses.
6390 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
6391 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
6392 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
6393 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
6394 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
6396 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
6399 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
6400 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
6403 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
6404 in which folder to put messages automatically.
6406 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
6407 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
6408 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
6410 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
6411 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
6413 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
6414 use the -f option when sending mail.
6416 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
6417 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
6418 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
6419 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
6420 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
6421 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
6423 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
6424 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
6425 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
6427 ** Changes to TeX mode
6429 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
6432 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
6434 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
6436 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
6438 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6440 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
6441 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
6442 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
6443 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
6444 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
6445 can be edited from that buffer.
6447 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
6448 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
6449 `A' to use all marked entries).
6451 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
6452 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
6454 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
6455 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
6456 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
6459 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
6460 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
6461 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
6462 in column 1 are always made leaves.
6464 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
6465 has the following new features:
6467 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
6468 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
6469 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
6470 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
6472 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
6473 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
6474 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
6475 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
6476 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
6479 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
6484 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
6485 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
6486 spell-checks the current buffer.
6488 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
6491 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
6492 correction is made and re-checked.
6494 *** Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definitions have been added.
6496 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
6499 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
6502 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
6505 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
6507 ** Makefile mode changes
6509 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
6511 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
6512 Fontlock mode is active.
6516 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
6517 so that searches can be resumed.
6519 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
6520 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
6521 that started the search.
6523 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
6524 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
6526 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
6528 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
6529 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
6530 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
6531 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
6532 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
6533 `secondary-selection'.
6535 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
6536 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
6537 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
6538 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
6539 usual snappy response.
6541 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
6542 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
6543 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
6544 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
6548 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
6549 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
6550 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
6551 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
6552 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
6553 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
6554 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
6555 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
6556 file is registered in that backend.
6558 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
6559 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
6560 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
6561 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
6562 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
6563 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
6565 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
6566 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
6567 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
6568 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
6569 where it doesn't make sense.)
6571 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
6572 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
6573 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
6577 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
6578 checks are always done now.
6580 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
6583 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
6584 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
6585 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
6587 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
6588 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
6589 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
6590 the working file (``merge news'').
6592 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6593 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
6596 *** Multiple Backends
6598 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
6599 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
6600 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
6601 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
6604 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
6605 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
6606 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
6607 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
6609 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
6610 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
6611 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
6612 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
6613 current revision number from the more remote backend.
6615 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
6616 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
6617 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
6618 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
6620 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
6621 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
6622 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
6623 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
6627 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
6628 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
6629 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
6630 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
6631 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
6632 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
6633 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
6635 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
6636 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
6637 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
6638 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
6639 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
6640 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
6641 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
6642 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
6643 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
6644 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
6645 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
6648 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
6649 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
6650 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
6651 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
6652 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
6653 entire directory tree.
6655 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
6656 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
6657 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
6658 "watched" by other developers.)
6660 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
6661 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
6662 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
6663 starting at the given directory.
6665 *** Lisp Changes in VC
6667 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
6668 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
6669 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
6670 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
6671 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
6672 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
6673 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
6674 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
6675 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
6677 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
6678 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
6679 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
6680 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
6682 ** New modes and packages
6684 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
6685 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
6686 the default is not applicable.
6688 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
6689 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
6690 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
6694 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
6695 drawn, like this: | \ /
6699 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
6700 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
6701 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
6702 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
6703 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
6706 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
6707 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
6709 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
6712 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
6713 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
6714 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
6715 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
6717 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
6718 also do without the mouse.
6720 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
6721 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
6722 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
6723 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
6724 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
6726 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
6728 lines straight-lines
6730 poly-lines straight poly-lines
6732 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
6733 spray-can setting size for spraying
6734 vaporize line vaporize lines
6735 erase characters erase rectangles
6737 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
6738 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
6739 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
6742 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
6743 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
6744 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
6745 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
6747 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
6750 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
6751 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
6752 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
6753 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
6754 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
6755 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
6756 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
6757 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
6758 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
6760 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
6761 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
6762 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
6763 on certain projects.
6765 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
6766 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
6768 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
6770 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
6771 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
6772 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
6773 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
6774 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
6775 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
6776 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
6777 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
6779 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
6782 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
6783 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
6785 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
6786 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
6788 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
6789 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
6790 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
6791 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
6792 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
6794 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
6795 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
6796 separate Texinfo file.
6798 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
6799 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
6800 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
6801 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
6802 enter check-in log messages.
6804 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
6805 without invoking external programs.
6807 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
6808 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
6809 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
6810 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
6811 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
6813 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
6814 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
6816 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
6817 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
6819 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
6820 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
6821 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
6822 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
6823 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
6826 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
6827 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
6828 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
6829 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
6831 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
6832 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
6833 actually modifying content of a buffer.
6835 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
6838 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
6840 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
6842 ; comment (until end of line)
6846 $A default non-terminal
6847 $"C" default terminal
6848 $?C? default special
6849 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
6850 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
6851 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
6852 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
6853 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
6854 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
6855 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
6856 C+ one or more occurrences of C
6857 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
6858 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
6859 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
6860 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
6861 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
6862 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
6863 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
6865 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
6867 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
6868 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
6869 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
6870 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
6871 equal signs of assignments.
6873 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
6874 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
6876 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
6877 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
6878 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
6880 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
6882 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
6883 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
6884 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
6885 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
6886 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
6887 which answers different needs.
6889 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
6890 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
6891 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
6892 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
6893 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
6896 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
6897 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
6899 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
6901 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
6902 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
6903 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behavior in all buffers.
6905 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
6907 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
6908 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
6909 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
6910 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
6911 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
6912 and background colors.
6914 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
6917 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
6920 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
6922 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
6924 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
6925 whitespace in a file.
6927 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
6928 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
6929 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
6930 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
6931 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
6932 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
6933 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
6935 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
6937 Here is an example of columns:
6940 dog pineapple car EXTRA
6941 porcupine strawberry airplane
6943 Doing the following settings:
6945 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
6946 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
6947 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
6948 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
6951 Selecting the lines above and typing:
6953 M-x delimit-columns-region
6957 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
6958 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
6959 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
6961 delim-col has the following options:
6963 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
6966 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
6967 between each column.
6969 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
6972 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
6975 delim-col has the following commands:
6977 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
6978 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
6980 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
6981 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
6982 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
6983 recent file list can be displayed:
6985 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
6986 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
6987 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
6989 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
6990 dynamically change the menu appearance.
6992 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
6995 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
6996 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
6997 specific to Message mode.
6999 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
7000 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
7001 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
7003 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
7004 interface to access directory servers using different directory
7005 protocols. It has a separate manual.
7007 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
7008 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
7010 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
7012 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
7013 minibuffer with completion.
7015 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
7016 with the diary features.
7018 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
7019 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
7021 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
7024 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
7025 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
7026 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
7027 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
7029 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
7030 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
7033 ** Changes in sort.el
7035 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
7036 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
7037 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
7040 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
7042 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
7043 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
7044 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
7046 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
7047 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
7049 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
7050 output ^M at the end of lines.
7052 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
7053 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
7055 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
7056 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
7059 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
7062 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
7063 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
7066 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
7067 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
7068 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
7069 nil -- just delete one character.
7071 Default value is `untabify'.
7073 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
7075 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
7076 symbol, not double-quoted.
7078 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
7079 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
7080 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
7081 moved to lisp/obsolete.
7083 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
7084 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
7085 `auto-compression-mode' command.
7087 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
7088 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
7089 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
7091 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
7092 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
7094 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
7095 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
7097 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
7098 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
7100 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
7101 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
7102 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
7103 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
7104 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
7105 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
7107 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
7108 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
7110 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
7112 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
7113 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
7115 ** Shell script mode changes.
7117 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
7118 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
7119 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
7123 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
7125 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
7126 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
7127 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
7128 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
7129 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
7131 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
7132 declarations when given the --declarations option.
7134 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
7135 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
7137 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
7138 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
7139 `template' keywords.
7141 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
7142 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
7144 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
7147 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
7149 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
7151 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
7154 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
7156 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
7157 variables are tagged.
7159 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
7161 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
7164 ** Changes in etags.el
7166 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
7167 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
7168 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
7170 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
7171 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
7173 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
7174 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
7175 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
7176 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
7178 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
7180 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
7181 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
7183 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
7185 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
7186 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
7187 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
7189 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
7190 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
7192 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
7193 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
7195 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
7196 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
7197 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
7198 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
7199 point will go to the beginning of the file.
7201 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
7202 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
7203 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
7205 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
7206 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
7207 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
7209 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
7210 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
7211 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
7213 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
7215 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
7217 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
7218 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
7219 expression from that list, are not checked.
7221 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
7222 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
7223 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
7224 the buffer, just like for the local files.
7226 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
7228 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
7229 displays local abbrevs, only.
7231 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
7232 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
7234 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
7235 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
7236 is measured in pixels.
7238 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
7239 to be visited as images.
7241 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
7242 were added to compile.el.
7244 ** Withdrawn packages
7246 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
7247 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
7249 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
7251 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
7254 * Incompatible Lisp changes
7256 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
7257 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
7258 See the sections below for details.
7260 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
7261 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
7262 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
7263 to remove the properties of the copy.
7265 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
7266 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
7267 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
7268 these properties are active.
7270 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
7271 ranges may affect some code.
7273 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
7274 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
7275 make a difference to some code.
7277 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
7278 operates on the minibuffer.
7280 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7281 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
7282 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
7283 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
7284 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
7285 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
7286 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
7287 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
7288 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
7289 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
7290 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
7291 the buffer as multibyte characters.
7293 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
7294 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
7295 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
7297 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
7298 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
7299 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
7301 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
7302 long promised. So does any code that uses derivatives of `concat',
7303 such as `mapconcat'.
7305 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
7308 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
7309 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
7310 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
7311 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
7312 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
7313 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
7314 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
7315 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
7317 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
7318 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
7319 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
7320 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
7321 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
7322 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
7323 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
7324 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
7325 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
7326 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
7329 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
7330 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
7332 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
7334 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
7335 allows the animated display of strings.
7337 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
7338 interactive form of a function.
7340 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
7341 between custom options. Example:
7343 (defcustom default-input-method nil
7344 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
7345 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
7346 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
7348 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
7349 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
7351 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
7352 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
7353 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
7355 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
7356 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
7357 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
7358 (signal or normal termination).
7360 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
7361 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
7363 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
7364 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
7366 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
7367 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
7369 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
7371 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
7372 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
7375 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
7377 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
7378 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
7379 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
7380 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
7381 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
7384 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
7385 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
7388 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
7389 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
7391 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
7392 with the more general `:mask' property.
7394 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
7396 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
7399 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
7400 is running in batch mode. For example,
7402 (message "%s" (read t))
7404 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
7407 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
7408 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
7410 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
7411 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
7414 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
7417 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
7419 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
7420 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
7422 - Function: remq ELT LIST
7424 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
7425 comparison is done with `eq'.
7427 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
7429 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
7430 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
7431 `key-and-value', in addition to `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
7433 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
7434 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
7435 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
7437 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
7438 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
7440 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
7441 function was declared obsolete.
7443 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
7444 retained as an alias).
7446 ** Easy-menu's :filter now takes the unconverted form of the menu and
7447 the result is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
7449 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
7451 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
7453 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
7454 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
7455 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
7456 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
7457 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
7458 means never include the minibuffer window.
7460 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
7462 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
7464 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
7466 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
7467 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
7468 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
7469 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
7472 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
7473 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
7474 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
7475 minibuffer even if it is active.
7477 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
7478 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
7479 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
7480 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
7481 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
7482 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
7484 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
7485 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
7486 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
7487 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
7488 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
7489 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
7490 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
7492 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
7493 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
7494 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
7496 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
7497 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
7498 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
7499 Default value is nil.
7501 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
7504 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
7505 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
7506 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
7508 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
7509 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
7510 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
7512 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
7513 list of a primitive.
7515 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
7517 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
7518 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
7519 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
7520 than replacing the local map.
7522 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
7523 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
7524 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
7527 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
7529 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
7530 as promised long ago.
7532 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
7534 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
7535 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
7536 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
7539 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
7541 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
7542 regular expressions.
7544 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
7546 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7550 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
7552 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
7556 matches string STRING literally.
7559 matches character CHAR literally.
7562 matches any character except a newline.
7565 matches any character
7568 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
7569 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
7575 matches any character not in SET
7578 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
7579 in the text being matched
7582 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
7585 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7586 string being matched against.
7589 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7590 string being matched against.
7593 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
7594 buffer being matched against.
7597 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
7598 buffer being matched against.
7601 matches the empty string, but only at point.
7604 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7608 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
7611 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
7614 `(not word-boundary)'
7615 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
7619 matches 0 through 9.
7622 matches ASCII control characters.
7625 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
7628 matches space and tab only.
7631 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
7635 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
7639 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7640 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7643 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7644 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
7647 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
7650 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
7653 matches anything lower-case.
7656 matches anything upper-case.
7659 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
7660 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
7663 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
7666 matches anything that has word syntax.
7669 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
7670 of the following symbols.
7672 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
7673 `punctuation' (\\s.)
7676 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
7677 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
7678 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
7679 `string-quote' (\\s\")
7680 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
7682 `character-quote' (\\s/)
7683 `comment-start' (\\s<)
7684 `comment-end' (\\s>)
7686 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
7687 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
7689 `(category CATEGORY)'
7690 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
7691 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
7693 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
7695 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
7696 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
7700 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
7702 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
7703 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
7704 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
7705 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
7706 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
7707 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
7708 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
7709 `indian-two-byte' (\\cI)
7710 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
7711 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
7712 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
7721 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
7725 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
7732 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
7733 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
7735 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7736 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
7738 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7739 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
7740 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
7742 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7743 another name for `submatch'.
7745 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
7746 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
7747 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
7750 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
7751 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
7752 zero or more occurrences of something are \"greedy\" in that they
7753 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
7754 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
7756 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
7757 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
7759 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
7760 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7763 like `zero-or-more'.
7766 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7769 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7771 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
7772 matches one or more occurrences of A.
7778 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7781 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7783 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
7784 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
7790 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
7793 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
7796 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7799 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
7802 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
7806 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
7808 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
7810 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
7811 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
7812 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
7813 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
7815 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
7816 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
7817 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
7818 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
7820 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
7821 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
7822 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
7824 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
7825 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
7826 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
7827 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
7828 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
7829 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
7830 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
7833 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
7835 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
7836 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
7837 character set as previously.
7839 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
7840 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
7841 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
7843 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
7844 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
7845 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
7846 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
7848 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
7849 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
7851 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
7852 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
7855 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
7856 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
7858 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
7859 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
7860 buffers and strings.
7862 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
7863 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
7864 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
7865 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
7866 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
7867 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
7868 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
7871 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
7872 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
7873 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
7875 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
7876 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
7877 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
7878 may differ between buffer and string text.
7880 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
7881 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
7883 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
7884 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
7885 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
7886 `composition' from STRING.
7888 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
7889 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
7891 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
7894 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
7895 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
7897 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
7898 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
7899 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
7900 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
7902 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
7903 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
7904 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
7905 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
7906 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
7907 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
7909 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
7910 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
7911 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
7913 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
7914 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
7915 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
7917 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
7918 have been introduced.
7920 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
7921 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
7922 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
7923 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
7924 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
7925 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
7926 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
7927 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
7928 their multibyte equivalent.
7930 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
7931 that offset in the file before writing.
7933 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
7934 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
7936 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
7937 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
7938 from which the command was issued.
7940 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
7941 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
7942 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
7943 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
7946 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
7947 to `window-buffer-height'.
7949 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
7951 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
7952 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
7953 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
7955 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
7958 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
7959 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
7961 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
7962 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
7963 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
7965 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
7966 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
7967 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
7968 is currently displayed in some window.
7970 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
7971 argument function's results.
7973 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
7974 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
7975 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
7976 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
7979 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
7980 header in the list of headers passed to it.
7982 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
7983 ignores differences in case and text representation.
7985 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
7986 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
7989 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
7990 nil don't display a cursor
7991 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
7992 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
7993 others display a box cursor.
7995 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
7996 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
7997 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
7998 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
8000 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
8001 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
8002 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
8003 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
8007 (string-to-syntax "()")
8010 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
8013 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
8014 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
8021 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
8026 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
8031 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
8038 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
8039 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
8042 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
8043 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
8044 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
8045 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
8047 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
8049 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
8050 for a regexp in a string.
8052 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
8053 `mouse-position-function'.
8055 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
8056 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
8058 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
8059 Keywords are now always considered constants.
8061 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
8064 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
8065 returned by function `recent-keys'.
8067 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
8068 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
8069 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
8070 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
8073 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
8074 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
8076 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
8077 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
8078 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
8079 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
8082 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
8083 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
8084 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
8085 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
8087 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
8088 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
8089 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
8091 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
8092 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
8095 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
8097 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
8098 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
8099 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
8102 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
8103 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
8104 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
8105 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
8106 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
8108 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
8109 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
8111 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
8112 instead of being optional.
8114 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
8115 modify read-only text.
8117 ** New functions and variables for locales.
8119 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
8120 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
8121 time functions like strftime. The new variables
8122 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
8123 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
8125 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
8126 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
8127 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
8128 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
8129 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
8130 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
8131 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
8133 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
8134 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
8135 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
8138 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
8139 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
8141 ** New function `propertize'
8143 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
8144 strings with text properties.
8146 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
8148 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
8149 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
8150 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
8151 specified value of that property. Example:
8153 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
8155 ** push and pop macros.
8157 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
8158 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
8159 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
8161 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
8162 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
8163 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
8165 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
8167 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
8168 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
8170 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
8171 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
8172 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
8173 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8175 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
8176 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
8177 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
8178 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
8180 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
8181 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
8182 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
8185 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
8186 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
8187 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
8188 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
8189 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
8191 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
8193 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
8194 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8195 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8196 [:alpha:] matches letters.
8197 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8198 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
8199 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
8200 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
8201 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
8202 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
8203 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
8204 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
8205 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
8206 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
8207 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
8209 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
8211 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
8213 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
8215 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
8216 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
8220 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
8221 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
8222 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
8226 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
8227 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
8229 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
8231 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
8232 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
8233 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
8234 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
8235 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
8237 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
8239 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
8240 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
8241 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
8245 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
8246 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
8247 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
8248 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
8249 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
8251 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
8253 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
8255 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
8257 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
8259 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
8261 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
8264 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
8266 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
8268 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8270 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
8272 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
8274 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
8276 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
8278 Returns the size of TABLE.
8280 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
8282 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
8284 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
8286 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
8288 - Function: clrhash TABLE
8292 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
8294 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
8297 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
8299 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
8300 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
8302 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
8304 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
8306 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
8308 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
8309 arguments KEY and VALUE.
8311 - Function: sxhash OBJ
8313 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
8315 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
8317 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
8318 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
8319 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
8320 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
8321 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
8323 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
8325 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
8326 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
8327 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
8329 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
8330 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
8332 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
8333 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
8335 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
8336 (sxhash (upcase a)))
8338 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
8339 'case-fold-string-hash))
8341 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
8343 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
8345 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
8346 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
8347 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
8349 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
8351 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
8352 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
8354 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
8355 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
8356 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
8357 is too short to reach that column.
8359 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
8360 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
8361 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
8362 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
8364 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
8365 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
8366 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
8368 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
8369 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
8371 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
8372 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
8374 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
8375 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
8376 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
8377 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
8378 temporary-file-directory instead.
8380 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
8381 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
8382 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
8383 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
8385 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
8386 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
8388 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
8390 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
8391 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
8392 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
8394 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
8396 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
8397 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
8398 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
8399 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
8400 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
8401 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
8403 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
8404 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
8405 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
8406 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
8408 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
8410 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
8411 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
8412 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
8415 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
8416 string where arguments appear in the result string.
8420 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
8422 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
8423 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
8426 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
8428 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
8430 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
8431 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
8434 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
8436 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
8437 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
8442 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
8443 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
8445 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
8446 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
8447 to enable sound support.
8449 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
8450 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
8451 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
8452 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
8453 sound to play, before playing the sound.
8455 The following sound properties are supported:
8459 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
8460 searched relative to `data-directory'.
8464 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
8465 may be present, but not both.
8469 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8470 0..1. This property is optional.
8474 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
8475 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
8477 Other properties are ignored.
8479 An alternative interface is called as
8480 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
8482 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
8484 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
8487 ** Changes to garbage collection
8489 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
8490 of live and free strings.
8492 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
8493 strings that have been consed so far.
8496 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
8499 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
8502 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
8503 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
8504 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
8506 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
8508 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
8510 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
8513 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
8515 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
8517 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
8518 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
8519 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
8520 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
8521 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
8523 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
8526 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
8528 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
8529 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
8530 or omitted means use the selected frame.
8532 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
8533 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
8535 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
8538 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
8542 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
8544 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
8545 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
8547 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
8548 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
8549 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
8550 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
8551 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
8552 just display it black instead.
8554 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
8557 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
8561 ** New face implementation.
8563 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
8564 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
8568 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
8570 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
8572 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
8573 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
8575 3. Font height in 1/10pt
8577 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
8579 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
8581 6. Foreground color.
8583 7. Background color.
8585 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
8587 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
8589 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
8591 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
8593 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
8596 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
8597 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
8599 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
8600 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
8601 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
8602 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
8603 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
8604 attributes mentioned above.
8606 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
8607 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
8610 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
8611 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
8616 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
8617 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
8618 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
8619 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
8620 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
8621 results in a fully-specified face.
8623 *** Face realization.
8625 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
8626 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
8627 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
8628 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
8629 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
8630 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
8632 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
8633 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
8634 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
8635 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
8637 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
8638 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
8639 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
8640 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
8641 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
8643 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
8644 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
8645 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
8646 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
8647 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
8650 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
8651 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
8652 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
8653 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
8655 **** Clearing face caches.
8657 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
8658 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
8663 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
8664 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
8665 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
8667 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
8668 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
8669 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
8670 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
8671 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
8673 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
8674 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
8675 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
8677 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
8679 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
8680 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
8681 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
8682 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
8683 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
8684 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
8685 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
8687 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8688 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
8691 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
8692 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
8695 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
8698 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
8703 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
8704 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
8707 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
8708 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
8709 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
8710 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
8711 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
8714 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
8716 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
8718 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
8720 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
8722 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
8723 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
8724 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
8726 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
8727 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
8728 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
8729 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
8730 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
8731 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
8732 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
8733 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
8734 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
8735 of the face font sort order.
8737 - Function: x-font-family-list
8739 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
8740 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
8741 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
8742 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
8744 - Variable: font-list-limit
8746 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
8747 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
8748 matching font. The default is currently 100.
8750 *** Setting face attributes.
8752 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
8753 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
8754 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
8757 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
8758 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
8760 The following attributes are recognized:
8764 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
8765 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
8766 and `?' are allowed.
8770 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
8771 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
8772 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
8773 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
8777 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
8778 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
8779 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
8780 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
8784 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
8785 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
8786 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
8790 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
8791 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
8794 `:foreground', `:background'
8796 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
8800 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
8801 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
8802 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
8807 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
8808 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
8809 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
8814 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
8815 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
8816 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
8817 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
8821 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
8822 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
8823 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
8824 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
8825 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
8826 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
8827 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
8828 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
8829 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
8830 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
8831 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
8832 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
8833 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
8834 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
8835 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
8836 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
8841 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
8842 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
8846 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
8847 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
8848 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
8849 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
8850 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
8851 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
8853 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
8854 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
8858 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
8859 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
8860 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
8863 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
8864 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
8865 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
8867 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
8872 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
8873 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
8874 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
8876 *** Face attributes and X resources
8878 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
8881 Face attribute X resource class
8882 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
8883 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
8884 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
8885 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
8886 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
8887 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
8888 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
8889 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
8890 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
8891 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
8892 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
8893 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
8894 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
8895 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
8896 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
8897 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
8898 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
8899 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
8900 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
8901 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
8903 *** Text property `face'.
8905 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
8906 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
8907 specification can be
8909 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
8911 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
8912 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
8913 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
8914 for face attribute names.
8916 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
8917 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
8918 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
8920 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
8922 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
8923 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
8924 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
8925 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
8926 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
8927 used to clear the mapping table.
8929 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
8931 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
8932 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
8933 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
8934 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
8935 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
8936 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
8937 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
8938 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
8939 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
8940 modify their color-related behavior.
8942 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
8945 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
8947 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
8948 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
8949 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
8950 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
8951 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
8952 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
8953 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
8954 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
8955 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
8957 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
8958 display can display image files.
8960 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
8962 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
8963 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
8964 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
8965 `Inviolable' option.
8967 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
8968 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
8969 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
8971 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
8973 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
8974 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
8975 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
8977 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
8978 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
8979 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
8980 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
8981 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
8982 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
8983 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
8986 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
8987 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
8988 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
8990 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
8992 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
8994 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
8996 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
8997 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
8998 constrained position if that is different.
9000 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
9001 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
9002 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
9003 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
9004 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9005 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
9006 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
9007 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
9008 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
9010 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
9011 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
9012 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
9013 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
9014 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
9016 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
9017 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
9019 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
9021 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
9023 Delete the field surrounding POS.
9024 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9025 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9027 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9029 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
9030 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9031 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9032 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
9033 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
9035 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
9037 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
9038 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9039 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9040 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
9041 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
9043 - Function: field-string &optional POS
9045 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
9046 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9047 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9049 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
9051 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
9052 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
9053 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
9057 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
9058 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
9059 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
9060 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
9062 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
9063 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
9064 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
9065 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
9068 IMAGE is an image specification.
9070 *** Image specifications
9072 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
9073 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
9074 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
9075 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
9076 described below are ignored.
9078 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
9082 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
9083 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
9084 to use for its ascent.
9086 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
9087 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
9089 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
9090 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
9091 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
9092 overlays that apply to the image.
9096 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
9097 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
9098 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
9102 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
9107 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
9109 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
9110 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
9112 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
9113 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
9114 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
9115 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
9116 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
9117 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
9118 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
9119 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
9122 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
9124 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
9126 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
9127 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
9128 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
9129 of the factors' absolute values.
9131 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
9137 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
9143 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
9148 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
9149 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
9150 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
9151 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
9152 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
9153 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
9154 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
9157 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
9158 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
9163 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
9164 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
9165 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
9166 may be present in the image specification.
9170 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
9171 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
9172 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
9173 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
9175 *** Supported image types
9177 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
9179 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
9180 properties supported are:
9184 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9185 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9189 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9190 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9192 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
9193 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
9194 instead of a `:file' property.
9198 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
9202 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
9208 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
9209 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
9211 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
9213 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
9216 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
9217 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
9220 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
9222 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
9223 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
9224 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
9225 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
9227 Additional image properties supported are:
9229 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
9231 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
9232 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
9235 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
9236 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
9238 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
9239 to display compressed images.
9241 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
9243 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
9244 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
9249 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
9250 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground color.
9254 BG must be a string specifying the image background color, or nil
9255 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
9257 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
9259 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
9260 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9263 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
9265 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
9266 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9269 **** GIF, image type `gif'
9271 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
9272 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
9274 Additional image properties supported are:
9278 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
9279 multi-image GIF file. If INDEX is too large, the image displays
9282 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
9283 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
9284 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
9287 (defun show-anim (file max)
9288 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
9289 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
9291 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
9294 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
9297 (goto-char (point-min))
9298 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
9299 (insert-image img "x"))
9300 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
9302 **** PNG, image type `png'
9304 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
9305 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
9308 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
9310 Additional image properties supported are:
9314 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
9315 integer. This is a required property.
9319 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
9320 must be a integer. This is an required property.
9324 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
9325 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
9326 files. This is an required property.
9328 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
9333 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
9334 which are supported in the current configuration.
9336 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
9337 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
9338 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
9339 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
9340 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
9342 *** Simplified image API, image.el
9344 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
9345 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
9346 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
9347 define an image based on available image types. The functions
9348 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
9353 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
9356 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
9357 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
9358 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
9359 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
9360 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
9361 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
9362 of the display margins.
9364 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
9365 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
9366 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
9367 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
9372 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
9373 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
9374 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
9375 that have a `help-echo' property.
9377 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
9378 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
9379 the window in which the help was found.
9381 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
9382 `help-echo' text property was found.
9384 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
9385 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
9387 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
9388 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
9391 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
9392 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
9394 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
9395 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
9396 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
9397 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
9398 used as help string.
9400 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
9401 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
9402 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
9404 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
9406 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
9407 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
9409 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
9410 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
9411 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
9412 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
9415 (global-set-key [A-down]
9418 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9419 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
9420 (global-set-key [A-up]
9423 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
9424 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
9426 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
9428 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
9429 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
9430 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
9431 is called with one argument, POS.
9433 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
9434 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
9435 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
9436 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
9437 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
9439 ** Tool bar support.
9441 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
9442 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
9443 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
9444 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
9445 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
9446 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
9448 *** Tool bar item definitions
9450 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
9451 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
9452 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
9454 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
9455 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
9456 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
9457 property (see below).
9459 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
9460 binding are currently ignored.
9462 The following properties are recognized:
9466 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
9471 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
9475 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
9476 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
9477 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
9479 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
9481 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
9482 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
9486 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
9487 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
9488 meaning of each of the four elements:
9490 Index Use when item is
9491 ----------------------------------------
9492 0 enabled and selected
9493 1 enabled and deselected
9494 2 disabled and selected
9495 3 disabled and deselected
9497 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
9498 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
9500 `:help HELP-STRING'.
9502 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
9503 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
9505 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
9506 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
9507 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
9510 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
9511 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
9512 buffer-locally to override the global map.
9514 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
9516 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
9517 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
9518 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
9520 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
9521 raised when the mouse moves over them.
9523 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
9524 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
9525 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
9526 vertical margins . Default is 1.
9528 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
9529 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
9531 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
9533 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
9536 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
9537 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
9538 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
9540 is the original tool bar item definition, then
9542 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
9544 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
9547 ** Mode line changes.
9549 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
9551 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
9552 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
9553 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
9555 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
9556 a `local-map' text property.
9558 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
9559 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
9561 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
9562 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
9563 `local-map' property.
9565 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
9566 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
9569 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
9570 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
9572 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
9573 variable mode-line-format to nil.
9575 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
9577 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
9578 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
9579 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
9580 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
9583 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
9586 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
9587 position in the header-line.
9589 ** Text property `display'
9591 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
9592 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
9593 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
9594 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
9595 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
9597 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
9599 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
9600 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
9602 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
9603 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
9604 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
9605 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9606 simpler form STRING as property value.
9608 *** Variable width and height spaces
9610 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
9611 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
9612 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
9613 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
9614 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
9615 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
9616 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
9618 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
9619 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
9620 properties described below.
9622 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
9623 characters having the `display' property.
9627 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
9628 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
9630 - :relative-width FACTOR
9632 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
9633 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
9634 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
9635 width of that character by FACTOR.
9639 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
9640 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
9642 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
9646 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
9649 - :relative-height FACTOR
9651 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
9652 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
9656 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
9657 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
9658 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
9661 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
9665 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
9666 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
9667 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
9668 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
9669 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
9670 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
9671 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
9672 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
9673 as display specification.
9675 *** Other display properties
9677 - (space-width FACTOR)
9679 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
9680 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
9685 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
9687 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
9688 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
9689 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
9690 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
9691 a font is available counts as a step.
9693 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
9694 as tall as the frame's default font.
9696 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
9697 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
9699 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
9700 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
9704 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
9705 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
9706 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
9707 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
9708 `height' subproperty.
9710 *** Conditional display properties
9712 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
9713 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
9714 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
9715 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
9716 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
9717 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
9718 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
9719 different when object is a string.
9721 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
9724 ** New menu separator types.
9726 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
9727 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
9728 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
9729 to specify other menu separator types.
9731 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
9733 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
9736 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
9738 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
9740 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
9742 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
9744 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
9746 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9748 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
9750 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
9752 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
9754 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
9755 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
9757 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
9759 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
9761 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
9763 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
9765 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
9767 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
9769 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
9771 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9773 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
9775 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
9777 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
9779 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
9781 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
9783 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
9785 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
9786 the corresponding single-line separators.
9788 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
9790 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
9791 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
9792 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
9793 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
9794 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
9795 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
9796 default foreground is black.
9798 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
9799 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
9800 `ScrollBarBackground').
9802 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
9803 settings for scroll bar colors.
9805 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
9806 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
9808 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
9809 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
9810 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
9811 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
9812 the original window start.
9814 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
9815 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
9816 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
9818 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
9820 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
9821 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
9822 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
9823 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
9825 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
9826 fixed-width and fixed-height.
9828 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
9830 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
9831 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
9832 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
9833 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
9834 temporarily to nil, for example
9836 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
9837 (enlarge-window 10))
9839 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
9840 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
9842 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
9843 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
9844 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
9845 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
9846 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
9847 support a vertical-bar cursor).
9851 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
9853 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
9856 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
9858 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
9860 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
9861 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
9862 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
9863 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
9864 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
9866 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
9870 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
9872 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
9876 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
9878 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
9879 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
9881 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
9883 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
9885 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
9886 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
9887 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
9889 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
9890 is the one that is used.
9892 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
9893 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
9894 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
9895 separate from the command's regular output.
9896 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
9897 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
9898 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
9901 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
9902 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
9903 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
9904 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
9906 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
9907 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
9908 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
9909 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
9911 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
9912 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
9913 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
9914 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
9916 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
9917 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
9918 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
9919 they never ignore case.
9921 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
9922 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
9923 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
9924 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
9925 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
9926 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
9927 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
9929 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
9930 the same format that was used in the file before.
9932 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
9933 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
9935 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
9936 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
9937 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
9939 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
9940 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
9941 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
9942 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
9943 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
9944 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
9945 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
9947 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
9948 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
9949 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
9950 format. You can now customize these variables.
9952 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
9953 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
9954 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
9955 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
9957 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
9958 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
9959 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
9961 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
9962 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
9963 doesn't have any effect.
9965 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
9968 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
9969 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
9970 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
9972 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
9973 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
9974 `auto-show-mode' command.
9976 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
9977 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
9978 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
9979 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
9980 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
9982 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
9983 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
9985 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
9986 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
9987 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
9989 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
9990 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
9991 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
9992 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
9994 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
9996 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
9997 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
9998 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
9999 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
10000 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
10002 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
10003 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
10005 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
10006 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
10007 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
10008 `?' on other systems.
10010 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
10011 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
10014 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
10015 current codepage when it starts.
10019 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
10020 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
10021 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
10022 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
10023 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
10024 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
10028 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
10029 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
10031 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
10032 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
10033 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
10034 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
10035 buffer-file-coding-system.
10037 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
10038 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
10041 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
10042 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
10043 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
10044 list of possible coding systems.
10048 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
10049 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
10050 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
10051 docstring for details.
10053 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
10054 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
10055 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
10056 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
10057 lineup functions use this feature currently.
10059 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
10060 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
10062 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
10063 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
10065 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
10066 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
10067 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
10068 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
10071 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
10072 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
10074 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
10075 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
10076 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
10077 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
10079 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
10080 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
10081 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
10082 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
10083 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
10085 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
10087 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
10089 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
10090 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
10092 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
10094 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
10095 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
10096 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
10097 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
10098 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
10102 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
10103 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
10104 Gnus manual for the full story.
10106 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
10107 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
10108 group, which is created automatically.
10110 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
10113 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
10115 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
10116 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
10118 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
10121 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
10123 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
10124 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
10126 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
10128 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
10129 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
10131 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
10132 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
10134 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
10135 control over simplification.
10137 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
10139 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
10142 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
10144 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
10146 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
10147 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
10148 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
10150 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
10151 `a' forces normal posting method.
10153 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
10156 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
10157 to a non-nil value.
10159 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
10160 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
10162 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
10165 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
10167 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
10169 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
10170 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
10172 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
10173 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
10175 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
10177 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
10180 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
10181 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
10183 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
10184 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
10186 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
10188 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
10190 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
10192 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
10194 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
10195 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
10196 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
10198 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
10199 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
10200 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
10201 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
10202 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
10204 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
10205 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
10206 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
10207 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
10209 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
10210 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
10211 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
10214 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
10216 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
10217 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
10219 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
10220 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
10221 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
10222 removed from the label.
10224 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
10225 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
10227 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
10228 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
10230 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
10231 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
10234 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
10236 ** New/deleted modes and packages
10238 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
10239 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
10241 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
10242 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
10243 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
10245 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
10246 changes with a special face.
10248 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
10249 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
10250 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
10252 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
10254 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
10255 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
10256 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
10257 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
10258 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
10260 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
10261 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
10262 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
10264 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
10265 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
10266 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
10267 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
10268 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
10269 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
10270 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
10271 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
10272 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
10274 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
10275 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
10276 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
10277 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
10278 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
10281 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
10282 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
10283 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
10284 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
10285 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
10286 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
10288 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
10289 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
10290 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
10291 was not documented clearly before.
10293 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
10294 This includes Tetris and Snake.
10296 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
10298 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
10299 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
10300 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
10301 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
10303 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
10304 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
10305 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
10307 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
10309 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
10310 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
10312 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
10313 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
10316 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
10317 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
10318 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
10319 file names and attributes are returned.
10321 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
10322 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
10323 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
10324 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
10325 returns the result.
10327 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
10328 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
10330 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
10332 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
10333 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
10334 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
10337 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
10338 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
10341 The new function process-running-child-p
10342 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
10343 terminal to its own child process.
10345 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
10346 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
10347 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
10348 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
10350 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
10351 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
10353 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
10354 :included is an alias for :visible.
10356 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
10357 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
10358 to move or copy menu entries.
10360 ** Multibyte editing changes
10362 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
10363 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
10364 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
10365 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
10366 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
10367 (setq char (sref str idx)
10368 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
10369 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
10371 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
10372 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
10373 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
10375 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
10376 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
10377 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
10379 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
10381 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
10382 across the boundary.
10384 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
10385 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
10386 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
10387 contains 8-bit characters.
10388 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
10389 contains invalid characters.
10391 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
10392 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
10393 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
10394 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
10397 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
10398 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
10399 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
10400 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
10402 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
10403 compose Thai characters in a string.
10405 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
10406 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
10407 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
10408 menus should always use the third argument.
10410 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
10411 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
10412 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
10413 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
10415 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
10416 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
10417 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
10418 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
10420 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
10421 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
10422 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
10423 echo area contents.
10425 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
10427 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
10428 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
10429 requested feature cannot be loaded.
10431 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
10432 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
10433 means to clear out that attribute.
10435 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
10436 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
10438 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
10439 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
10440 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
10441 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
10443 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
10444 the gap of the current buffer.
10446 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
10447 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
10450 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
10451 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
10452 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
10453 it back in after any modifications have been made.
10455 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
10457 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
10458 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
10459 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
10460 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
10461 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
10463 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
10464 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
10465 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
10466 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
10467 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
10469 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
10470 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
10471 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
10473 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
10474 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
10475 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
10476 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
10477 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
10480 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
10481 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
10482 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
10483 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
10485 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
10487 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
10488 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
10489 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
10490 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
10492 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
10493 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
10494 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
10495 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
10496 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
10497 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
10498 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
10501 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
10504 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
10505 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
10506 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
10507 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
10508 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
10510 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
10511 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
10512 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
10513 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
10515 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
10516 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
10517 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
10518 something that most users not do.
10520 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
10521 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
10522 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
10525 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
10526 pasting operations.
10528 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
10529 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
10530 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
10531 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
10534 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
10535 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
10536 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
10537 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
10538 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
10541 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
10542 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
10543 to be confused by TeX commands.
10545 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
10546 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
10547 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
10548 of various alternative replacements and actions.
10550 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
10551 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
10552 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
10553 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
10554 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
10556 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
10557 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
10559 ** Changes in input method usage.
10561 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
10562 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
10565 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
10567 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
10568 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
10570 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
10571 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
10573 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
10575 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
10577 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
10578 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
10580 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
10581 given in the following case:
10582 o When you are using a complex input method.
10583 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
10585 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
10586 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
10587 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
10588 setting it to t is helpful.
10590 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
10592 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
10594 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
10595 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
10596 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
10597 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
10600 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
10601 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
10602 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
10605 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
10607 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
10609 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
10610 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
10612 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
10613 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
10614 its owner and group.
10616 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
10617 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
10619 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
10620 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
10622 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
10623 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
10624 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
10625 by the left edge of the rectangle.
10627 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
10628 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
10629 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
10630 for writing keyboard macros.
10632 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
10633 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
10634 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
10635 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
10636 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
10639 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
10641 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
10642 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
10645 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
10646 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
10647 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
10648 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
10650 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
10651 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
10652 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
10654 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
10655 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
10656 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
10657 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
10659 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
10660 failure if the command produces no output.
10662 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
10663 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
10666 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
10667 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
10668 function and variable names.
10670 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
10671 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
10672 file-coding-system-alist.
10674 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
10675 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
10676 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
10677 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
10678 according to the current fontset.
10680 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
10682 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
10683 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
10684 nonascii-insert-offset.
10686 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
10687 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
10688 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
10689 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
10691 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
10692 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
10694 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
10695 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
10697 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
10698 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
10701 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
10702 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
10704 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
10705 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
10706 all variables that have documentation.
10708 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
10709 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
10710 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
10711 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
10712 it should show; the default is 20.
10714 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
10715 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
10718 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
10719 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
10720 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
10721 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
10722 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
10723 Newly added options are included as well.
10725 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
10726 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
10727 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
10729 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
10732 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
10733 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
10735 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
10736 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
10739 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
10740 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
10743 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
10744 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
10745 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
10746 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
10749 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
10751 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
10752 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
10753 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
10755 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
10756 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
10757 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
10762 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
10763 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
10765 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
10766 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
10768 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
10769 read and post multi-lingual articles.
10771 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
10772 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
10773 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
10774 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
10775 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
10776 made invisible again.
10778 ** Mail reading and sending changes
10780 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
10781 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
10782 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
10785 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
10786 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
10787 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
10788 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
10789 rmail-default-body-file.
10791 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
10792 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
10793 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
10795 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
10796 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
10797 is evaluated to insert the signature.
10799 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
10800 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
10801 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
10802 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
10803 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
10804 especially interested in trying feedmail.
10806 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
10807 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
10808 provided by feedmail are:
10810 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
10811 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
10812 there is also a queue for draft messages
10814 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
10815 be prompted for confirmation
10817 **** does smart filling of address headers
10819 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
10820 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
10821 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
10823 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
10824 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
10825 /usr/lib/sendmail, and Emacs Lisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
10826 function for something else (10-20 lines of Lisp code).
10830 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
10831 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
10833 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
10834 run Dired on the directory name at point.
10836 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
10837 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
10838 for a specified regexp.
10842 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
10845 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
10846 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
10849 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
10850 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
10851 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
10852 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
10854 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
10855 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
10856 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
10857 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
10858 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
10860 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
10861 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
10862 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
10863 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
10864 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
10866 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
10867 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
10868 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
10869 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
10871 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
10872 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
10873 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
10875 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
10876 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
10877 session to resolve them.
10879 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
10880 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
10881 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
10884 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
10885 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
10886 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
10887 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
10888 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
10889 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
10892 ** Changes in Font Lock
10894 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
10895 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
10896 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
10897 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
10898 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
10900 ** Frame name display changes
10902 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
10903 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
10904 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
10905 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
10907 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
10908 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
10911 ** Comint (subshell) changes
10913 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
10914 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
10915 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
10917 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
10919 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
10920 that is, the line after the last line you got.
10921 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
10923 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
10924 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
10925 the following line.
10927 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
10928 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
10929 previously sent input.
10931 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
10932 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
10933 as the search string.
10935 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
10936 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
10940 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
10941 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
10942 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
10945 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
10946 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
10947 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
10948 style is still the default however.
10950 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
10952 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
10953 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
10954 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
10956 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
10957 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
10959 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
10960 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
10962 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
10963 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
10965 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
10966 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
10968 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
10969 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
10970 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
10971 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
10973 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
10975 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
10976 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
10977 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
10979 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
10980 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
10981 expanding dynamically.
10983 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
10984 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
10986 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
10987 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
10988 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
10989 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
10991 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
10993 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
10995 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
10996 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
10997 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
10998 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
10999 against the first word in the title.
11001 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
11002 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
11003 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
11004 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
11005 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
11006 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
11008 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
11009 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
11010 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
11011 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
11013 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
11015 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
11016 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
11017 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
11018 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
11019 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
11020 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
11022 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
11023 Editing group once the package is loaded.
11025 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
11026 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
11027 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
11029 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
11030 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
11034 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
11035 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
11036 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
11038 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
11039 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
11040 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
11041 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
11044 o URLs are automatically skipped
11045 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
11047 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
11049 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
11051 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
11052 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
11053 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
11054 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
11056 *** New recursive parser.
11058 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
11059 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
11060 recursive parser scans the individual files.
11062 *** Parsing only part of a document.
11064 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
11065 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
11066 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
11068 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
11070 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
11072 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
11074 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
11076 *** Using multiple selection buffers
11078 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
11079 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
11081 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
11083 *** References to external documents.
11085 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
11086 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
11087 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
11088 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
11089 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
11090 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
11091 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
11093 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
11095 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
11096 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
11098 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
11099 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
11101 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
11103 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
11104 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
11106 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
11108 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
11109 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
11110 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
11111 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
11112 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
11113 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
11116 *** Support for the varioref package
11118 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
11122 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
11123 and citations are created. These hooks are
11124 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
11125 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
11127 *** Citations outside LaTeX
11129 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
11130 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
11132 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
11134 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
11135 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
11138 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
11140 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
11141 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
11142 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
11143 directories that contain the same file name.
11145 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
11146 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
11147 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
11148 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
11149 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
11150 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
11151 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
11154 ** New modes and packages
11156 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
11157 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
11158 it, but some do not.
11160 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
11163 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
11164 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
11165 around in a buffer.
11167 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
11169 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
11170 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
11171 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
11172 established system of notation similar to Chess.
11174 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
11175 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
11176 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
11178 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
11179 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
11180 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
11181 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
11182 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
11185 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
11186 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
11188 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
11189 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
11190 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
11191 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
11193 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
11195 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
11196 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
11197 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
11198 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
11199 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
11200 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
11201 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
11202 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
11203 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
11204 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
11205 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
11207 Platform-specific modes:
11209 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
11210 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
11211 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
11212 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
11213 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
11214 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
11215 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
11216 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
11217 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
11219 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11221 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
11222 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
11223 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
11224 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
11226 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
11227 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
11228 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
11230 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
11231 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
11232 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
11233 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
11235 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
11236 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
11237 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
11240 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
11241 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
11242 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
11243 current input method for reading this one event.
11245 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
11246 now control whether to output certain characters as
11247 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
11248 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
11249 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
11250 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
11252 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
11254 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
11255 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
11257 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
11258 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
11259 always increases point by 1.
11261 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
11262 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
11264 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
11266 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
11267 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
11268 default value changed. For example,
11270 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
11275 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
11278 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
11279 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
11280 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
11281 `:version' in the top level group.
11283 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
11285 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
11286 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
11288 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
11289 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
11290 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
11293 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
11294 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
11297 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
11298 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
11299 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
11301 ** Frame-local variables.
11303 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
11304 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
11305 local bindings for that variable.
11307 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
11308 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
11309 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
11312 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
11313 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
11314 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
11315 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
11317 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
11318 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
11319 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
11320 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
11322 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
11323 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
11324 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
11325 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
11326 See the documentation in sregex.el.
11328 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
11329 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
11330 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
11331 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
11333 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
11334 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
11336 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
11337 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
11338 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
11340 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
11341 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
11342 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
11343 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
11345 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
11346 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
11349 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
11350 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
11351 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
11352 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
11353 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
11355 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
11356 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
11357 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
11358 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
11360 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
11361 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
11362 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
11363 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
11364 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
11366 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
11367 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
11368 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
11369 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
11371 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
11372 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
11373 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
11375 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
11376 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
11377 was directed to display this buffer.
11379 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
11380 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
11381 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
11382 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
11383 set-window-configuration.
11385 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
11386 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
11387 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
11388 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
11390 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
11391 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
11392 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
11394 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
11395 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
11396 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
11398 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
11399 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
11401 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
11402 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
11404 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
11405 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
11406 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
11408 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
11409 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
11410 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
11411 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
11415 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
11416 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
11419 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
11420 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
11421 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
11422 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
11423 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
11425 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
11427 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
11428 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
11429 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
11430 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
11433 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
11434 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
11435 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
11436 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
11437 The supported properties include
11439 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11441 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
11442 item should appear in the menu.
11444 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
11445 which will be REAL-BINDING.
11446 It should return a binding to use instead.
11448 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
11449 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
11450 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
11451 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
11452 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
11455 This means that the command normally has no
11456 keyboard equivalent.
11457 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
11458 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
11459 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
11460 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
11461 value says whether this button is currently selected.
11463 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
11464 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
11466 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
11470 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
11471 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
11472 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
11473 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
11475 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
11477 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11478 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
11479 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
11480 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
11481 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
11482 forward, away from the user.
11484 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11486 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
11487 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
11488 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
11489 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
11490 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
11492 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
11494 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
11495 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
11496 that were dragged and dropped.
11498 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
11500 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
11502 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
11503 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
11504 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
11506 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
11507 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
11508 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
11510 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
11511 in Emacs 19 and before.
11513 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
11514 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
11516 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
11517 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
11518 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
11519 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
11521 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
11522 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
11523 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
11524 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
11525 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
11527 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
11528 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
11529 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
11530 consistent with the new representation.
11532 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
11533 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
11534 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
11535 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11537 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
11538 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
11539 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
11541 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
11542 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
11543 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
11545 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
11546 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
11547 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
11549 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11550 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
11552 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
11553 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
11555 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
11556 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
11557 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
11558 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
11560 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
11561 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
11563 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
11564 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
11565 buffer or string being searched.
11567 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
11568 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
11569 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
11570 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
11571 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
11572 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
11573 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
11575 *** Structure of coding system changed.
11577 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
11578 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
11579 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
11580 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
11581 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
11582 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
11583 define-coding-system-alias.
11585 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
11586 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
11587 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
11588 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
11589 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
11590 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
11591 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
11594 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
11595 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
11596 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
11597 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
11599 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
11600 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
11601 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
11602 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
11604 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
11605 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
11606 This function requires a user interaction.
11608 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
11609 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
11610 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
11611 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
11612 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
11613 select-safe-coding-system.
11615 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
11616 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
11617 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
11620 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
11621 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
11622 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
11624 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
11625 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
11626 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
11627 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
11629 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
11630 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
11631 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
11634 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
11635 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
11637 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
11638 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
11639 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
11640 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
11641 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
11642 range of characters.
11644 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
11645 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
11647 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
11648 in the current buffer at position POS.
11650 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
11651 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
11652 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
11653 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
11654 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
11655 binding input-method-function to nil.
11657 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
11658 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
11659 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
11660 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
11661 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
11663 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
11664 subsequent events of a key sequence.
11666 *** You can customize any language environment by using
11667 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
11669 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
11670 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
11671 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
11672 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
11673 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
11675 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
11677 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
11678 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
11679 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
11682 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
11683 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
11685 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
11686 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
11687 in your .emacs file.)
11689 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
11690 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
11692 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
11693 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
11695 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
11696 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
11699 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
11700 delete the character before point, as usual.
11702 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
11703 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
11704 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
11706 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
11707 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
11708 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
11709 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
11710 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
11713 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
11714 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
11715 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
11716 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
11717 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
11719 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
11720 and is an alias for it.
11722 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
11723 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
11725 ** Scrolling changes
11727 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
11728 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
11730 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
11731 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
11734 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
11735 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
11736 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
11737 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
11739 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
11740 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
11741 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
11742 recenters the window.
11744 ** International character set support (MULE)
11746 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
11747 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
11748 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
11749 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
11750 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
11751 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
11753 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
11754 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
11755 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
11756 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
11757 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
11759 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
11760 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
11761 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
11762 language, to make it possible to type them.
11764 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
11765 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
11767 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
11768 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
11770 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
11772 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
11774 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
11775 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
11776 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
11777 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
11778 characters for their work until they want to change.
11782 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
11783 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
11784 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
11785 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
11786 support several input methods.
11788 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
11789 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
11792 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
11793 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
11794 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
11795 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
11796 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
11799 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
11800 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
11801 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
11802 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
11803 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
11805 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
11806 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
11807 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
11808 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
11810 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
11811 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
11812 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
11813 the first guess is wrong.
11815 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
11816 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
11818 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
11819 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
11820 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
11821 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
11823 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
11824 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
11825 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
11826 translate automatically to and from either one.
11828 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
11830 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
11831 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
11832 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
11835 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
11836 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
11837 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
11838 multibyte characters in that buffer.
11840 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
11841 character conversion as well.
11843 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
11845 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
11846 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
11847 requires using many fonts.
11849 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
11850 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
11852 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
11853 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
11854 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
11855 you would use a font.
11857 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
11858 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
11859 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
11861 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
11862 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
11865 *** Defining fontsets.
11867 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
11868 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
11869 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
11871 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
11872 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
11873 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
11874 standard fontset are created automatically.
11876 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
11877 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
11878 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
11879 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
11880 name is `fontset-startup'.
11882 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
11883 The resource value should have this form:
11884 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
11885 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
11886 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
11887 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
11888 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
11889 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
11890 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
11891 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
11892 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
11894 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
11895 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
11896 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
11898 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
11899 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
11900 following resource,
11901 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
11902 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
11903 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
11904 Here is the substitution rule:
11905 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
11906 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
11907 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
11908 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
11909 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
11911 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
11912 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
11913 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
11915 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
11916 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
11917 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
11918 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
11921 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
11922 defaults for a particular choice of language.
11924 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
11925 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
11926 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
11927 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
11928 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
11929 system for new files that you create.
11931 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
11932 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
11933 whole Emacs session.
11935 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
11936 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
11937 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
11939 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
11940 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
11941 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
11942 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
11943 coding systems that Emacs supports.
11945 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
11946 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
11947 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
11948 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
11949 is used for *the immediately following command*.
11951 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
11952 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
11954 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
11955 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
11957 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
11958 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
11960 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
11961 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
11962 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
11963 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
11966 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
11967 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
11968 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
11969 translated into that character code.
11971 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
11972 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
11974 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
11976 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
11977 the coding system for keyboard input.
11979 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
11980 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
11981 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
11983 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
11985 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
11986 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
11987 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
11988 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
11989 designed to work with terminals.
11991 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
11992 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
11993 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
11994 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
11995 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
11996 in the corresponding buffer.
11998 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
12000 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
12001 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
12002 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
12004 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
12005 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
12006 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
12009 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
12010 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
12012 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
12013 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
12014 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
12015 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
12017 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
12018 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
12019 related information.
12021 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
12022 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
12025 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
12026 information about the support for a particular language.
12027 You specify the language as an argument.
12029 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
12030 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
12033 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
12034 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
12035 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
12036 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
12038 A alternativnyj (Russian)
12040 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
12041 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
12042 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
12043 E euc-japan (Japanese)
12044 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12045 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
12046 K euc-korea (Korean)
12049 S shift_jis (Japanese)
12052 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
12053 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
12054 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
12055 v viqr (Vietnamese)
12058 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
12059 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
12060 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
12061 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
12063 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
12064 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
12066 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
12067 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
12068 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
12069 Rmail files themselves.
12071 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
12072 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
12074 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
12077 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
12078 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
12079 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
12080 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
12081 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
12083 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
12084 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
12085 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
12088 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
12089 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
12090 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
12091 without any conversion.
12093 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
12094 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
12095 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
12096 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
12098 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
12099 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
12101 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
12102 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
12104 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
12105 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
12107 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
12108 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
12109 in the buffer before point.
12111 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
12112 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
12115 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
12116 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
12118 ** File locking works with NFS now.
12120 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
12121 in the same directory as FILENAME.
12123 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
12124 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
12125 can become a bottleneck.
12127 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
12128 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
12129 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
12130 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
12131 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
12132 so useful that the change is worth while.
12134 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
12135 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
12136 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
12137 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
12139 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
12140 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
12143 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
12144 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
12145 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
12147 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
12148 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
12149 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
12151 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
12152 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
12153 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
12155 ** Changes in View mode.
12157 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
12158 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
12160 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
12161 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
12163 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
12166 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
12167 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
12169 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
12170 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
12171 not just the selected window.
12173 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
12174 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
12175 turns View mode on or off.
12177 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
12178 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
12179 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
12181 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
12182 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
12184 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
12185 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
12186 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
12187 which version to compare with.
12189 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
12190 blocks if a match is inside the block.
12192 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
12193 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
12194 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
12195 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
12197 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
12198 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
12199 blocks, all of them or none.
12201 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
12202 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
12203 confirmation first.
12205 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
12206 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
12207 However, the mode will not be changed if
12208 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
12209 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
12210 not suitable for ordinary files, or
12211 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
12213 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
12215 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
12216 these commands do not change the major mode.
12218 ** M-x occur changes.
12220 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
12221 it performs a case-sensitive search.
12223 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
12224 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
12225 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
12227 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
12228 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
12229 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
12230 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
12231 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
12233 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
12234 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
12235 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
12236 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
12238 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
12239 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
12240 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
12242 ** Outline mode changes.
12244 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
12246 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
12248 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
12249 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
12250 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
12251 was already active.
12253 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
12254 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
12255 get confused by it.
12257 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
12258 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
12260 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
12262 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
12263 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
12264 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
12265 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
12267 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
12268 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
12269 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
12271 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
12272 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
12275 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
12276 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
12277 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
12278 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
12280 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
12281 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
12282 can be. The default value is 30.
12284 ** Changes in Mail mode.
12286 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
12287 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
12288 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
12289 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
12290 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
12293 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
12294 compose-mail-other-frame.
12296 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
12297 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
12298 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
12299 buffer that shows the original message.
12301 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
12302 with separator lines around the contents.
12304 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
12305 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
12306 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
12307 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
12309 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
12311 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
12312 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
12313 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
12314 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
12316 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
12317 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
12320 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
12321 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
12324 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
12325 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
12326 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
12327 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
12329 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
12330 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
12331 be taken to be magic.
12333 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
12334 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
12335 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
12337 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
12338 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
12340 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
12341 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
12343 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
12345 new key dired.el binding old key
12346 ------- ---------------- -------
12347 * c dired-change-marks c
12349 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
12350 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
12351 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
12353 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
12354 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
12355 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
12356 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
12357 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
12358 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
12362 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
12363 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
12364 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
12365 each time you run it.
12367 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
12368 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
12370 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
12371 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
12372 means to move in the opposite direction.
12374 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
12375 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
12377 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
12378 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
12379 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
12380 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
12385 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
12387 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
12390 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
12391 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
12393 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
12396 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
12398 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
12400 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
12402 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
12403 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
12404 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
12406 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
12408 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
12410 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
12411 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
12413 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
12414 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
12415 used to pick articles.
12417 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
12418 another have been added.
12420 `M-x gnus-change-server'
12422 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
12423 generating lines in buffers.
12425 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
12428 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
12430 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
12432 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
12434 *** Scores can be decayed.
12436 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
12438 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
12439 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
12441 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
12444 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
12446 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
12447 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
12449 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
12451 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
12452 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
12454 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
12455 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
12457 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
12460 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
12461 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
12463 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
12465 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
12467 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
12469 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
12471 Use the `Y c' command.
12473 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
12475 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
12477 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
12479 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
12480 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
12482 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
12484 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
12486 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
12487 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
12489 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
12491 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
12492 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
12493 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
12494 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
12497 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
12498 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
12499 particular news group. This can be done by:
12501 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
12503 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
12504 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
12505 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
12506 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
12507 for reading and posting).
12509 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
12510 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
12511 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
12512 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
12515 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
12516 default. Here are some of these default settings:
12518 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
12519 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
12520 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
12521 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
12522 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
12524 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
12525 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
12527 ** CC mode changes.
12529 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
12530 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
12531 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
12532 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
12533 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
12536 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
12537 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
12538 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
12539 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
12540 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
12541 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
12543 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
12544 of the current buffer.
12546 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
12547 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
12548 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
12550 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
12551 style that the Python developers like.
12553 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
12554 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
12555 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
12557 ** VC Changes [new]
12559 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
12560 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
12561 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
12563 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
12564 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
12567 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
12568 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
12570 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
12571 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
12572 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
12573 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
12575 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
12576 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
12578 ** Calendar changes.
12580 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
12581 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
12582 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
12583 following/previous years.
12585 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
12586 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
12587 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
12588 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
12589 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
12590 supposed attribute of God.
12592 ** ps-print changes
12594 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
12597 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
12599 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
12600 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
12601 printer system has this behavior, set variable
12602 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
12604 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
12605 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
12606 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
12608 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
12609 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
12611 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
12612 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
12613 printing for your printer.
12615 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
12616 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12618 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
12619 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
12621 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
12622 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
12623 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
12624 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
12625 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
12626 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
12627 The default value is nil.
12629 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
12630 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
12632 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
12633 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
12634 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
12635 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
12636 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
12637 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
12638 color). The default is 0 ("black").
12640 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
12641 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
12643 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
12644 The default is 0 ("black").
12646 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
12647 The default is 0 ("black").
12649 border-width Specify the border width.
12650 The default is 0.4.
12652 Any other property is ignored.
12654 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
12655 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
12658 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
12659 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
12660 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
12661 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
12662 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
12663 controlling headers.
12665 *** Color management (subgroup)
12667 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
12670 *** Face Management (subgroup)
12672 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
12673 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
12674 background should be used. Valid values are:
12676 t always use face background color.
12677 nil never use face background color.
12678 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
12680 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
12682 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
12685 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
12686 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
12688 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
12691 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
12692 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
12693 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
12695 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
12699 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
12703 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
12707 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
12711 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
12713 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
12715 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
12718 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
12719 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
12720 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
12722 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
12723 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12724 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12725 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12726 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12730 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12731 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12732 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12735 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12736 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12737 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
12738 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
12739 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
12740 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12741 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12742 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
12743 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
12744 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
12745 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
12748 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
12750 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
12753 *** Printer management (subgroup)
12755 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
12756 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
12757 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
12758 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
12761 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
12762 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
12763 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
12765 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
12766 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
12769 *** Page settings (subgroup)
12771 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
12772 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
12773 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
12774 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
12775 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
12776 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
12779 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
12780 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
12781 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
12783 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
12784 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
12785 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
12786 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
12787 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
12788 its TO, are ignored.
12790 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
12791 pages. Valid values are:
12793 nil print all pages.
12795 `even-page' print only even pages.
12797 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
12799 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
12800 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12801 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
12802 print only the even sheet of paper.
12804 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
12805 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
12806 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
12807 only the odd sheet of paper.
12809 Any other value is treated as nil.
12811 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
12812 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
12813 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
12815 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
12817 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
12818 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
12820 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
12821 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
12822 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
12823 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
12824 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
12825 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
12826 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
12828 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
12829 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
12830 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
12831 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
12832 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
12833 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
12834 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
12836 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
12838 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
12839 messages should be sent.
12841 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
12842 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
12843 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
12845 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
12847 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
12848 points for line numbers.
12850 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
12851 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
12853 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
12854 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
12855 to 2, the printing will look like:
12867 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
12868 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
12871 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
12872 zebra stripe is to be printed.
12874 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
12876 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
12877 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
12878 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
12879 3, the output will look like:
12893 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
12894 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
12896 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
12897 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
12900 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
12901 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
12904 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
12906 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
12907 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
12909 ** hideshow changes.
12911 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
12914 *** Support for java-mode added.
12916 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
12917 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
12919 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
12920 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
12921 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
12923 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
12924 robust and a lot faster.
12926 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
12928 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
12929 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
12930 documentation for more details.
12932 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
12934 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
12935 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
12936 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
12937 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
12938 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
12940 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
12941 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
12942 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
12943 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
12949 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
12950 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
12951 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
12952 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
12953 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
12954 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
12956 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
12958 *** Maximum decoration
12960 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
12961 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
12962 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
12963 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
12964 to get the old behavior.
12968 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
12970 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
12971 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
12973 *** Configurable support
12975 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
12976 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
12977 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
12978 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
12979 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
12980 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
12981 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
12983 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
12984 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
12985 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
12987 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
12989 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
12990 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
12993 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
12995 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
13001 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
13002 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
13003 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
13004 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
13006 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
13008 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
13009 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
13010 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
13012 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
13014 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
13015 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
13016 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
13017 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
13018 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
13019 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
13020 Lock mode behavior and the behavior of Font Lock mode.
13022 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
13023 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
13024 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
13025 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
13026 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
13027 the command M-o M-o (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
13029 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
13031 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
13032 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
13033 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
13034 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
13036 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
13039 ** Ada mode changes.
13041 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
13042 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
13043 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
13044 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
13047 *** There are two new commands:
13048 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
13049 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
13051 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
13052 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
13053 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
13055 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
13056 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
13057 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
13059 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
13060 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
13061 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
13062 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
13064 ** Scheme mode changes.
13066 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
13067 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
13068 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
13069 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
13072 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
13073 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
13074 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
13075 variables as buffer-local variables.
13077 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
13078 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
13080 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
13082 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
13083 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
13084 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
13085 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
13087 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
13088 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
13091 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
13092 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
13093 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
13094 option takes precedence.
13096 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
13097 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
13098 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
13100 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
13101 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
13104 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
13105 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
13107 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
13108 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
13111 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
13112 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
13113 these register values no longer become completely useless.
13114 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
13115 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
13116 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
13118 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
13119 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
13120 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
13121 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
13123 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
13124 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
13125 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
13126 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
13127 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
13129 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
13130 since it applies only to the current frame.
13132 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
13133 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
13134 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
13136 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
13137 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
13138 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
13139 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
13140 instead of just the file you are editing.
13144 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
13145 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
13146 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
13147 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
13148 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
13151 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
13152 knows which kind of label is needed.
13154 C-c ) reftex-reference
13155 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
13156 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
13158 C-c [ reftex-citation
13159 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
13160 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
13162 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
13163 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
13166 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
13167 can quickly jump to every section.
13169 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
13170 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
13171 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
13172 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
13173 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
13175 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
13177 *** Info documentation is now available.
13179 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
13180 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
13182 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
13183 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
13185 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
13186 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
13188 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
13189 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
13190 appropriate functions.
13192 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
13193 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
13195 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
13198 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
13199 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
13201 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
13202 shall be delimited.
13204 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
13205 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
13206 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
13208 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
13209 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
13210 prefixed with `ALT'.
13212 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
13213 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
13214 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
13217 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
13218 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
13219 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
13221 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
13222 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
13224 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
13225 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
13226 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
13228 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
13230 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
13232 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
13233 from alien sources.
13235 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
13236 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
13239 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
13242 *** Added support for imenu.
13244 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
13245 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
13246 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
13247 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
13249 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
13250 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
13252 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
13254 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
13256 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
13257 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
13258 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
13261 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
13262 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
13264 ** browse-url changes
13266 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
13267 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
13268 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
13269 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
13270 customization variables.
13272 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
13274 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
13275 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
13276 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
13278 ** Changes in Ediff
13280 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
13281 pops up the Info file for this command.
13283 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
13284 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
13285 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
13288 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
13289 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
13290 files in the same directory.
13292 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
13293 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
13294 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
13296 ** Changes in Viper
13298 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
13299 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
13301 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
13302 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
13303 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
13304 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
13305 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
13306 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
13307 color when Viper is in insert state.
13308 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
13309 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
13310 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
13314 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
13315 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
13316 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
13317 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
13318 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
13320 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
13322 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
13323 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
13325 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
13326 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
13327 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
13329 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
13330 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
13331 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
13332 methods and protocols.
13334 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
13335 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
13336 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
13339 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
13340 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
13341 at least M times and as many as N times.
13343 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
13344 in files has changed slightly.
13346 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
13347 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
13348 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
13349 with old time-stamp-format values.
13351 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
13352 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
13353 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
13356 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
13357 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
13358 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
13359 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
13360 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
13361 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
13363 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
13364 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
13365 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
13367 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
13368 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
13369 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
13370 recommended now will continue to work then.
13372 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
13375 ** There are some additional major modes:
13377 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
13378 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
13379 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
13381 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
13382 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
13385 ** New Lisp packages include:
13387 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
13389 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
13390 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
13392 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
13394 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
13397 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
13398 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
13401 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
13402 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
13403 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
13404 strings or comments.
13406 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
13407 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
13408 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
13409 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
13412 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
13413 can visit them by short forms of their names.
13415 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
13416 Emacs Lisp function at point.
13418 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
13420 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
13421 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
13423 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
13425 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
13427 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
13429 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
13430 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
13432 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
13433 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
13434 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
13435 original place after inserting the copy.
13437 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
13440 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
13441 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
13442 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
13444 Enable mouse-drag with:
13445 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
13447 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
13449 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
13450 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
13452 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
13453 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
13457 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
13458 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
13459 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
13460 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
13461 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
13462 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
13463 instance) and vice versa.
13465 To use this package load it using
13466 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
13467 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
13468 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
13469 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
13470 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
13471 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
13473 *** Interface to ph.
13475 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
13477 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
13478 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
13481 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
13483 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
13484 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
13485 while the real cursor does not move.
13487 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
13488 for visiting your favorite web sites.
13490 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
13491 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
13495 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
13496 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
13497 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
13498 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
13500 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
13502 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
13504 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
13506 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
13507 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
13508 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
13509 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
13510 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
13512 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
13513 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
13514 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
13515 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
13516 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
13517 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
13519 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
13521 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
13522 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
13523 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
13524 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
13526 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
13527 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
13529 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
13530 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
13533 ** Basic Lisp changes
13535 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
13536 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
13538 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
13539 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
13542 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
13544 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
13546 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
13547 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
13549 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
13550 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
13553 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
13555 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
13557 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
13559 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
13560 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
13561 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
13564 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
13565 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
13566 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
13568 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
13569 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
13570 adding one of these suffixes.
13572 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
13573 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
13574 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
13576 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
13577 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
13579 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
13581 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
13582 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
13584 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
13585 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
13587 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
13589 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
13590 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
13592 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
13593 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
13594 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
13595 works using `save-current-buffer'.
13597 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
13598 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
13601 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
13602 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
13603 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
13606 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
13607 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
13610 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
13612 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
13613 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
13614 Then it returns that string.
13616 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
13618 (with-output-to-string
13619 (princ "The buffer is ")
13620 (princ (buffer-name)))
13622 returns "The buffer is foo".
13624 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
13627 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
13628 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
13629 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
13631 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
13632 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
13634 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
13635 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
13636 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
13637 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
13638 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
13639 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
13641 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
13642 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
13643 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
13646 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
13647 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
13648 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
13649 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
13650 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
13652 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
13653 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
13654 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
13655 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
13657 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
13658 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
13660 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
13662 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
13663 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
13664 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
13665 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
13668 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
13669 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
13672 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
13674 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
13675 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
13676 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
13677 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
13678 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
13680 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
13682 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
13683 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
13684 more than the number of characters.
13686 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
13687 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
13688 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
13689 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
13690 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
13691 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
13693 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
13694 and returns a string containing those characters.
13696 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
13697 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
13698 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
13699 character, sref signals an error.
13701 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
13702 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
13703 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13705 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
13706 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
13707 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
13709 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
13710 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
13711 to a vector of the characters in it.
13713 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
13714 of a string. You call it as follows:
13716 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
13718 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
13719 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
13720 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
13721 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
13722 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
13724 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
13725 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13727 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
13728 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
13730 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
13731 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
13732 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
13733 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
13735 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
13737 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
13739 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
13740 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
13741 are not included in the resulting value.
13743 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
13744 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
13745 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
13746 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
13748 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
13749 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
13750 character extends across that column), then the padding character
13751 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
13752 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
13753 column START-COLUMN.
13755 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
13756 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
13757 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
13758 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
13759 changed text, before the change.
13761 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
13762 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
13763 one character set for each script, not for each language.
13765 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
13767 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
13769 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
13770 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
13772 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
13773 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
13774 which identify the character within that character set.
13776 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
13777 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
13778 opposite of split-char.
13780 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
13781 of all the characters between BEG and END.
13783 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
13784 of all the characters in a string.
13786 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
13787 and specifying coding systems.
13789 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
13790 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
13791 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
13792 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
13793 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
13794 as what to do about code conversion.)
13796 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
13797 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
13799 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
13800 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
13801 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
13803 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
13804 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
13805 to match against a file name.
13807 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
13808 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
13809 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
13810 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
13811 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
13812 specifies the coding system for encoding.
13814 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
13815 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
13817 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
13818 the coding system to use for network sockets.
13820 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
13821 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
13822 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
13825 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
13826 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
13827 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
13828 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
13829 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
13830 specifies the coding system for encoding.
13832 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
13833 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
13835 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
13836 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
13837 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
13838 start the subprocess.
13840 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
13841 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
13842 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
13843 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
13844 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
13846 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
13847 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
13850 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
13851 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
13852 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
13853 connection permanently or until overridden.
13855 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
13856 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
13857 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
13858 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
13859 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
13860 system for one operation at a time.
13862 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
13863 files, subprocesses or network connections.
13865 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
13866 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
13867 The value is a cons cell,
13868 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
13869 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
13870 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
13871 input to the subprocess.
13873 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
13874 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
13876 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
13877 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
13878 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
13880 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
13881 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
13882 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
13883 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
13886 Thus, instead of writing
13888 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
13889 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
13891 you would now write this:
13893 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
13894 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
13898 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
13899 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
13900 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
13901 for a description of them.
13903 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
13904 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
13906 (defgroup ispell nil
13907 "Spell checking using Ispell."
13910 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
13911 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
13912 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
13913 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
13914 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
13916 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
13917 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
13918 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
13919 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
13920 first-level subgroups.
13922 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
13924 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
13925 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
13929 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
13930 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
13931 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
13932 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
13933 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
13934 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
13936 ** Text property changes
13938 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
13941 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
13942 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
13943 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
13944 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
13945 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
13947 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
13948 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
13949 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
13950 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
13952 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
13953 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
13954 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
13956 ** Changes in invisibility features
13958 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
13959 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
13960 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
13961 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
13962 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
13963 make the overlay visible.
13965 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
13966 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
13967 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
13968 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
13969 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
13970 t when it should hide it.
13972 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
13974 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
13975 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
13976 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
13977 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
13978 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
13979 Here is an example of how to do this:
13981 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
13982 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
13983 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
13984 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
13987 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
13990 ;; When done with the overlays:
13991 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
13992 ;; Or respectively:
13993 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
13995 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
13997 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
13998 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
13999 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
14000 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
14002 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
14003 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
14004 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
14006 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
14007 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
14009 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
14010 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
14012 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
14013 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
14014 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
14016 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
14017 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
14018 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
14019 determine the syntax type of the character.
14021 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
14022 of the current buffer.
14024 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
14025 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
14026 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
14028 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
14029 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
14030 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
14031 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
14032 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
14034 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
14037 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
14038 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
14039 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
14041 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
14042 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
14043 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
14044 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
14045 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
14047 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
14048 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
14049 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
14051 ** Changes in face features
14053 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
14054 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
14056 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
14057 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
14059 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
14060 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
14062 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
14063 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
14065 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
14066 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
14067 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
14068 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
14071 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
14072 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
14074 ** Changes in file-handling functions
14076 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
14077 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
14078 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
14079 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
14081 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
14084 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
14085 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
14087 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
14088 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
14090 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
14091 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
14093 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
14094 character code conversion as well as other things.
14096 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
14097 (formerly it did not).
14099 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
14100 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
14102 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
14103 instead of constant strings.
14105 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
14106 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
14107 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
14109 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
14110 in the same way as before.
14112 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
14113 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
14114 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
14116 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
14117 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
14118 else, and returns nil.
14120 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
14121 directory cannot be listed.
14123 ** Changes in minibuffer input
14125 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
14126 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
14127 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
14128 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
14131 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
14132 It is available through the history command M-n.
14134 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
14135 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
14136 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
14137 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
14138 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
14140 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
14141 argument in this way.
14143 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
14144 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
14145 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
14147 ** Echo area features
14149 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
14150 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
14151 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
14152 after the echo area is cleared.
14154 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
14155 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
14157 ** Keyboard input features
14159 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
14160 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
14162 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
14163 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
14164 by keyboard macros.
14166 ** Frame-related changes
14168 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
14169 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
14170 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
14172 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
14173 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
14174 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
14176 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
14177 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
14178 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
14179 in the selected frame.
14181 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
14182 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
14183 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
14185 ** X Windows features
14187 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
14188 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
14189 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
14191 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
14192 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
14194 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
14195 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
14196 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
14198 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
14199 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
14201 ** Subprocess features
14203 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
14204 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
14207 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
14208 and returns the output from the command as a string.
14210 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
14211 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
14213 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
14214 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
14216 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
14217 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
14218 goes after the other menu items.
14220 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
14221 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
14222 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
14225 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
14226 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
14228 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
14229 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
14232 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
14233 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
14234 but its hook is still run.
14236 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
14237 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
14239 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
14240 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
14241 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
14243 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
14244 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
14245 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
14248 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
14249 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
14251 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
14252 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
14253 functions like display-time.
14255 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
14256 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
14258 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
14259 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
14260 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
14262 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
14263 if there is an error in compilation.
14265 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
14266 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
14267 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
14268 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
14270 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
14271 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
14272 the *scratch* buffer.
14274 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
14275 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
14276 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
14277 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
14279 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
14280 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
14281 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
14283 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
14284 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
14285 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
14286 and compose-mail-other-frame.
14288 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
14289 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
14290 full name of the specified user will be returned.
14292 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
14293 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
14294 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
14295 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
14296 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
14299 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
14300 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
14301 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
14302 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
14304 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
14305 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
14306 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
14307 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
14309 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
14311 ** imenu.el changes.
14313 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
14314 item from menu created by imenu.
14316 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
14317 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
14318 select one of those items.
14320 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
14322 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
14323 Copyright information:
14325 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
14327 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
14328 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
14329 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
14330 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
14332 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
14333 of this document, or of portions of it,
14334 under the above conditions, provided also that they
14335 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
14339 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"
14342 arch-tag: 1aca9dfa-2ac4-4d14-bebf-0007cee12793