1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
46 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
47 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
48 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
51 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available
52 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
53 automatically select it.
56 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
58 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
59 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
60 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
62 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
63 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
65 ** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used.
68 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
70 ** emacsclient changes
72 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
73 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed. This works like the
74 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
77 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
79 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
80 error, its exit status is 1.
82 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
84 ** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
85 `completing-read-function'
87 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
90 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
92 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
93 initial documentation.
95 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
96 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value. The default is nil.
98 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
99 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
100 according to the value of this variable. Possible values are
101 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'. If the value is nil (the
102 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
103 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
105 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
106 value of paragraph base direction at point.
108 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
109 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
112 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
113 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
114 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
116 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
117 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
119 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
120 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
121 is taken from the desktop settings.
123 ** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
124 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
125 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
128 ** ImageMagick support.
129 It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
130 image formats in Emacs. By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
131 libraries if they are present at build time. To disable this, use
132 the configure option `--without-imagemagick'.
134 The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
135 extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
136 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
137 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
139 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
141 ** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
142 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
144 ** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
145 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
147 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
148 with Xft. To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
149 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
152 ** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts
153 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
154 default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
155 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
156 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
157 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
158 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
160 On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
161 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
163 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
165 ** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
166 ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.
168 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
169 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
171 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
172 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
173 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
174 context in their return values.
176 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
177 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
179 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
180 for remote machines which support SELinux.
183 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
184 higher-resolution time stamps.
186 ** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
187 and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
189 ** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
190 If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
191 consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.
193 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
194 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
195 of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
196 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
198 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
199 scroll a line instead of full screen.
201 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
202 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
206 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
207 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
209 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
210 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
212 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
213 for `list-colors-display'.
215 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
216 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
217 from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.
219 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
220 selected for installation.
222 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
224 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
225 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
226 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
227 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
229 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
230 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
231 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
235 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
237 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
238 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
239 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
240 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
242 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
243 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
244 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
245 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
247 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
248 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
250 ** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
251 replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
253 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
256 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
261 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
265 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.
268 ** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.
270 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
272 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
274 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
275 also deletes newlines around point.
279 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
280 If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
281 and no prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands
284 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
285 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
286 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
288 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
289 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
290 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
291 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
293 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
295 ** Selection changes.
297 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
298 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
299 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
300 use the primary selection.
302 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
303 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
305 *** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
306 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
307 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
308 the kill-ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
309 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
311 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
312 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
313 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
314 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
315 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
317 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
318 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
319 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
321 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
322 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
323 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
324 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
326 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
327 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
329 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
330 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
331 between applications.
333 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
335 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
336 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
337 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
338 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
340 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
342 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
343 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
344 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
346 ** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
347 directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
348 $ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
351 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
353 ** The compile.el mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
354 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
356 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
358 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
359 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
360 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
362 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
363 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
365 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
367 ** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
369 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
371 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
373 ** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
374 `browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.
376 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers, in certain modes
377 (eg dired, vc-dir, log-edit). For example, adding
378 "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your .dir-locals.el file,
379 will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should
380 call `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
383 ** You can prevent directory local variables from applying to subdirectories.
384 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
385 settings to indicate said section should not be applied to subdirectories.
389 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
390 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
391 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
392 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
395 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
396 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
397 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
398 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
402 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
403 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
404 exists, that is used instead.
406 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
407 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
409 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
410 You can get a comparable behavior with:
411 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
412 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
414 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
416 ** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.
418 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
420 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
423 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
424 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
427 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
428 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
429 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
432 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
433 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
437 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
438 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
439 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
441 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
442 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
444 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
446 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
447 choose a color via list-colors-display.
451 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
452 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
455 *** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
456 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
458 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
460 *** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.
462 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
463 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
464 MySQL or Postgres servers. By default, the port is not listed in
465 either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
468 *** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
469 If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
470 session it uses the current value of `sql-product'. Preceding the
471 invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
472 creating the session.
474 *** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
475 Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
476 `sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
477 started and will prompt for the new name. This will reduce the need
478 for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.
480 *** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
481 Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
482 continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output. These
483 prompts are now filtered out from the output. This change impacts
484 multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
485 statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
486 `sql-send-*' functions.
488 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
489 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
490 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
491 connection is established.
493 The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
494 `database', `server', and `port'. The order in which they appear is
495 the order in which they are prompted. The tokens symbols can be
496 replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
497 which control the prompting for values. The tokens `user',
498 `database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
499 specifies the value to be used if no value is entered. The
500 `database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
501 property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
502 list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
503 property value. The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
504 :file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.
507 (database :default DEF
509 :completion COMPLETE)
512 :completion COMPLETE)
514 The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
515 file names (without the directory portion). Generally these strings
516 will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.
518 When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
519 PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
520 possible values or a function returning such a list).
522 *** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
523 An alist for recording different username, database and server
524 values. If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
525 parameters needed can be stored in this alist.
527 For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:
529 (setq sql-connection-alist
530 '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
531 (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
532 (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
534 (sql-database "iprd2a"))))
536 This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".
538 *** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
539 Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
540 `sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session. Any
541 values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.
543 In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
544 would be prompted for the connection. The user can respond with
545 either "dev" or "prd". The "dev" connection would connect to the
546 SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
547 for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.
549 **** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
550 When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
551 allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session. The "Start
552 SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
555 **** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
556 When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
557 `sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
558 session and save them as a new connection.
560 *** List database objects and details.
561 Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
562 the objects in the database and see details of those objects. The
563 objects shown and the details available are product specific.
565 **** List all objects.
566 Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
567 objects" will list all the objects in the database. At a minimum it
568 lists the tables and views in the database. Preceding the command by
569 universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
570 listing to include other schemas objects. The list will appear in a
571 separate window in view-mode.
573 **** List Table details.
574 Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
575 details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
576 the list of columns in the relation. Preceding the command with the
577 universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
578 The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.
580 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
581 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
582 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
584 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
585 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
586 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
587 In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
588 SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.
590 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
591 This prevents the command interpreter for MySQL and Postgres from
592 listing object name completions when being sent text via
593 `sql-send-*' functions.
595 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
597 ** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
599 ** s-region.el and pc-select are now declared obsolete,
600 superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
601 ** pc-mode.el is also declared obsolete.
604 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
605 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
606 threads simultaneously.
610 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
611 system or session bus.
613 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
614 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
617 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
618 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
622 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
624 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
625 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
627 ** VC and related modes
629 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
630 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
631 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
632 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
634 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
636 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
638 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
639 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
640 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
641 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
643 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
645 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
646 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
647 In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
648 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
650 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
652 **** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
653 binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.
658 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
660 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
663 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
665 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
666 and electric-layout-mode.
668 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
670 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
671 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
672 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
673 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
676 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
677 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
679 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
680 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
682 ** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.
685 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
687 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
688 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
689 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
690 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
692 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
693 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
694 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
695 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
697 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
698 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
699 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
702 ** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
704 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
706 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
707 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
708 programmer-visible consequences.
710 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
713 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
714 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
715 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
716 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
717 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
718 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
720 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
721 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
722 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
723 has now been removed.
725 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
727 ** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
729 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
730 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
731 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
732 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
733 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
734 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
735 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
738 ** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
740 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
741 font-lock-defaults-alist
743 ** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
744 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
746 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
749 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
751 ** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
752 Instead, the offending function is removed.
754 ** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.
756 ** byte-compile-disable-print-circle is obsolete.
757 ** deferred-action-list and deferred-action-function are obsolete.
758 ** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
759 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
760 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
761 jumping all the way to the top-level.
763 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
764 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
766 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
767 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
768 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
771 ** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
772 Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
773 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
774 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
775 Together with this new variable come a new hook
776 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
777 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
778 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
781 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
784 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
785 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
786 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
787 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
789 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
790 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
791 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
792 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
794 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
796 ** New completion style `substring'.
798 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
799 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
800 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
803 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
804 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
805 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
809 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
810 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
811 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
812 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
813 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
814 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
816 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
818 ** XML and HTML parsing
820 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
821 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
822 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
823 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
824 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
826 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
832 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
834 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
835 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
836 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
837 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
838 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
839 displayed with a "spinning bar".
842 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
844 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
847 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
848 included in binary distribution.
850 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
853 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
854 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
856 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
857 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
858 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
859 (at your option) any later version.
861 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
862 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
863 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
864 GNU General Public License for more details.
866 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
867 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
872 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"