1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS
9 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
10 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
11 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
15 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.3
17 ** Emacs now supports new configure options `--program-prefix',
18 `--program-suffix' and `--program-transform-name' that affect the names of
22 ** Leim is now part of the Emacs distribution.
23 You no longer need to download a separate tarball in order to build
27 ** Support for FreeBSD/Alpha has been added.
30 ** Support for BSD/OS 5.0 was added.
33 * Changes in Emacs 21.3
35 ** The new command `describe-text-at' pops up a buffer with description
36 of text properties, overlays, and widgets at point, and lets you get
37 more information about them, by clicking on mouse-sensitive areas or
38 moving there and pressing RET.
40 ** font-lock: in modes like C and Lisp where the fontification assumes that
41 an open-paren in column 0 is always outside of any string or comment,
42 font-lock now highlights any such open-paren-in-column-zero in bold-red
43 if it is inside a string or a comment, to indicate that it can cause
44 trouble with fontification and/or indentation.
47 ** There's a new face `minibuffer-prompt'.
48 Emacs adds this face to the list of text properties stored in the
49 variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', which is used to display the
53 ** The new face `mode-line-inactive' is used to display the mode line
54 of non-selected windows. The `mode-line' face is now used to display
55 the mode line of the currently selected window.
57 The new variable `mode-line-in-non-selected-windows' controls whether
58 the `mode-line-inactive' face is used.
60 ** A menu item "Show/Hide" was added to the top-level menu "Options".
61 This menu allows you to turn various display features on and off (like
62 tool bar and the menu bar itself). You can also move the vertical
63 scroll bar to either side here or turn it off completely. There is also
64 a menu-item to toggle displaying of current date and time, current line
65 and column number in the mode-line.
67 ** Emacs can now indicate in the mode-line the presence of new e-mails in
68 directory in addition to file. See the documentation of the user option
69 `display-time-mail-directory'.
72 ** The new option `Info-scroll-prefer-subnodes' causes Info to behave
73 like the stand-alone Info reader (from the GNU Texinfo package) as far
74 as motion between nodes and their subnodes is concerned. If it is t
75 (the default), Emacs behaves as before when you type SPC in a menu: it
76 visits the subnode pointed to by the first menu entry. If this option
77 is nil, SPC scrolls to the end of the current node, and only then goes
78 to the first menu item, like the stand-alone reader does.
80 This change was already in Emacs 21.1, but wasn't advertised in the
84 ** LDAP support now defaults to ldapsearch from OpenLDAP version 2.
87 ** You can now disable pc-selection-mode after enabling it.
88 M-x pc-selection-mode behaves like a proper minor mode, and with no
89 argument it toggles the mode.
91 Turning off PC-Selection mode restores the global key bindings
92 that were replaced by turning on the mode.
94 ** Changes in support of colors on character terminals
97 *** The new command-line option --color=MODE lets you specify a standard
98 mode for a tty color support. It is meant to be used on character
99 terminals whose capabilities are not set correctly in the terminal
100 database, or with terminal emulators which support colors, but don't
101 set the TERM environment variable to a name of a color-capable
102 terminal. "emacs --color" uses the same color commands as GNU `ls'
103 when invoked with "ls --color", so if your terminal can support colors
104 in "ls --color", it will support "emacs --color" as well. See the
105 user manual for the possible values of the MODE parameter.
108 *** Emacs now supports several character terminals which provide more
109 than 8 colors. For example, for `xterm', 16-color, 88-color, and
110 256-color modes are supported. Emacs automatically notes at startup
111 the extended number of colors, and defines the appropriate entries for
115 *** There's a new support for colors on `rxvt' terminal emulator.
118 ** Emacs can now be invoked in full-screen mode on a windowed display.
120 When Emacs is invoked on a window system, the new command-line options
121 `--fullwidth', `--fullheight', and `--fullscreen' produce a frame
122 whose width, height, or both width and height take up the entire
123 screen size. (For now, this works only on GNU and Unix systems, and
124 not with every window manager.)
126 ** Info-index finally offers completion.
128 ** Controlling the left and right fringe widths.
130 The left and right fringe widths can now be controlled by setting the
131 `left-fringe' and `right-fringe' frame parameters to an integer value
132 specifying the width in pixels. Setting the width to 0 effectively
133 removes the corresponding fringe.
135 The actual fringe widths may deviate from the specified widths, since
136 the combined fringe widths must match an integral number of columns.
137 The extra width is distributed evenly between the left and right fringe.
138 For force a specific fringe width, specify the width as a negative
139 integer (if both widths are negative, only the left fringe gets the
142 Setting the width to nil (the default), restores the default fringe
143 width which is the minimum number of pixels necessary to display any
144 of the currently defined fringe bitmaps. The width of the built-in
145 fringe bitmaps is 8 pixels.
147 ** Changes in C-h bindings:
149 C-h e displays the *Messages* buffer.
151 C-h followed by a control character is used for displaying files
154 C-h C-f displays the FAQ.
155 C-h C-e displays the PROBLEMS file.
157 The info-search bindings on C-h C-f, C-h C-k and C-h C-i
158 have been moved to C-h F, C-h K and C-h S.
160 C-h c, C-h k, C-h w, and C-h f now handle remapped interactive commands.
162 - C-h c and C-h k report the actual command (after possible remapping)
163 run by the key sequence.
165 - C-h w and C-h f on a command which has been remapped now report the
166 command it is remapped to, and the keys which can be used to run
169 For example, if C-k is bound to kill-line, and kill-line is remapped
170 to new-kill-line, these commands now report:
172 - C-h c and C-h k C-k reports:
173 C-k runs the command new-kill-line
175 - C-h w and C-h f kill-line reports:
176 kill-line is remapped to new-kill-line which is on C-k, <deleteline>
178 - C-h w and C-h f new-kill-line reports:
179 new-kill-line is on C-k
181 ** C-w in incremental search now grabs either a character or a word,
182 making the decision in a heuristic way. This new job is done by the
183 command `isearch-yank-word-or-char'. To restore the old behavior,
184 bind C-w to `isearch-yank-word' in `isearch-mode-map'.
186 ** In GUD mode when talking to GDB, C-x C-a C-j "jumps" the program
187 counter to the specified source line (the one where point is).
189 ** GUD mode improvements for jdb:
191 *** Search for source files using jdb classpath and class
192 information. Fast startup since there is no need to scan all
193 source files up front. There is also no need to create and maintain
194 lists of source directories to scan. Look at `gud-jdb-use-classpath'
195 and `gud-jdb-classpath' customization variables documentation.
197 *** Supports the standard breakpoint (gud-break, gud-clear)
198 set/clear operations from java source files under the classpath, stack
199 traversal (gud-up, gud-down), and run until current stack finish
202 *** Supports new jdb (Java 1.2 and later) in addition to oldjdb
205 *** The previous method of searching for source files has been
206 preserved in case someone still wants/needs to use it.
207 Set gud-jdb-use-classpath to nil.
209 Added Customization Variables
211 *** gud-jdb-command-name. What command line to use to invoke jdb.
213 *** gud-jdb-use-classpath. Allows selection of java source file searching
214 method: set to t for new method, nil to scan gud-jdb-directories for
215 java sources (previous method).
217 *** gud-jdb-directories. List of directories to scan and search for java
218 classes using the original gud-jdb method (if gud-jdb-use-classpath
223 *** Do not allow debugger output history variable to grow without bounds.
225 ** hide-ifdef-mode now uses overlays rather than selective-display
226 to hide its text. This should be mostly transparent but slightly
227 changes the behavior of motion commands line C-e and C-p.
229 ** In Dired's ! command (dired-do-shell-command), `*' and `?' now
230 control substitution of the file names only when they are surrounded
231 by whitespace. This means you can now use them as shell wildcards
232 too. If you want to use just plain `*' as a wildcard, type `*""'; the
233 doublequotes make no difference in the shell, but they prevent
234 special treatment in `dired-do-shell-command'.
236 ** Unquoted `$' in file names do not signal an error any more when
237 the corresponding environment variable does not exist.
238 Instead, the `$ENVVAR' text is left as is, so that `$$' quoting
239 is only rarely needed.
241 ** jit-lock can now be delayed with `jit-lock-defer-time'.
243 If this variable is non-nil, its value should be the amount of Emacs
244 idle time in seconds to wait before starting fontification. For
245 example, if you set `jit-lock-defer-time' to 0.25, fontification will
246 only happen after 0.25s of idle time.
249 ** Marking commands extend the region when invoked multiple times. If
250 you hit M-C-SPC (mark-sexp), M-@ (mark-word), M-h (mark-paragraph), or
251 C-M-h (mark-defun) repeatedly, the marked region will now be extended
252 each time, so you can mark the next two sexps with M-C-SPC M-C-SPC,
253 for example. This feature also works for mark-end-of-sentence, if you
256 ** In the *Occur* buffer, `o' switches to it in another window, and
257 C-o displays the current line's occurrence in another window without
260 ** When you specify a frame size with --geometry, the size applies to
261 all frames you create. A position specified with --geometry only
262 affects the initial frame.
265 ** M-h (mark-paragraph) now accepts a prefix arg.
266 With positive arg, M-h marks the current and the following paragraphs;
267 if the arg is negative, it marks the current and the preceding
270 ** In Dired, the w command now copies the current line's file name
273 ** The variables dired-free-space-program and dired-free-space-args
274 have been renamed to directory-free-space-program and
275 directory-free-space-args, and they now apply whenever Emacs puts a
276 directory listing into a buffer.
278 ** mouse-wheels can now scroll a specific fraction of the window
279 (rather than a fixed number of lines) and the scrolling is `progressive'.
281 ** The keyboard-coding-system is now automatically set based on
282 your current locale settings. If it turns out that your terminal
283 does not support the encoding implied by your locale (for example,
284 it inserts non-ASCII chars if you hit M-i), you will need to add
286 (set-keyboard-coding-system nil)
288 to your .emacs to revert to the old behavior.
290 ** A new coding system `euc-tw' has been added for traditional Chinese
291 in CNS encoding; it accepts both Big 5 and CNS as input; on saving,
292 Big 5 is then converted to CNS.
295 ** Emacs now reads the standard abbrevs file ~/.abbrev_defs
296 automatically at startup, if it exists. When Emacs offers to save
297 modified buffers, it saves the abbrevs too if they have changed. It
298 can do this either silently or asking for confirmation first,
299 according to the value of `save-abbrevs'.
301 ** Display of hollow cursors now obeys the buffer-local value (if any)
302 of `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' in the buffer that the cursor
305 ** The default values of `tooltip-delay' and `tooltip-hide-delay'
308 ** On terminals whose erase-char is ^H (Backspace), Emacs
309 now uses normal-erase-is-backspace-mode.
313 *** In Prolog, etags creates tags for rules in addition to predicates.
315 *** In Perl, packages are tags. Subroutine tags are named from their
316 package. You can jump to sub tags as you did before, by the sub name, or
317 additionally by looking for package::sub.
319 *** New language PHP: tags are functions, classes and defines. If
320 the --members option is specified to etags, tags are vars also.
323 ** The command line option --no-windows has been changed to
324 --no-window-system. The old one still works, but is deprecated.
326 ** `buffer-menu' and `list-buffers' now list buffers whose names begin
327 with a space, if they visit files.
329 ** You can now customize fill-nobreak-predicate to control where
330 filling can break lines. We provide two sample predicates,
331 fill-single-word-nobreak-p and fill-french-nobreak-p.
333 ** New user option `add-log-always-start-new-record'.
334 When this option is enabled, M-x add-change-log-entry will always
335 start a new record regardless of when the last record is.
337 ** New user option `sgml-xml'.
338 When this option is enabled, SGML tags are inserted in XML style,
339 i.e., there is always a closing tag.
340 When not customized, it becomes buffer-local when it can be inferred
341 from the file name or buffer contents.
343 ** New user option `isearch-resume-enabled'.
344 This option can be disabled, to avoid the normal behaviour of isearch
345 which puts calls to `isearch-resume' in the command history.
347 ** When the *scratch* buffer is recreated, its mode is set from
348 initial-major-mode, which normally is lisp-interaction-mode,
349 instead of using default-major-mode.
351 ** Byte compiler warning and error messages have been brought more
352 in line with the output of other GNU tools.
354 ** Lisp-mode now uses font-lock-doc-face for the docstrings.
356 ** perl-mode has a new variable `perl-indent-continued-arguments'.
358 ** `special-display-buffer-names' and `special-display-regexps' now
359 understand two new boolean pseudo-frame-parameters `same-frame' and
362 ** When pure storage overflows while dumping, Emacs now prints how
363 much pure storage it will approximately need.
365 ** M-x setenv now expands environment variables of the form `$foo' and
366 `${foo}' in the specified new value of the environment variable. To
367 include a `$' in the value, use `$$'.
370 ** File-name completion can now ignore directories.
371 If an element of the list in `completion-ignored-extensions' ends in a
372 slash `/', it indicates a subdirectory that should be ignored when
373 completing file names. Elements of `completion-ignored-extensions'
374 which do not end in a slash are never considered when a completion
375 candidate is a directory.
377 ** New user option `inhibit-startup-buffer-menu'.
378 When loading many files, for instance with `emacs *', Emacs normally
379 displays a buffer menu. This option turns the buffer menu off.
381 ** Rmail now displays 5-digit message ids in its summary buffer.
383 ** When using M-x revert-buffer in a compilation buffer to rerun a
384 compilation, it is now made sure that the compilation buffer is reused
385 in case it has been renamed.
387 ** On MS Windows, the "system caret" now follows the cursor.
388 This enables Emacs to work better with programs that need to track
389 the cursor, for example screen magnifiers and text to speech programs.
391 ** Tooltips now work on MS Windows.
392 See the Emacs 21.1 NEWS entry for tooltips for details.
394 ** Pointing devices with more than 3 buttons are now supported on MS Windows.
395 The new variable `w32-pass-extra-mouse-buttons-to-system' controls
396 whether Emacs should handle the extra buttons itself (the default), or
397 pass them to Windows to be handled with system-wide functions.
399 ** Under X11, it is possible to swap Alt and Meta (and Super and Hyper).
400 The new variables `x-alt-keysym', `x-hyper-keysym', `x-meta-keysym',
401 and `x-super-keysym' can be used to choose which keysyms Emacs should
402 use for the modifiers. For example, the following two lines swap
404 (setq x-alt-keysym 'meta)
405 (setq x-meta-keysym 'alt)
408 ** A French translation of the `Emacs Survival Guide' is available.
411 ** A French translation of the Emacs Tutorial is available.
413 ** New modes and packages
416 *** Calc is now part of the Emacs distribution.
418 Calc is an advanced desk calculator and mathematical tool written in
419 Emacs Lisp. Its documentation is in a separate manual; within Emacs,
420 type "C-h i m calc RET" to read that manual. A reference card is
421 available in `etc/calccard.tex' and `etc/calccard.ps'.
424 *** The Emacs Lisp Reference Manual is now part of the distribution.
426 The ELisp reference manual in Info format is built as part of the
427 Emacs build procedure and installed together with the Emacs User
428 Manual. A menu item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy
429 accessible (Help->More Manuals->Emacs Lisp Reference).
431 *** The Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp manual is now part of
434 This manual is now part of the standard distribution and is installed,
435 together with the Emacs User Manual, into the Info directory. A menu
436 item was added to the menu bar that makes it easy accessible
437 (Help->More Manuals->Introduction to Emacs Lisp).
439 *** The ruler-mode.el library provides a minor mode for displaying an
440 "active" ruler in the header line. You can use the mouse to visually
441 change the `fill-column', `window-margins' and `tab-stop-list'
444 *** The reveal.el package provides the minor modes `reveal-mode' and
445 `global-reveal-mode' which will make text visible on the fly as you
446 move your cursor into hidden region of the buffer.
447 It should work with any package that uses overlays to hide parts
448 of a buffer, such as outline-minor-mode, hs-minor-mode, hide-ifdef-mode, ...
450 *** master-mode.el implements a minor mode for scrolling a slave
451 buffer without leaving your current buffer, the master buffer.
453 It can be used by sql.el, for example: the SQL buffer is the master
454 and its SQLi buffer is the slave. This allows you to scroll the SQLi
455 buffer containing the output from the SQL buffer containing the
458 This is how to use sql.el and master.el together: the variable
459 sql-buffer contains the slave buffer. It is a local variable in the
462 (add-hook 'sql-mode-hook
465 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
466 (add-hook 'sql-set-sqli-hook
468 (master-set-slave sql-buffer))))
471 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 21.3
473 ** Interactive commands can be remapped through keymaps.
475 This is an alternative to using defadvice or substitute-key-definition
476 to modify the behaviour of a key binding using the normal keymap
477 binding and lookup functionality.
479 When a key sequence is bound to a command, and that command is
480 remapped to another command, that command is run instead of the
484 Suppose that minor mode my-mode has defined the commands
485 my-kill-line and my-kill-word, and it wants C-k (and any other key
486 bound to kill-line) to run the command my-kill-line instead of
487 kill-line, and likewise it wants to run my-kill-word instead of
490 Instead of rebinding C-k and the other keys in the minor mode map,
491 command remapping allows you to directly map kill-line into
492 my-kill-line and kill-word into my-kill-word through the minor mode
493 map using define-key:
495 (define-key my-mode-map 'kill-line 'my-kill-line)
496 (define-key my-mode-map 'kill-word 'my-kill-word)
498 Now, when my-mode is enabled, and the user enters C-k or M-d,
499 the commands my-kill-line and my-kill-word are run.
501 Notice that only one level of remapping is supported. In the above
502 example, this means that if my-kill-line is remapped to other-kill,
503 then C-k still runs my-kill-line.
505 The following changes have been made to provide command remapping:
507 - define-key now accepts a command name as the KEY argument.
508 This identifies the command to be remapped in the specified keymap.
509 This is equivalent to specifying the command name as the only
510 element of a vector, e.g [kill-line], except that when KEY is a
511 symbol, the DEF argument must also be a symbol.
513 - In calls from Lisp, global-set-key, global-unset-key, local-set-key,
514 and local-unset-key also accept a command name as the KEY argument.
516 - key-binding now remaps interactive commands unless the optional
517 third argument NO-REMAP is non-nil. It also accepts a command name
520 - lookup-key now accepts a command name as the KEY argument.
522 - where-is-internal now returns nil for a remapped command (e.g.
523 kill-line if my-mode is enabled), and the actual key binding for
524 the command it is remapped to (e.g. C-k for my-kill-line).
525 It also has a new optional fifth argument, NO-REMAP, which inhibits
526 remapping if non-nil (e.g. it returns C-k for kill-line and
527 <kill-line> for my-kill-line).
529 - The new variable `this-original-command' contains the original
530 command before remapping. It is equal to `this-command' when the
531 command was not remapped.
533 ** Atomic change groups.
535 To perform some changes in the current buffer "atomically" so that
536 they either all succeed or are all undone, use `atomic-change-group'
537 around the code that makes changes. For instance:
543 If an error (or other nonlocal exit) occurs inside the body of
544 `atomic-change-group', it unmakes all the changes in that buffer that
545 were during the execution of the body. The change group has no effect
546 on any other buffers--any such changes remain.
548 If you need something more sophisticated, you can directly call the
549 lower-level functions that `atomic-change-group' uses. Here is how.
551 To set up a change group for one buffer, call `prepare-change-group'.
552 Specify the buffer as argument; it defaults to the current buffer.
553 This function returns a "handle" for the change group. You must save
554 the handle to activate the change group and then finish it.
556 Before you change the buffer again, you must activate the change
557 group. Pass the handle to `activate-change-group' afterward to
560 After you make the changes, you must finish the change group. You can
561 either accept the changes or cancel them all. Call
562 `accept-change-group' to accept the changes in the group as final;
563 call `cancel-change-group' to undo them all.
565 You should use `unwind-protect' to make sure the group is always
566 finished. The call to `activate-change-group' should be inside the
567 `unwind-protect', in case the user types C-g just after it runs.
568 (This is one reason why `prepare-change-group' and
569 `activate-change-group' are separate functions.) Once you finish the
570 group, don't use the handle again--don't try to finish the same group
573 To make a multibuffer change group, call `prepare-change-group' once
574 for each buffer you want to cover, then use `nconc' to combine the
575 returned values, like this:
577 (nconc (prepare-change-group buffer-1)
578 (prepare-change-group buffer-2))
580 You can then activate the multibuffer change group with a single call
581 to `activate-change-group', and finish it with a single call to
582 `accept-change-group' or `cancel-change-group'.
584 Nested use of several change groups for the same buffer works as you
585 would expect. Non-nested use of change groups for the same buffer
586 will lead to undesirable results, so don't let it happen; the first
587 change group you start for any given buffer should be the last one
590 ** New function substring-no-properties.
593 *** The meanings of scroll-up-aggressively and scroll-down-aggressively
594 have been interchanged, so that the former now controls scrolling up,
595 and the latter now controls scrolling down.
598 ** New function window-body-height.
600 This is like window-height but does not count the mode line
604 ** You can now make a window as short as one line.
606 A window that is just one line tall does not display either a mode
607 line or a header line, even if the variables `mode-line-format' and
608 `header-line-format' call for them. A window that is two lines tall
609 cannot display both a mode line and a header line at once; if the
610 variables call for both, only the mode line actually appears.
613 ** The new frame parameter `tty-color-mode' specifies the mode to use
614 for color support on character terminal frames. Its value can be a
615 number of colors to support, or a symbol. See the Emacs Lisp
616 Reference manual for more detailed documentation.
618 ** Already true in Emacs 21.1, but not emphasized clearly enough:
620 Multibyte buffers can now faithfully record all 256 character codes
621 from 0 to 255. As a result, most of the past reasons to use unibyte
622 buffers no longer exist. We only know of three reasons to use them
625 1. If you prefer to use unibyte text all of the time.
627 2. For reading files into temporary buffers, when you want to avoid
628 the time it takes to convert the format.
630 3. For binary files where format conversion would be pointless and
633 ** If text has a `keymap' property, that keymap takes precedence
634 over minor mode keymaps.
636 ** A hex escape in a string forces the string to be multibyte.
637 An octal escape makes it unibyte.
639 ** The position after an invisible, intangible character
640 is considered an unacceptable value for point;
641 intangibility processing effectively treats the following character
642 as part of the intangible region even if it is not itself intangible.
644 Thus, point can go before an invisible, intangible region, but not
645 after it. This prevents C-f and C-b from appearing to stand still on
649 ** define-abbrev now accepts an optional argument SYSTEM-FLAG. If
650 non-nil, this marks the abbrev as a "system" abbrev, which means that
651 it won't be stored in the user's abbrevs file if he saves the abbrevs.
652 Major modes that predefine some abbrevs should always specify this
655 ** Support for Mocklisp has been removed.
657 ** The function insert-string is now obsolete.
659 ** The precedence of file-name-handlers has been changed.
660 Instead of blindly choosing the first handler that matches,
661 find-file-name-handler now gives precedence to a file-name handler
662 that matches near the end of the file name. More specifically, the
663 handler whose (match-beginning 0) is the largest is chosen.
664 In case of ties, the old "first matched" rule applies.
666 ** Dense keymaps now handle inheritance correctly.
667 Previously a dense keymap would hide all of the simple-char key
668 bindings of the parent keymap.
670 ** jit-lock obeys a new text-property `jit-lock-defer-multiline'.
671 If a piece of text with that property gets contextually refontified
672 (see jit-lock-defer-contextually), then all of that text will
673 be refontified. This is useful when the syntax of a textual element
674 depends on text several lines further down (and when font-lock-multiline
675 is not appropriate to solve that problem). For example in Perl:
683 Adding/removing the last `e' changes the `bar' from being a piece of
684 text to being a piece of code, so you'd put a jit-lock-defer-multiline
685 property over the second half of the command to force (deferred)
686 refontification of `bar' whenever the `e' is added/removed.
688 ** describe-vector now takes a second argument `describer' which is
689 called to print the entries' values. It defaults to `princ'.
691 ** defcustom and other custom declarations now use a default group
692 (the last group defined in the same file) when no :group was given.
694 ** emacsserver now runs pre-command-hook and post-command-hook when
695 it receives a request from emacsclient.
697 ** The variable `recursive-load-depth-limit' has been deleted.
698 Emacs now signals an error if the same file is loaded with more
699 than 3 levels of nesting.
701 ** The default values of paragraph-start and indent-line-function have
702 been changed to reflect those used in Text mode rather than those used
703 in Indented-Text mode.
705 ** If a major mode function has a non-nil `no-clone-indirect'
706 property, `clone-indirect-buffer' signals an error if you use
709 ** If you set `query-replace-skip-read-only' non-nil,
710 `query-replace' and related functions simply ignore
711 a match if part of it has a read-only property.
713 ** In `replace-match', the replacement text no longer inherits
714 properties from surrounding text.
716 ** New function `buffer-local-value'.
718 - Function: buffer-local-value variable buffer
720 This function returns the buffer-local binding of VARIABLE (a symbol)
721 in buffer BUFFER. If VARIABLE does not have a buffer-local binding in
722 buffer BUFFER, it returns the default value of VARIABLE instead.
724 ** The default value of `paragraph-start' and `indent-line-function' has
725 been changed to reflect the one used in Text mode rather than the one
726 used in Indented Text mode.
728 ** New function `text-clone-create'. Text clones are chunks of text
729 that are kept identical by transparently propagating changes from one
732 ** font-lock can manage arbitrary text-properties beside `face'.
733 *** the FACENAME returned in font-lock-keywords can be a list
734 of the form (face FACE PROP1 VAL1 PROP@ VAL2 ...) so you can set
735 other properties than `face'.
736 *** font-lock-extra-managed-props can be set to make sure those extra
737 properties are automatically cleaned up by font-lock.
739 ** The new function `run-mode-hooks' and the new macro `delay-mode-hooks'
740 are used by define-derived-mode to make sure the mode hook for the
741 parent mode is run at the end of the child mode.
743 ** `provide' and `featurep' now accept an optional second argument
744 to test/provide subfeatures. Also `provide' now checks `after-load-alist'
745 and run any code associated with the provided feature.
747 ** The variable `compilation-parse-errors-filename-function' can
748 be used to transform filenames found in compilation output.
751 ** Functions `file-name-sans-extension' and `file-name-extension' now
752 ignore the leading dots in file names, so that file names such as
753 `.emacs' are treated as extensionless.
755 ** Functions `user-uid' and `user-real-uid' now return floats if the
756 user UID doesn't fit in a Lisp integer. Function `user-full-name'
757 accepts a float as UID parameter.
759 ** `define-key-after' now accepts keys longer than 1.
761 ** `define-derived-mode' now accepts nil as the parent.
763 ** The local variable `no-byte-compile' in elisp files is now obeyed.
765 ** New functions `keymap-prompt' and `current-active-maps'.
767 ** New function `describe-buffer-bindings'.
769 ** New vars `exec-suffixes' and `load-suffixes' used when
770 searching for an executable resp. an elisp file.
772 ** Variable aliases have been implemented
774 - Macro: defvaralias ALIAS-VAR BASE-VAR
776 This defines the symbol ALIAS-VAR as a variable alias for symbol
777 BASE-VAR. This means that retrieving the value of ALIAS-VAR returns
778 the value of BASE-VAR, and changing the value of ALIAS-VAR changes the
781 - Function: indirect-variable VARIABLE
783 This function returns the variable at the end of the chain of aliases
784 of VARIABLE. If VARIABLE is not a symbol, or if VARIABLE is not
785 defined as an alias, the function returns VARIABLE.
787 It might be noteworthy that variables aliases work for all kinds of
788 variables, including buffer-local and frame-local variables.
790 ** Functions from `post-gc-hook' are run at the end of garbage
791 collection. The hook is run with GC inhibited, so use it with care.
793 ** If the second argument to `copy-file' is the name of a directory,
794 the file is copied to that directory instead of signaling an error.
796 ** The variables most-positive-fixnum and most-negative-fixnum
797 have been moved from the CL package to the core.
799 ** On MS Windows, locale-coding-system is used to interact with the OS.
800 The Windows specific variable w32-system-coding-system, which was
801 formerly used for that purpose is now an alias for locale-coding-system.
805 *** The new package syntax.el provides an efficient way to find the
806 current syntactic context (as returned by parse-partial-sexp).
808 *** The TCL package tcl-mode.el was replaced by tcl.el.
809 This was actually done in Emacs-21.1, and was not documented.
811 *** The new package Ibuffer provides a powerful, completely
812 customizable replacement for buff-menu.el.
815 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
817 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
818 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
819 charsets in this release.
821 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
823 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
825 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
826 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
829 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
830 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
831 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
832 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
833 necessary changes to unexec.
835 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
836 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
838 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
839 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
841 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
842 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
844 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
845 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
846 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
847 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
848 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
850 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
851 new display features described below.
854 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
856 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
858 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
859 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
860 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
861 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
864 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
866 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
867 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
868 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
869 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
872 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
873 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
874 under Lisp changes, below.
876 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
878 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
879 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
880 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
881 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
882 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
883 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
886 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
887 supported on character terminals.
889 Emacs automatically remaps all X-style color specifications to one of
890 the colors supported by the terminal. This means you could have the
891 same color customizations that work both on a windowed display and on
892 a TTY or when Emacs is invoked with the -nw option.
894 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
898 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
899 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
900 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
901 You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes' to enable
904 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
906 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
907 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
908 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
909 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
911 - User option: max-mini-window-height
913 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
914 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
915 specifies a number of lines.
919 - User option: resize-mini-windows
921 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
922 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
923 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
926 Default is `grow-only'.
930 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
931 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
933 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
935 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
936 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
939 ** File selection dialog on MS-Windows is supported.
941 When a file is visited by clicking File->Open, the MS-Windows version
942 now pops up a standard file selection dialog where you can select a
943 file to visit. File->Save As also pops up that dialog.
945 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
947 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
948 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
949 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
950 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
951 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
954 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
955 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
956 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
957 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
958 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
959 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
961 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
962 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
963 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
964 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
965 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
966 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
968 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
969 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
970 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
971 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
972 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
976 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
977 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
978 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
979 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
980 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
983 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
984 for specific modes (with copyright assignments).
988 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
989 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
990 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
992 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
993 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
994 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
995 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
997 ** Automatic Hscrolling
999 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
1000 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
1003 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
1004 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
1005 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
1006 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
1007 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
1009 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
1010 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
1011 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
1012 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
1013 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
1014 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
1016 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
1017 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
1018 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
1019 customizing face `fringe'.
1021 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
1022 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
1023 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
1024 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
1025 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
1026 the window to be partially obscured.)
1028 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
1029 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, is now deprecated.
1030 However, setting it to nil will cause the `mode-line' face to be
1031 ignored, and mode-lines to be drawn using the default text face.
1033 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1035 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
1036 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
1037 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
1038 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
1039 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
1042 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
1044 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line goes to the next buffer.
1046 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name goes to the previous buffer.
1048 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
1049 `*') toggles the status.
1051 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
1053 ** Hourglass pointer
1055 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
1056 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
1060 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
1061 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
1062 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
1065 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
1067 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
1068 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
1069 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
1072 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
1073 have to do anything to activate it.
1075 ** The default binding of the Delete key has changed.
1077 The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
1078 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
1080 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
1081 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
1082 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
1083 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
1084 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
1085 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
1086 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
1087 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
1089 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
1090 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
1091 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
1092 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
1093 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
1094 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
1096 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
1097 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
1099 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
1100 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
1103 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
1104 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
1105 beginning and end of the buffer.
1107 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
1108 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
1111 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
1112 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
1114 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
1115 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
1118 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs's byte
1119 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
1122 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
1124 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
1125 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
1126 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
1128 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
1129 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
1130 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
1132 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
1135 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
1137 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
1138 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
1139 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
1140 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
1141 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
1144 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
1145 all frames except the selected one.
1147 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
1148 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
1150 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
1151 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
1152 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
1153 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
1154 `Info-use-header-line'.
1156 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
1157 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
1158 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
1160 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
1162 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
1163 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
1166 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
1167 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
1168 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
1169 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
1171 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable through Customize.
1173 You can no longer use `M-x customize-variable' to customize `load-path'
1174 because it now contains a version-dependent component. You can still
1175 use `add-to-list' and `setq' to customize this variable in your
1176 `~/.emacs' init file or to modify it from any Lisp program in general.
1178 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
1179 point in a pop-up window.
1181 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
1182 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
1183 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
1185 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
1186 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
1188 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
1189 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
1190 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
1191 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
1193 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
1195 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
1196 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
1198 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
1199 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
1200 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
1202 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
1203 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
1206 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
1207 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
1208 file that is already visited under a different name.
1210 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
1211 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
1213 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
1214 and displays information about that.
1216 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
1217 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
1219 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
1220 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
1221 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
1222 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
1223 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
1224 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
1226 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
1227 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
1229 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
1230 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
1231 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
1232 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
1233 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
1234 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
1235 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
1237 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
1238 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
1240 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
1241 system for keyboard input.
1243 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
1244 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
1245 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
1246 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
1247 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
1248 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
1249 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
1250 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
1251 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
1253 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
1254 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
1256 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
1257 displays all characters in that character set.
1259 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
1260 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
1262 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1263 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1264 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1266 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1267 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1268 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1269 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
1270 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
1271 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
1274 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
1275 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
1278 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
1279 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
1280 Lisp Coding Convention".
1282 new command old-binding
1283 --- ------- -----------
1284 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
1285 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
1286 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
1288 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
1289 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
1290 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
1292 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
1293 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
1294 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
1295 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
1296 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
1297 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
1299 ** There are new Leim input methods.
1300 New input methods "turkish-postfix", "turkish-alt-postfix",
1301 "greek-mizuochi", "TeX", and "greek-babel" are now part of the Leim
1304 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
1305 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
1306 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
1307 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
1308 "`", you must type "=q".
1310 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
1311 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
1312 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
1313 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
1314 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
1317 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
1318 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
1319 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
1320 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
1322 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
1323 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
1324 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
1325 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
1327 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
1328 on the display using several methods
1330 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
1331 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
1332 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
1334 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
1335 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
1337 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
1339 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
1340 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
1342 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
1343 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
1344 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
1345 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
1347 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
1348 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
1349 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
1351 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
1352 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
1354 ** New X resources recognized
1356 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
1357 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
1358 is useful for debugging X problems.
1362 emacs.synchronous: true
1364 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
1365 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
1366 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
1367 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
1368 visual class names are
1377 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
1378 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
1381 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
1382 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
1383 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
1388 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
1390 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
1391 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
1392 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
1393 resource values are `true' or `on'.
1397 emacs.privateColormap: true
1399 ** Faces and frame parameters.
1401 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
1402 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
1403 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
1404 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
1405 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
1406 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
1407 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
1409 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
1410 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
1411 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
1412 `default' face and vice versa.
1416 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
1418 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
1420 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
1421 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
1422 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
1423 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
1425 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
1426 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
1427 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
1429 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
1432 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
1434 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
1435 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
1436 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
1437 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
1439 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
1441 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
1443 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
1445 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
1448 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
1451 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
1453 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
1454 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
1455 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
1457 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
1458 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi and Less).
1460 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
1461 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
1462 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
1464 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
1466 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
1467 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
1468 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
1469 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
1471 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
1472 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
1473 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
1474 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
1476 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
1477 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
1478 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
1481 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
1483 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
1484 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
1485 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
1487 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
1488 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
1489 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
1490 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
1491 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
1492 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
1494 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
1496 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
1497 notably at the end of lines.
1499 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
1500 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
1502 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
1504 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
1505 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
1507 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
1508 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
1509 after each match to get the replacement text.
1511 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
1512 you edit the replacement string.
1514 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB'
1515 (if you load the library `mailabbrev'), lets you complete mail aliases
1516 in the text, analogous to lisp-complete-symbol.
1518 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
1520 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
1521 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
1523 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
1524 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
1525 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
1526 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
1529 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
1530 read mail from the menu etc.
1532 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
1533 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
1534 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
1535 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
1537 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
1538 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
1540 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces the MS-DOS version
1541 of Emacs to behave as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons.
1542 This comes handy with mice that don't report their number of buttons
1543 correctly. One example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons,
1544 but clicks on the middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version
1547 ** Customize changes
1549 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
1550 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
1551 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
1552 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
1553 earlier versions of Emacs.
1555 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
1556 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
1559 *** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
1560 does not allow you to save customizations in your `~/.emacs' init
1561 file. This is because saving customizations from such a session would
1562 wipe out all the other customizationss you might have on your init
1565 ** If Emacs was invoked with the `-q' or `--no-init-file' options, it
1566 does not save disabled and enabled commands for future sessions, to
1567 avoid overwriting existing customizations of this kind that are
1568 already in your init file.
1570 ** New features in evaluation commands
1572 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
1573 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
1574 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the new
1575 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
1576 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
1578 The default values for the first two of these variables are 12 and 4
1579 respectively, which means that `eval-expression' now prints at most
1580 the first 12 members of a list and at most 4 nesting levels deep (if
1581 the list is longer or deeper than that, an ellipsis `...' is
1584 <RET> or <mouse-2> on the printed text toggles between an abbreviated
1585 printed representation and an unabbreviated one.
1587 The default value of eval-expression-debug-on-error is t, so any error
1588 during evaluation produces a backtrace.
1590 *** The function `eval-defun' (C-M-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
1591 code when called with a prefix argument.
1595 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1596 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1597 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1598 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1599 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1600 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1603 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
1604 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
1605 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
1608 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
1609 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
1610 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
1611 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
1613 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
1614 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
1616 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
1617 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
1619 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
1620 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
1621 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
1622 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
1624 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
1625 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
1626 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
1627 earlier statement. An example:
1629 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1631 res += a[i]->offset;
1634 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1635 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1636 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1637 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1640 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1643 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1644 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1645 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1646 documentation or other natural language text.
1648 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1649 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1650 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1651 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1652 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1653 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1654 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1656 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1657 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1658 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1659 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1661 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1662 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1663 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1664 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1667 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1668 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1669 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1670 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1671 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1672 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1673 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1674 is reported afterwards.
1676 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1677 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1678 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1680 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1681 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1682 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1683 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1684 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1685 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1688 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1689 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1690 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1691 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1692 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1695 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1696 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1697 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1698 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1699 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1700 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1702 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1703 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1704 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1705 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1706 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1707 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1708 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1709 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1711 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1712 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1713 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1714 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1717 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1718 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1719 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1720 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1721 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1722 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1723 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1724 function documentation for more info.
1726 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1727 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1728 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1729 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1730 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1731 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1732 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1733 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1735 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1737 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1738 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1740 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1741 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1742 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1743 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1744 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1747 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1748 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1749 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1752 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1753 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1754 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1755 chapter about this in the manual.
1757 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1758 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1759 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1760 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1761 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1763 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1764 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1765 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1767 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1768 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1770 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1771 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1772 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1775 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1776 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1777 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1778 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1781 **** The variables `c-hanging-comment-starter-p' and
1782 `c-hanging-comment-ender-p', which controlled how comment starters and
1783 enders were filled, are not used anymore. The new version of the
1784 function `c-fill-paragraph' keeps the comment starters and enders as
1785 they were before the filling.
1787 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1788 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1789 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1792 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1793 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1794 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1795 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1798 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1799 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1800 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1801 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1802 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1804 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1805 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1806 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1808 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1810 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1811 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1812 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1813 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1815 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1816 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1817 the column specified by comment-column.
1819 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1820 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1821 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1822 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1823 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1824 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1826 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1827 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1830 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1832 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1833 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1834 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1835 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1838 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1842 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1843 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1844 is, delete only empty directories.
1846 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1847 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1848 copy directories recursively.
1850 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1851 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1852 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1854 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1855 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1858 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `y') shows
1859 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1860 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1861 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1862 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1864 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1867 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1868 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1869 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1870 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1874 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
1875 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
1876 internationalization and mail-fetching.
1878 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
1879 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
1881 If you used procmail like in
1883 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
1884 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
1885 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
1886 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
1888 this now has changed to
1891 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
1894 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
1895 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
1897 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
1898 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
1899 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
1900 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
1902 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
1903 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
1904 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
1906 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
1907 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
1908 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
1909 now just a compatibility layer.
1911 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
1914 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
1915 called to position point.
1917 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
1918 summary buffers and NOV files.
1920 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
1921 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
1923 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
1924 subtly different manner.
1926 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
1927 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
1928 ever-changing layouts.
1930 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
1932 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
1934 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
1936 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
1940 -------------------------
1944 C-c C-c q @quotation
1946 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
1949 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
1951 ** Changes in Outline mode.
1953 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
1954 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
1955 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
1957 ** Changes to Emacs Server
1959 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
1960 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
1961 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
1962 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
1963 buffers to kill, as before.
1965 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
1966 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
1969 ** Both emacsclient and Emacs itself now accept command line options
1970 of the form +LINE:COLUMN in addition to +LINE.
1972 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
1974 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
1975 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
1976 use. Default is 1000.
1978 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
1979 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
1981 ** Changes to hideshow.el
1983 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
1985 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
1986 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
1987 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
1988 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
1990 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
1991 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
1992 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
1995 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
1996 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
1997 the normal block-hiding function.
1999 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
2001 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
2002 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
2003 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
2004 for `hs-minor-mode'.
2006 *** The variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' has been removed, and
2007 hideshow.el now always behaves as if this variable were set to t.
2009 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
2011 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
2012 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
2013 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
2015 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
2018 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
2021 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
2022 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
2023 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
2024 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
2025 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
2026 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
2028 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
2030 ** Changes to cmuscheme
2032 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
2033 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
2035 ** Changes in Font Lock
2037 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
2038 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
2040 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
2041 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
2043 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
2044 the face used for each string/comment.
2046 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
2047 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
2049 ** Changes to Shell mode
2051 *** The `shell' command now accepts an optional argument to specify the buffer
2052 to use, which defaults to "*shell*". When used interactively, a
2053 non-default buffer may be specified by giving the `shell' command a
2054 prefix argument (causing it to prompt for the buffer name).
2056 ** Comint (subshell) changes
2058 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
2059 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
2061 *** Comint now by default interprets some carriage-control characters.
2062 Comint now removes CRs from CR LF sequences, and treats single CRs and
2063 BSs in the output in a way similar to a terminal (by deleting to the
2064 beginning of the line, or deleting the previous character,
2065 respectively). This is achieved by adding `comint-carriage-motion' to
2066 the `comint-output-filter-functions' hook by default.
2068 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
2069 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
2070 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
2071 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
2072 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
2073 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
2074 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
2075 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
2077 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
2078 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
2080 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
2081 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
2082 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
2084 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
2085 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
2086 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
2088 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
2089 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
2090 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
2092 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
2093 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
2094 argument, it appends to the file.
2096 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
2097 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
2100 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
2103 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
2104 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
2105 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
2107 ** Changes to Rmail mode
2109 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
2110 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
2111 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
2112 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
2113 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
2116 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
2117 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
2118 regexp matching your mail addresses.
2120 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
2121 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
2122 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
2123 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
2124 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
2126 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
2129 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
2130 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
2133 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
2134 in which folder to put messages automatically.
2136 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
2137 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
2138 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
2140 ** The new user-option `mail-envelope-from' can be used to specify
2141 an envelope-from address different from user-mail-address.
2143 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
2144 use the -f option when sending mail.
2146 ** The Rmail command `o' (`rmail-output-to-rmail-file') now writes the
2147 current message in the internal `emacs-mule' encoding, rather than in
2148 the encoding taken from the variable `buffer-file-coding-system'.
2149 This allows to save messages whose characters cannot be safely encoded
2150 by the buffer's coding system, and makes sure the message will be
2151 displayed correctly when you later visit the target Rmail file.
2153 If you want your Rmail files be encoded in a specific coding system
2154 other than `emacs-mule', you can customize the variable
2155 `rmail-file-coding-system' to set its value to that coding system.
2157 ** Changes to TeX mode
2159 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
2162 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
2164 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
2166 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
2168 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
2170 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
2171 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
2172 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
2173 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
2174 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
2175 can be edited from that buffer.
2177 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
2178 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
2179 `A' to use all marked entries).
2181 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
2182 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
2184 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
2185 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
2186 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
2189 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
2190 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
2191 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
2192 in column 1 are always made leaves.
2194 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
2195 has the following new features:
2197 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
2198 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
2199 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
2200 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
2202 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
2203 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
2204 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
2205 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
2206 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
2209 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
2214 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
2215 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
2216 spell-checks the current buffer.
2218 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
2221 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
2222 correction is made and re-checked.
2224 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
2226 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
2229 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
2232 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
2235 *** Spell checking now works in the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
2237 ** Makefile mode changes
2239 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
2241 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
2242 Fontlock mode is active.
2246 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
2247 so that searches can be resumed.
2249 *** In Isearch mode, C-M-s and C-M-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
2250 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
2251 that started the search.
2253 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
2254 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
2256 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
2258 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
2259 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
2260 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
2261 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
2262 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
2263 `secondary-selection'.
2265 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
2266 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
2267 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
2268 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
2269 usual snappy response.
2271 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
2272 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
2273 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
2274 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
2278 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
2279 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
2280 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
2281 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
2282 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
2283 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
2284 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
2285 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
2286 file is registered in that backend.
2288 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
2289 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
2290 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
2291 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
2292 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
2293 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
2295 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
2296 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
2297 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
2298 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
2299 where it doesn't make sense.)
2301 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
2302 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
2303 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
2307 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
2308 checks are always done now.
2310 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
2313 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
2314 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
2315 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
2317 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
2318 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
2319 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
2320 the working file (``merge news'').
2322 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
2323 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
2326 *** Multiple Backends
2328 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
2329 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
2330 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
2331 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
2334 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
2335 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
2336 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
2337 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
2339 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
2340 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
2341 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
2342 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
2343 current revision number from the more remote backend.
2345 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
2346 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
2347 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
2348 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
2350 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
2351 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
2352 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
2353 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
2357 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
2358 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
2359 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
2360 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
2361 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
2362 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
2363 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
2365 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
2366 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
2367 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
2368 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
2369 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
2370 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
2371 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
2372 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
2373 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
2374 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
2375 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
2378 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
2379 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
2380 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
2381 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
2382 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
2383 entire directory tree.
2385 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
2386 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
2387 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
2388 "watched" by other developers.)
2390 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
2391 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
2392 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
2393 starting at the given directory.
2395 *** Lisp Changes in VC
2397 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
2398 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
2399 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
2400 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
2401 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
2402 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
2403 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
2404 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
2405 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
2407 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
2408 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
2409 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
2410 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
2412 ** New modes and packages
2414 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
2415 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
2416 the default is not applicable.
2418 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
2419 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
2420 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
2424 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
2425 drawn, like this: | \ /
2429 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
2430 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
2431 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
2432 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
2433 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
2436 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
2437 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
2439 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
2442 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
2443 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
2444 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
2445 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
2447 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
2448 also do without the mouse.
2450 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
2451 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
2452 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
2453 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
2454 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
2456 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
2458 lines straight-lines
2460 poly-lines straight poly-lines
2462 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
2463 spray-can setting size for spraying
2464 vaporize line vaporize lines
2465 erase characters erase rectangles
2467 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
2468 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
2469 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
2472 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
2473 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
2474 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
2475 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
2477 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
2480 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
2481 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
2482 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
2483 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
2484 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
2485 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
2486 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
2487 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
2488 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
2490 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
2491 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
2492 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
2493 on certain projects.
2495 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
2496 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
2498 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
2500 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
2501 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
2502 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
2503 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
2504 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
2505 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
2506 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
2507 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
2509 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
2512 *** The new package tildify.el allows to add hard spaces or other text
2513 fragments in accordance with the current major mode.
2515 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
2516 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
2518 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
2519 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
2520 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
2521 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
2522 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
2524 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
2525 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
2526 separate Texinfo file.
2528 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
2529 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
2530 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
2531 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
2532 enter check-in log messages.
2534 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
2535 without invoking external programs.
2537 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
2538 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
2539 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
2540 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
2541 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
2543 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
2544 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
2546 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
2547 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
2549 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
2550 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
2551 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
2552 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
2553 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
2556 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
2557 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
2558 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
2559 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
2561 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
2562 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
2563 actually modifying content of a buffer.
2565 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
2568 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
2570 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
2572 ; comment (until end of line)
2576 $A default non-terminal
2577 $"C" default terminal
2578 $?C? default special
2579 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
2580 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
2581 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
2582 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
2583 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
2584 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
2585 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
2586 C+ one or more occurrences of C
2587 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
2588 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
2589 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
2590 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
2591 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
2592 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2593 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
2595 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
2597 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
2598 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
2599 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
2600 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
2601 equal signs of assignments.
2603 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
2604 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
2606 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
2607 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
2608 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
2610 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
2612 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
2613 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
2614 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
2615 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
2616 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
2617 which answers different needs.
2619 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
2620 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
2621 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
2622 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
2623 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
2626 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
2627 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2629 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2631 *** hl-line.el provides `hl-line-mode', a minor mode to highlight the
2632 current line in the current buffer. It also provides
2633 `global-hl-line-mode' to provide the same behaviour in all buffers.
2635 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2637 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2638 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2639 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2640 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2641 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2642 and background colors.
2644 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2647 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2650 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2652 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2654 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2655 whitespace in a file.
2657 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2658 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2659 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2660 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2661 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2662 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2663 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2665 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2667 Here is an example of columns:
2670 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2671 porcupine strawberry airplane
2673 Doing the following settings:
2675 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2676 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2677 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2678 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2681 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2683 M-x delimit-columns-region
2687 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2688 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2689 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2691 delim-col has the following options:
2693 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2696 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2697 between each column.
2699 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2702 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2705 delim-col has the following commands:
2707 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2708 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2710 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2711 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2712 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2713 recent file list can be displayed:
2715 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2716 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2717 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2719 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2720 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2722 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2725 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2726 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2727 specific to Message mode.
2729 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2730 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2731 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2733 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2734 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2735 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2737 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2738 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2740 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2742 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2743 minibuffer with completion.
2745 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2746 with the diary features.
2748 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2749 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2751 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2754 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2755 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2756 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2757 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2759 *** antlr-mode is a new major mode for editing ANTLR grammar files.
2760 It is automatically turned on for files whose names have the extension
2763 ** Changes in sort.el
2765 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
2766 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
2767 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
2770 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
2772 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
2773 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
2774 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
2776 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
2777 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
2779 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
2780 output ^M at the end of lines.
2782 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
2783 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
2785 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
2786 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
2789 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
2792 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
2793 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
2796 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
2797 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
2798 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
2799 nil -- just delete one character.
2801 Default value is `untabify'.
2803 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
2805 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
2806 symbol, not double-quoted.
2808 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
2809 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
2810 profile, rnews, rnewspost, and sc. Their implementations have been
2811 moved to lisp/obsolete.
2813 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
2814 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
2815 `auto-compression-mode' command.
2817 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
2818 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
2819 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
2821 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
2822 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
2824 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
2825 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
2827 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
2828 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
2830 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
2831 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
2832 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
2833 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
2834 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
2835 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
2837 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
2838 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
2840 ** Hexl mode allows to insert non-ASCII characters.
2842 The non-ASCII characters are encoded using the same encoding as the
2843 file you are visiting in Hexl mode.
2845 ** Shell script mode changes.
2847 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
2848 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
2849 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
2853 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
2855 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
2856 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
2857 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
2858 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
2859 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
2861 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
2862 declarations when given the --declarations option.
2864 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
2865 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
2867 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
2868 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
2869 `template' keywords.
2871 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
2872 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
2874 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
2877 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
2879 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
2881 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
2884 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
2886 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
2887 variables are tagged.
2889 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
2891 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
2894 ** Changes in etags.el
2896 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
2897 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
2898 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
2900 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
2901 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
2903 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
2904 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
2905 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
2906 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
2908 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
2910 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
2911 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
2913 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
2915 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
2916 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
2917 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
2919 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
2920 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
2922 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
2923 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
2925 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
2926 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
2927 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
2928 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
2929 point will go to the beginning of the file.
2931 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
2932 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
2933 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
2935 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
2936 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
2937 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
2939 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
2940 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
2941 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
2943 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
2945 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
2947 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
2948 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
2949 expression from that list, are not checked.
2951 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
2952 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
2953 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
2954 the buffer, just like for the local files.
2956 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
2958 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
2959 displays local abbrevs, only.
2961 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2962 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2964 ** The variable `double-click-fuzz' specifies how much the mouse
2965 may be moved between clicks that are recognized as a pair. Its value
2966 is measured in pixels.
2968 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2969 to be visited as images.
2971 ** Two new user-options `grep-command' and `grep-find-command'
2972 were added to compile.el.
2974 ** Withdrawn packages
2976 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2977 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2979 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2981 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2984 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2986 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2987 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2988 See the sections below for details.
2990 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2991 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2992 Use `copy-sequence' to copy the string, then use `set-text-properties'
2993 to remove the properties of the copy.
2995 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2996 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2997 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2998 these properties are active.
3000 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
3001 ranges may affect some code.
3003 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
3004 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
3005 make a difference to some code.
3007 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
3008 operates on the minibuffer.
3010 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3011 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
3012 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
3013 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
3014 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
3015 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
3016 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
3017 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
3018 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
3019 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
3020 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
3021 the buffer as multibyte characters.
3023 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
3024 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
3025 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
3027 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
3028 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
3029 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
3031 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
3034 ** The function base64-decode-string now always returns a unibyte
3037 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
3038 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
3039 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
3040 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
3041 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
3042 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
3043 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
3044 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
3046 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
3047 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
3048 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
3049 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
3050 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
3051 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
3052 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
3053 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
3054 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
3055 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
3058 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
3059 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
3061 ** Function assq-delete-all replaces function assoc-delete-all.
3063 ** The new function animate-string, from lisp/play/animate.el
3064 allows the animated display of strings.
3066 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
3067 interactive form of a function.
3069 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
3070 between custom options. Example:
3072 (defcustom default-input-method nil
3073 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
3074 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
3075 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
3077 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
3078 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
3080 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
3081 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
3082 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
3084 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
3085 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
3086 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
3087 (signal or normal termination).
3089 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
3090 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
3092 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
3093 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
3095 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
3096 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
3098 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
3100 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
3101 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
3104 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
3106 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
3107 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
3108 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
3109 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
3110 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
3113 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
3114 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
3117 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
3118 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
3120 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
3121 with the more general `:mask' property.
3123 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
3125 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
3128 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
3129 is running in batch mode. For example,
3131 (message "%s" (read t))
3133 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
3136 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
3137 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
3139 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
3140 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
3143 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
3146 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
3148 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
3149 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
3151 - Function: remq ELT LIST
3153 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
3154 comparison is done with `eq'.
3156 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
3158 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
3159 has been changed: WEAK can now have new values `key-or-value' and
3160 `key-and-value', in addition the `nil', `key', `value', and `t'.
3162 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
3163 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
3164 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
3166 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
3167 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
3169 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
3170 function was declared obsolete.
3172 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
3173 retained as an alias).
3175 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
3176 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
3177 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
3179 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
3181 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
3183 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
3184 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
3185 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
3186 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
3187 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
3188 means never include the minibuffer window.
3190 ** There's a new function `get-window-with-predicate' defined as follows
3192 - Function: get-window-with-predicate PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
3194 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
3196 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
3197 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
3198 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
3199 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
3202 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
3203 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
3204 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
3205 minibuffer even if it is active.
3207 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
3208 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
3209 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
3210 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
3211 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
3212 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
3214 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
3215 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
3216 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
3217 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
3218 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
3219 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
3220 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
3222 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
3223 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
3224 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
3226 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
3227 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
3228 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
3229 Default value is nil.
3231 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
3234 ** The new user option `line-number-display-limit-width' controls
3235 the maximum width of lines in a buffer for which Emacs displays line
3236 numbers in the mode line. The default is 200.
3238 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
3239 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
3240 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
3242 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
3243 list of a primitive.
3245 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
3247 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
3248 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
3249 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
3250 than replacing the local map.
3252 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
3253 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
3254 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
3257 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
3259 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
3260 as promised long ago.
3262 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
3264 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
3265 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
3266 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
3269 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
3271 ** The new package rx.el provides an alternative sexp notation for
3272 regular expressions.
3274 - Function: rx-to-string SEXP
3276 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
3280 Translate SEXP into a regular expression in string notation.
3282 The following are valid subforms of regular expressions in sexp
3286 matches string STRING literally.
3289 matches character CHAR literally.
3292 matches any character except a newline.
3295 matches any character
3298 matches any character in SET. SET may be a character or string.
3299 Ranges of characters can be specified as `A-Z' in strings.
3305 matches any character not in SET
3308 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of a line
3309 in the text being matched
3312 is similar to `line-start' but matches only at the end of a line
3315 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
3316 string being matched against.
3319 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
3320 string being matched against.
3323 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning of the
3324 buffer being matched against.
3327 matches the empty string, but only at the end of the
3328 buffer being matched against.
3331 matches the empty string, but only at point.
3334 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
3338 matches the empty string, but only at the end of a word.
3341 matches the empty string, but only at the beginning or end of a
3344 `(not word-boundary)'
3345 matches the empty string, but not at the beginning or end of a
3349 matches 0 through 9.
3352 matches ASCII control characters.
3355 matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
3358 matches space and tab only.
3361 matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
3365 matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3369 matches letters and digits. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3370 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3373 matches letters. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3374 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3377 matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
3380 matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
3383 matches anything lower-case.
3386 matches anything upper-case.
3389 matches punctuation. (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3390 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
3393 matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
3396 matches anything that has word syntax.
3399 matches a character with syntax SYNTAX. SYNTAX must be one
3400 of the following symbols.
3402 `whitespace' (\\s- in string notation)
3403 `punctuation' (\\s.)
3406 `open-parenthesis' (\\s()
3407 `close-parenthesis' (\\s))
3408 `expression-prefix' (\\s')
3409 `string-quote' (\\s\")
3410 `paired-delimiter' (\\s$)
3412 `character-quote' (\\s/)
3413 `comment-start' (\\s<)
3414 `comment-end' (\\s>)
3416 `(not (syntax SYNTAX))'
3417 matches a character that has not syntax SYNTAX.
3419 `(category CATEGORY)'
3420 matches a character with category CATEGORY. CATEGORY must be
3421 either a character to use for C, or one of the following symbols.
3423 `consonant' (\\c0 in string notation)
3425 `upper-diacritical-mark' (\\c2)
3426 `lower-diacritical-mark' (\\c3)
3430 `vowel-modifying-diacritical-mark' (\\c7)
3432 `semivowel-lower' (\\c9)
3433 `not-at-end-of-line' (\\c<)
3434 `not-at-beginning-of-line' (\\c>)
3435 `alpha-numeric-two-byte' (\\cA)
3436 `chinse-two-byte' (\\cC)
3437 `greek-two-byte' (\\cG)
3438 `japanese-hiragana-two-byte' (\\cH)
3439 `indian-tow-byte' (\\cI)
3440 `japanese-katakana-two-byte' (\\cK)
3441 `korean-hangul-two-byte' (\\cN)
3442 `cyrillic-two-byte' (\\cY)
3451 `japanese-katakana' (\\ck)
3455 `japanese-roman' (\\cr)
3462 `(not (category CATEGORY))'
3463 matches a character that has not category CATEGORY.
3465 `(and SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
3466 matches what SEXP1 matches, followed by what SEXP2 matches, etc.
3468 `(submatch SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
3469 like `and', but makes the match accessible with `match-end',
3470 `match-beginning', and `match-string'.
3472 `(group SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
3473 another name for `submatch'.
3475 `(or SEXP1 SEXP2 ...)'
3476 matches anything that matches SEXP1 or SEXP2, etc. If all
3477 args are strings, use `regexp-opt' to optimize the resulting
3480 `(minimal-match SEXP)'
3481 produce a non-greedy regexp for SEXP. Normally, regexps matching
3482 zero or more occurrances of something are \"greedy\" in that they
3483 match as much as they can, as long as the overall regexp can
3484 still match. A non-greedy regexp matches as little as possible.
3486 `(maximal-match SEXP)'
3487 produce a greedy regexp for SEXP. This is the default.
3489 `(zero-or-more SEXP)'
3490 matches zero or more occurrences of what SEXP matches.
3493 like `zero-or-more'.
3496 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
3499 like `zero-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
3501 `(one-or-more SEXP)'
3502 matches one or more occurrences of A.
3508 like `one-or-more', but always produces a greedy regexp.
3511 like `one-or-more', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
3513 `(zero-or-one SEXP)'
3514 matches zero or one occurrences of A.
3520 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a greedy regexp.
3523 like `zero-or-one', but always produces a non-greedy regexp.
3526 matches N occurrences of what SEXP matches.
3529 matches N to M occurrences of what SEXP matches.
3532 evaluate FORM and insert result. If result is a string,
3536 include REGEXP in string notation in the result.
3538 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
3540 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
3541 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
3542 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
3543 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
3545 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
3546 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
3547 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
3548 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
3550 *** The functions `set-buffer-multibyte', `string-as-multibyte' and
3551 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer or a string
3552 if it contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
3554 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
3555 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
3556 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
3557 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
3558 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
3559 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
3560 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
3563 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
3565 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
3566 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
3567 character set as previously.
3569 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
3570 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
3571 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
3573 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
3574 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
3575 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
3576 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
3578 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
3579 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
3581 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
3582 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
3585 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
3586 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
3588 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
3589 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
3590 buffers and strings.
3592 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
3593 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
3594 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
3595 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
3596 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
3597 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
3598 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
3601 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
3602 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
3603 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
3605 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
3606 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
3607 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
3608 may differ between buffer and string text.
3610 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
3611 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
3613 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
3614 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
3615 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
3616 `composition' from STRING.
3618 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
3619 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
3621 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
3624 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
3625 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
3627 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
3628 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
3629 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
3630 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
3632 Note that the character sets are not yet unified in Emacs, so
3633 characters which belong to charsets such as Latin-2, Greek, Hebrew,
3634 etc. and the same characters in the `mule-unicode-*' charsets are
3635 different characters, as far as Emacs is concerned. For example, text
3636 which includes Unicode characters from the Latin-2 locale cannot be
3637 encoded by Emacs with ISO 8859-2 coding system.
3639 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added.
3640 It provides limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For
3641 details, please see the documentation string of this coding system.
3643 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
3644 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
3645 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
3647 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
3648 have been introduced.
3650 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
3651 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
3652 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
3653 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
3654 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
3655 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
3656 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
3657 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
3658 their multibyte equivalent.
3660 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
3661 that offset in the file before writing.
3663 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
3664 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
3666 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
3667 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
3668 from which the command was issued.
3670 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
3671 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
3672 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
3673 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
3676 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
3677 to `window-buffer-height'.
3679 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
3681 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
3682 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
3683 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
3685 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
3688 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
3689 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
3691 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
3692 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
3693 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
3695 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
3696 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
3697 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
3698 is currently displayed in some window.
3700 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
3701 argument function's results.
3703 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
3704 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails. Also,
3705 `base64-decode-string' now always returns a unibyte string (in Emacs
3706 20, it returned a multibyte string when the result was a valid multibyte
3709 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
3710 header in the list of headers passed to it.
3712 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
3713 ignores differences in case and text representation.
3715 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
3716 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
3719 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
3720 nil don't display a cursor
3721 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
3722 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
3723 others display a box cursor.
3725 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
3726 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
3727 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
3728 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
3730 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
3731 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
3732 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
3733 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
3737 (string-to-syntax "()")
3740 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
3743 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
3744 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
3751 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
3756 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
3761 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
3768 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
3769 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
3772 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
3773 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
3774 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
3775 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
3777 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
3779 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
3780 for a regexp in a string.
3782 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
3783 `mouse-position-function'.
3785 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
3786 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
3788 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
3789 Keywords are now always considered constants.
3791 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
3794 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
3795 returned by function `recent-keys'.
3797 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
3798 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
3799 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding C-M-a
3800 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
3803 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
3804 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
3806 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
3807 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
3808 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
3809 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
3812 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
3813 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
3814 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
3815 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
3817 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
3818 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
3819 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
3821 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
3822 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
3825 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
3827 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
3828 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
3829 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
3832 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
3833 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
3834 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
3835 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
3836 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
3838 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
3839 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
3841 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
3842 instead of being optional.
3844 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
3845 modify read-only text.
3847 ** New functions and variables for locales.
3849 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
3850 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
3851 time functions like strftime. The new variables
3852 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
3853 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
3855 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
3856 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
3857 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
3858 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
3859 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
3860 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
3861 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
3863 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
3864 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
3865 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
3868 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
3869 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
3871 ** New function `propertize'
3873 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
3874 strings with text properties.
3876 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
3878 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
3879 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
3880 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
3881 specified value of that property. Example:
3883 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
3885 ** push and pop macros.
3887 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
3888 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
3889 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
3891 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
3892 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
3893 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
3895 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
3897 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
3898 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
3900 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
3901 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
3902 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
3903 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3905 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
3906 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
3907 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
3908 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
3910 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
3911 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
3912 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
3915 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
3916 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
3917 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
3918 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
3919 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
3921 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
3923 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
3924 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3925 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3926 [:alpha:] matches letters.
3927 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3928 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
3929 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
3930 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
3931 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
3932 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
3933 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
3934 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
3935 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
3936 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
3937 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
3939 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
3941 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
3943 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
3945 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
3946 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
3950 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
3951 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
3952 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
3956 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
3957 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
3959 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
3961 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
3962 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
3963 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
3964 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
3965 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
3967 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
3969 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
3970 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
3971 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
3975 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
3976 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
3977 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
3978 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
3979 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
3981 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
3983 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
3985 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
3987 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
3989 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
3991 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
3994 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
3996 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
3998 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
4000 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
4002 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
4004 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
4006 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
4008 Returns the size of TABLE.
4010 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
4012 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
4014 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
4016 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
4018 - Function: clrhash TABLE
4022 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
4024 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
4027 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
4029 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
4030 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
4032 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
4034 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
4036 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
4038 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
4039 arguments KEY and VALUE.
4041 - Function: sxhash OBJ
4043 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
4045 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
4047 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
4048 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
4049 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
4050 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
4051 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
4053 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
4055 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
4056 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
4057 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
4059 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
4060 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
4062 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
4063 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
4065 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
4066 (sxhash (upcase a)))
4068 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
4069 'case-fold-string-hash))
4071 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
4073 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
4075 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
4076 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
4077 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
4079 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
4081 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
4082 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
4084 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
4085 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
4086 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
4087 is too short to reach that column.
4089 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
4090 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
4091 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
4092 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
4094 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
4095 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
4096 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
4098 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
4099 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
4101 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
4102 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
4104 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
4105 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
4106 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
4107 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
4108 temporary-file-directory instead.
4110 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
4111 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
4112 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
4113 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
4115 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
4116 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
4118 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
4120 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
4121 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
4122 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
4124 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
4126 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
4127 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
4128 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
4129 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
4130 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
4131 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
4133 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
4134 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
4135 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
4136 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
4138 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
4140 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
4141 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
4142 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
4145 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
4146 string where arguments appear in the result string.
4150 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
4152 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
4153 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
4156 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
4158 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
4160 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
4161 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
4164 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
4166 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
4167 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
4172 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
4173 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
4175 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
4176 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
4177 to enable sound support.
4179 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
4180 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
4181 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
4182 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
4183 sound to play, before playing the sound.
4185 The following sound properties are supported:
4189 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
4190 searched relative to `data-directory'.
4194 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
4195 may be present, but not both.
4199 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
4200 0..1. This property is optional.
4204 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
4205 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
4207 Other properties are ignored.
4209 An alternative interface is called as
4210 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
4212 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
4214 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
4217 ** Changes to garbage collection
4219 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
4220 of live and free strings.
4222 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
4223 strings that have been consed so far.
4226 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
4229 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
4232 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
4233 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
4234 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
4236 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
4238 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
4240 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
4243 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
4245 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
4247 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
4248 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
4249 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
4250 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
4251 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
4253 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
4256 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
4258 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
4259 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
4260 or omitted means use the selected frame.
4262 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
4263 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
4265 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
4268 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
4272 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
4274 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
4275 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
4277 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
4278 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
4279 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
4280 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
4281 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
4282 just display it black instead.
4284 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
4287 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
4291 ** New face implementation.
4293 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
4294 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
4298 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
4300 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
4302 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
4303 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
4305 3. Font height in 1/10pt
4307 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
4309 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
4311 6. Foreground color.
4313 7. Background color.
4315 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
4317 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
4319 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
4321 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
4323 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
4326 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
4327 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
4329 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
4330 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
4331 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
4332 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
4333 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
4334 attributes mentioned above.
4336 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
4337 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
4340 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
4341 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
4346 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
4347 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
4348 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
4349 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
4350 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
4351 results in a fully-specified face.
4353 *** Face realization.
4355 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
4356 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
4357 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
4358 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
4359 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
4360 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
4362 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
4363 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
4364 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
4365 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
4367 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
4368 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
4369 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
4370 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
4371 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
4373 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
4374 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
4375 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
4376 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
4377 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
4380 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
4381 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
4382 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
4383 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
4385 **** Clearing face caches.
4387 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
4388 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
4393 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
4394 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
4395 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
4397 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
4398 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
4399 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
4400 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
4401 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
4403 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
4404 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
4405 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
4407 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
4409 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
4410 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
4411 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
4412 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
4413 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
4414 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
4415 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
4417 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
4418 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
4421 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
4422 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
4425 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
4428 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
4433 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
4434 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
4437 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
4438 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
4439 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
4440 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
4441 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
4444 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
4446 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
4448 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
4450 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
4452 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
4453 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
4454 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
4456 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
4457 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
4458 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
4459 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
4460 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
4461 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
4462 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
4463 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
4464 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
4465 of the face font sort order.
4467 - Function: x-font-family-list
4469 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
4470 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
4471 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
4472 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
4474 - Variable: font-list-limit
4476 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
4477 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
4478 matching font. The default is currently 100.
4480 *** Setting face attributes.
4482 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
4483 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
4484 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
4487 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
4488 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
4490 The following attributes are recognized:
4494 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
4495 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
4496 and `?' are allowed.
4500 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
4501 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
4502 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
4503 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
4507 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
4508 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
4509 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
4510 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
4514 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
4515 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
4516 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
4520 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
4521 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
4524 `:foreground', `:background'
4526 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
4530 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
4531 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
4532 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
4537 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
4538 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
4539 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
4544 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
4545 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
4546 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
4547 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
4551 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
4552 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
4553 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
4554 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
4555 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
4556 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
4557 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
4558 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
4559 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
4560 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
4561 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
4562 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
4563 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
4564 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
4565 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
4566 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
4571 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
4572 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
4576 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
4577 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
4578 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
4579 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
4580 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
4581 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
4583 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
4584 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
4588 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
4589 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
4590 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
4593 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
4594 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
4595 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
4597 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
4602 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
4603 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
4604 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
4606 *** Face attributes and X resources
4608 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
4611 Face attribute X resource class
4612 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
4613 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
4614 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
4615 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
4616 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
4617 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
4618 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
4619 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
4620 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
4621 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
4622 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
4623 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
4624 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
4625 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
4626 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
4627 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
4628 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4629 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
4630 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
4631 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
4633 *** Text property `face'.
4635 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
4636 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
4637 specification can be
4639 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
4641 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
4642 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
4643 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
4644 for face attribute names.
4646 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
4647 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
4648 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
4650 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
4652 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
4653 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
4654 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
4655 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
4656 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
4657 used to clear the mapping table.
4659 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
4661 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
4662 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
4663 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
4664 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
4665 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
4666 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
4667 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
4668 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
4669 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
4670 modify their color-related behavior.
4672 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
4675 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
4677 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
4678 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
4679 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
4680 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
4681 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
4682 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
4683 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
4684 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
4685 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
4687 The new function `display-images-p' returns non-nil if a particular
4688 display can display image files.
4690 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
4692 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
4693 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
4694 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
4695 `Inviolable' option.
4697 The function `minibuffer-prompt-end' returns the current position of the
4698 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
4699 Otherwise, it returns `(point-min)'.
4701 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
4703 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
4704 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
4705 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
4707 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
4708 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
4709 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
4710 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
4711 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
4712 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
4713 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
4716 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
4717 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
4718 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
4720 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
4722 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
4724 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
4726 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4727 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
4728 constrained position if that is different.
4730 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
4731 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
4732 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
4733 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
4734 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4735 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
4736 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
4737 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
4738 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
4740 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
4741 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
4742 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
4743 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
4744 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
4746 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
4747 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
4749 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
4751 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
4753 Delete the field surrounding POS.
4754 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4755 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4757 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4759 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
4760 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4761 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4762 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
4763 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
4765 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
4767 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
4768 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4769 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4770 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
4771 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
4773 - Function: field-string &optional POS
4775 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
4776 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4777 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4779 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
4781 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
4782 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
4783 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
4787 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
4788 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
4789 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
4790 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
4792 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
4793 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
4794 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
4795 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
4798 IMAGE is an image specification.
4800 *** Image specifications
4802 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
4803 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
4804 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
4805 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
4806 described below are ignored.
4808 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
4812 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
4813 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
4814 to use for its ascent.
4816 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
4817 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
4819 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
4820 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
4821 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
4822 overlays that apply to the image.
4826 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
4827 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
4828 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
4832 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
4837 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
4839 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
4840 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
4842 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
4843 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
4844 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
4845 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
4846 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
4847 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
4848 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
4849 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
4852 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
4854 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
4856 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
4857 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
4858 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
4859 of the factors' absolute values.
4861 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
4867 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
4873 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
4878 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
4879 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
4880 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
4881 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
4882 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
4883 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
4884 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
4887 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
4888 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
4893 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
4894 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
4895 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
4896 may be present in the image specification.
4900 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
4901 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
4902 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
4903 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
4905 *** Supported image types
4907 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
4909 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
4910 properties supported are
4914 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4915 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4919 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4920 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4922 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
4923 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
4924 instead of a `:file' property.
4928 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
4932 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
4938 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
4939 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
4941 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
4943 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
4946 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
4947 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
4950 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
4952 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
4953 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
4954 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
4955 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
4957 Additional image properties supported are:
4959 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
4961 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
4962 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
4965 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
4966 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
4968 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
4969 to display compressed images.
4971 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
4973 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
4974 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
4979 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4980 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's foreground.
4984 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color, or nil
4985 meaning to use the default. Default is the frame's background color.
4987 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
4989 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
4990 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
4993 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
4995 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
4996 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4999 **** GIF, image type `gif'
5001 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
5002 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
5004 Additional image properties supported are:
5008 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
5009 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
5011 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
5012 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
5013 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
5016 (defun show-anim (file max)
5017 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
5018 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
5020 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
5023 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
5026 (goto-char (point-min))
5027 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
5028 (insert-image img "x"))
5029 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
5031 **** PNG, image type `png'
5033 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
5034 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
5037 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
5039 Additional image properties supported are:
5043 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
5044 integer. This is a required property.
5048 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
5049 must be a integer. This is an required property.
5053 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
5054 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
5055 files. This is an required property.
5057 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
5062 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
5063 which are supported in the current configuration.
5065 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
5066 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
5067 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
5068 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
5069 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
5071 *** Simplified image API, image.el
5073 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
5074 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
5075 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
5076 define an image based on available image types. The functions
5077 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
5082 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
5085 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
5086 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
5087 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
5088 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
5089 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
5090 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
5091 of the display margins.
5093 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
5094 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
5095 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
5096 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
5101 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
5102 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
5103 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
5104 that have a `help-echo' property.
5106 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
5107 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
5108 the window in which the help was found.
5110 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
5111 `help-echo' text property was found.
5113 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
5114 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
5116 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
5117 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
5120 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
5121 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
5123 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
5124 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
5125 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
5126 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
5127 used as help string.
5129 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
5130 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
5131 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
5133 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
5135 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
5136 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
5138 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
5139 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
5140 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
5141 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
5144 (global-set-key [A-down]
5147 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
5148 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
5149 (global-set-key [A-up]
5152 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
5153 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
5155 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
5157 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
5158 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
5159 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
5160 is called with one argument, POS.
5162 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
5163 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
5164 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
5165 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
5166 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
5168 ** Tool bar support.
5170 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
5171 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
5172 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
5173 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
5174 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
5175 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
5177 *** Tool bar item definitions
5179 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
5180 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
5181 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
5183 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
5184 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
5185 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
5186 property (see below).
5188 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
5189 binding are currently ignored.
5191 The following properties are recognized:
5195 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
5200 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
5204 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
5205 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
5206 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
5208 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
5210 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
5211 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
5215 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
5216 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
5217 meaning of each of the four elements:
5219 Index Use when item is
5220 ----------------------------------------
5221 0 enabled and selected
5222 1 enabled and deselected
5223 2 disabled and selected
5224 3 disabled and deselected
5226 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
5227 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
5229 `:help HELP-STRING'.
5231 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
5232 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
5234 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
5235 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
5236 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
5239 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
5240 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
5241 buffer-locally to override the global map.
5243 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
5245 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
5246 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
5247 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
5249 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
5250 raised when the mouse moves over them.
5252 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
5253 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
5254 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
5255 vertical margins . Default is 1.
5257 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
5258 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
5260 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
5262 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
5265 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
5266 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
5267 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
5269 is the original tool bar item definition, then
5271 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
5273 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
5276 ** Mode line changes.
5278 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
5280 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
5281 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
5282 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
5284 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
5285 a `local-map' text property.
5287 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
5288 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
5290 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
5291 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
5292 `local-map' property.
5294 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
5295 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
5298 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
5299 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
5301 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
5302 variable mode-line-format to nil.
5304 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
5306 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
5307 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
5308 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
5309 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
5312 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
5315 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
5316 position in the header-line.
5318 ** Text property `display'
5320 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
5321 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
5322 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
5323 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
5324 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
5326 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
5328 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
5329 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
5331 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
5332 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
5333 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
5334 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
5335 simpler form STRING as property value.
5337 *** Variable width and height spaces
5339 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
5340 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
5341 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
5342 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
5343 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
5344 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
5345 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
5347 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
5348 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
5349 properties described below.
5351 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
5352 characters having the `display' property.
5356 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
5357 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
5359 - :relative-width FACTOR
5361 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
5362 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
5363 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
5364 width of that character by FACTOR.
5368 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
5369 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
5371 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
5375 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
5378 - :relative-height FACTOR
5380 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
5381 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
5385 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
5386 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
5387 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
5390 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
5394 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
5395 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
5396 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
5397 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
5398 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
5399 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
5400 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
5401 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
5402 as display specification.
5404 *** Other display properties
5406 - (space-width FACTOR)
5408 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
5409 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
5414 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
5416 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
5417 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
5418 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
5419 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
5420 a font is available counts as a step.
5422 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
5423 as tall as the frame's default font.
5425 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
5426 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
5428 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
5429 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
5433 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
5434 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
5435 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
5436 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
5437 `height' subproperty.
5439 *** Conditional display properties
5441 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
5442 has the form `(when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC applies
5443 only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated. During the
5444 evaluation, `object' is bound to the string or buffer having the
5445 conditional display property; `position' and `buffer-position' are
5446 bound to the position within `object' and the buffer position where
5447 the display property was found, respectively. Both positions can be
5448 different when object is a string.
5450 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
5453 ** New menu separator types.
5455 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
5456 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
5457 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
5458 to specify other menu separator types.
5460 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
5462 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
5465 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
5467 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
5469 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
5471 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
5473 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
5475 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
5477 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
5479 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
5481 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
5483 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
5484 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
5486 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
5488 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
5490 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
5492 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
5494 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
5496 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
5498 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
5500 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
5502 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
5504 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
5506 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
5508 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
5510 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
5512 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
5514 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
5515 the corresponding single-line separators.
5517 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
5519 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
5520 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
5521 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
5522 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
5523 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
5524 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
5525 default foreground is black.
5527 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
5528 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
5529 `ScrollBarBackground').
5531 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
5532 settings for scroll bar colors.
5534 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
5535 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
5537 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
5538 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
5539 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
5540 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
5541 the original window start.
5543 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
5544 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
5545 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
5547 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
5549 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
5550 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
5551 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
5552 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
5554 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
5555 fixed-width and fixed-height.
5557 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
5559 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
5560 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
5561 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
5562 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
5563 temporarily to nil, for example
5565 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
5566 (enlarge-window 10))
5568 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
5569 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
5571 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
5572 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
5573 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
5574 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
5575 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
5576 support a vertical-bar cursor).
5580 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
5582 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
5585 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
5587 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
5589 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
5590 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
5591 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
5592 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
5593 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
5595 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
5599 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
5601 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
5605 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
5607 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
5608 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
5610 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
5612 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
5614 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
5615 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
5616 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
5618 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
5619 is the one that is used.
5621 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
5622 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
5623 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
5624 separate from the command's regular output.
5625 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
5626 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
5627 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
5630 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
5631 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
5632 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
5633 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
5635 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
5636 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
5637 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
5638 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
5640 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
5641 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
5642 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
5643 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
5645 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
5646 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
5647 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
5648 they never ignore case.
5650 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
5651 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
5652 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
5653 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
5654 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
5655 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
5656 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
5658 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
5659 the same format that was used in the file before.
5661 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
5662 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
5664 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
5665 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
5666 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
5668 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
5669 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
5670 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
5671 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
5672 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
5673 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
5674 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
5676 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
5677 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
5678 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
5679 format. You can now customize these variables.
5681 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
5682 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
5683 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
5684 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
5686 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
5687 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
5688 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
5690 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
5691 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
5692 doesn't have any effect.
5694 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
5697 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
5698 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
5699 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
5701 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
5702 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
5703 `auto-show-mode' command.
5705 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
5706 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
5707 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
5708 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
5709 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
5711 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
5712 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
5714 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
5715 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
5716 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
5718 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
5719 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
5720 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
5721 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
5723 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
5725 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
5726 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
5727 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
5728 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
5729 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
5731 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
5732 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
5734 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
5735 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
5736 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
5737 `?' on other systems.
5739 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
5740 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
5743 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
5744 current codepage when it starts.
5748 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
5749 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
5750 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
5751 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
5752 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
5753 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
5757 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
5758 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
5760 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
5761 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
5762 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
5763 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
5764 buffer-file-coding-system.
5766 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
5767 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
5770 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
5771 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
5772 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
5773 list of possible coding systems.
5777 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
5778 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
5779 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
5780 docstring for details.
5782 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
5783 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
5784 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
5785 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
5786 lineup functions use this feature currently.
5788 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
5789 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
5791 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
5792 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
5794 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
5795 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
5796 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
5797 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
5800 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
5801 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
5803 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
5804 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
5805 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
5806 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
5808 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
5809 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
5810 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
5811 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
5812 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
5814 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
5816 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
5818 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
5819 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
5821 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
5823 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
5824 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
5825 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
5826 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
5827 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
5831 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
5832 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
5833 Gnus manual for the full story.
5835 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
5836 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
5837 group, which is created automatically.
5839 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
5842 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
5844 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
5845 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
5847 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
5850 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
5852 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
5853 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
5855 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
5857 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
5858 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
5860 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
5861 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
5863 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
5864 control over simplification.
5866 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
5868 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
5871 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
5873 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
5875 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
5876 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
5877 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
5879 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
5880 `a' forces normal posting method.
5882 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
5885 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
5888 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
5889 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
5891 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
5894 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
5896 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
5898 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
5899 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
5901 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
5902 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
5904 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
5906 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
5909 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
5910 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
5912 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
5913 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
5915 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
5917 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
5919 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
5921 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
5923 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
5924 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
5925 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
5927 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
5928 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
5929 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
5930 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
5931 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
5933 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
5934 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
5935 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
5936 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
5938 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
5939 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
5940 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
5943 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5945 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
5946 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
5948 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
5949 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
5950 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
5951 removed from the label.
5953 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
5954 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
5956 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
5957 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
5959 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
5960 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
5963 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
5965 ** New/deleted modes and packages
5967 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
5968 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
5970 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
5971 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
5972 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
5974 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
5975 changes with a special face.
5977 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
5978 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
5979 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
5981 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
5983 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
5984 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
5985 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
5986 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
5987 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
5989 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
5990 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
5991 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
5993 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
5994 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
5995 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
5996 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
5997 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
5998 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
5999 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
6000 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
6001 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
6003 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
6004 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
6005 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
6006 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
6007 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
6010 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
6011 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
6012 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
6013 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
6014 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
6015 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
6017 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
6018 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
6019 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
6020 was not documented clearly before.
6022 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
6023 This includes Tetris and Snake.
6025 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
6027 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
6028 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
6029 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
6030 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
6032 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
6033 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
6034 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
6036 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
6038 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
6039 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
6041 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
6042 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
6045 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
6046 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
6047 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
6048 file names and attributes are returned.
6050 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
6051 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
6052 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
6053 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
6056 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
6057 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
6059 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
6061 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
6062 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
6063 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
6066 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
6067 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
6070 The new function process-running-child-p
6071 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
6072 terminal to its own child process.
6074 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
6075 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
6076 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
6077 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
6079 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
6080 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
6082 ** easymenu.el now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
6083 :included is an alias for :visible.
6085 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
6086 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
6087 to move or copy menu entries.
6089 ** Multibyte editing changes
6091 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
6092 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
6093 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
6094 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
6095 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
6096 (setq char (sref str idx)
6097 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
6098 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
6100 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
6101 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
6102 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
6104 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
6105 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
6106 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
6108 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
6110 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
6111 across the boundary.
6113 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
6114 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
6115 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
6116 contains 8-bit characters.
6117 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
6118 contains invalid characters.
6120 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
6121 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
6122 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
6123 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
6126 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
6127 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
6128 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
6129 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
6131 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
6132 compose Thai characters in a string.
6134 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
6135 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
6136 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
6137 menus should always use the third argument.
6139 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
6140 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
6141 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
6142 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
6144 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
6145 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
6146 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
6147 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
6149 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
6150 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
6151 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
6154 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
6156 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
6157 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
6158 requested feature cannot be loaded.
6160 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
6161 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
6162 means to clear out that attribute.
6164 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
6165 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
6167 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
6168 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
6169 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
6170 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
6172 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
6173 the gap of the current buffer.
6175 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
6176 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
6179 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
6180 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
6181 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
6182 it back in after any modifications have been made.
6184 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
6186 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
6187 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
6188 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
6189 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
6190 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
6192 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
6193 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
6194 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
6195 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
6196 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
6198 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
6199 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
6200 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
6202 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
6203 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
6204 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
6205 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
6206 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
6209 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
6210 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
6211 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
6212 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
6214 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
6216 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
6217 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
6218 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
6219 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
6221 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
6222 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
6223 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
6224 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
6225 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
6226 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
6227 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
6230 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
6233 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
6234 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
6235 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
6236 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
6237 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
6239 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
6240 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
6241 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
6242 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
6244 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
6245 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
6246 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
6247 something that most users not do.
6249 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
6250 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
6251 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
6254 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
6257 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
6258 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
6259 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
6260 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
6263 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
6264 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
6265 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
6266 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
6267 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
6270 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
6271 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
6272 to be confused by TeX commands.
6274 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
6275 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
6276 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
6277 of various alternative replacements and actions.
6279 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
6280 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
6281 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
6282 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
6283 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
6285 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
6286 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
6288 ** Changes in input method usage.
6290 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
6291 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
6294 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
6296 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
6297 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
6299 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
6300 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
6302 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
6304 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
6306 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
6307 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
6309 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
6310 given in the following case:
6311 o When you are using a complex input method.
6312 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
6314 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
6315 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
6316 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
6317 setting it to t is helpful.
6319 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
6321 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
6323 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
6324 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
6325 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
6326 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
6329 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
6330 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
6331 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
6334 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
6336 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
6338 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
6339 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
6341 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
6342 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
6343 its owner and group.
6345 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
6346 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
6348 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
6349 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
6351 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
6352 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
6353 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
6354 by the left edge of the rectangle.
6356 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
6357 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
6358 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
6359 for writing keyboard macros.
6361 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
6362 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
6363 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
6364 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
6365 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
6368 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
6370 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
6371 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
6374 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
6375 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
6376 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
6377 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
6379 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
6380 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
6381 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
6383 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
6384 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
6385 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
6386 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
6388 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
6389 failure if the command produces no output.
6391 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
6392 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
6395 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
6396 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
6397 function and variable names.
6399 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
6400 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
6401 file-coding-system-alist.
6403 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
6404 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
6405 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
6406 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
6407 according to the current fontset.
6409 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
6411 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
6412 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
6413 nonascii-insert-offset.
6415 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
6416 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
6417 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
6418 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
6420 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
6421 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
6423 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
6424 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
6426 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
6427 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
6430 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
6431 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
6433 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
6434 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
6435 all variables that have documentation.
6437 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
6438 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
6439 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
6440 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
6441 it should show; the default is 20.
6443 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
6444 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
6447 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
6448 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
6449 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
6450 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
6451 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
6452 Newly added options are included as well.
6454 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
6455 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
6456 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
6458 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
6461 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
6462 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
6464 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
6465 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
6468 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
6469 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
6472 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
6473 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
6474 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
6475 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
6478 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
6480 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
6481 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
6482 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
6484 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
6485 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
6486 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
6491 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
6492 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
6494 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
6495 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
6497 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
6498 read and post multi-lingual articles.
6500 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
6501 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
6502 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
6503 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
6504 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
6505 made invisible again.
6507 ** Mail reading and sending changes
6509 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
6510 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
6511 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
6514 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
6515 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
6516 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
6517 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
6518 rmail-default-body-file.
6520 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
6521 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
6522 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
6524 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
6525 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
6526 is evaluated to insert the signature.
6528 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
6529 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
6530 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
6531 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
6532 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
6533 especially interested in trying feedmail.
6535 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
6536 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
6537 provided by feedmail are:
6539 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
6540 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
6541 there is also a queue for draft messages
6543 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
6544 be prompted for confirmation
6546 **** does smart filling of address headers
6548 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
6549 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
6550 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
6552 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
6553 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
6554 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
6555 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
6559 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
6560 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
6562 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
6563 run Dired on the directory name at point.
6565 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
6566 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
6567 for a specified regexp.
6571 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
6574 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
6575 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
6578 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
6579 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
6580 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
6581 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
6583 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
6584 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
6585 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
6586 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
6587 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
6589 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
6590 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
6591 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
6592 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
6593 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
6595 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
6596 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
6597 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
6598 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
6600 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
6601 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
6602 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
6604 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
6605 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
6606 session to resolve them.
6608 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
6609 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
6610 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
6613 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
6614 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
6615 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
6616 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
6617 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
6618 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
6621 ** Changes in Font Lock
6623 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
6624 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
6625 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
6626 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
6627 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
6629 ** Frame name display changes
6631 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
6632 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
6633 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
6634 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
6636 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
6637 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
6640 ** Comint (subshell) changes
6642 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
6643 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
6644 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
6646 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
6648 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
6649 that is, the line after the last line you got.
6650 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
6652 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
6653 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
6656 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
6657 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
6658 previously sent input.
6660 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
6661 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
6662 as the search string.
6664 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
6665 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
6669 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
6670 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
6671 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
6674 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
6675 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
6676 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
6677 style is still the default however.
6679 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
6681 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
6682 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
6683 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
6685 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
6686 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
6688 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
6689 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
6691 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
6692 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
6694 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
6695 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
6697 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
6698 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
6699 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
6700 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
6702 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
6704 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
6705 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
6706 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
6708 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
6709 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
6710 expanding dynamically.
6712 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
6713 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
6715 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
6716 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
6717 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
6718 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
6720 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
6722 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6724 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
6725 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
6726 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
6727 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
6728 against the first word in the title.
6730 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
6731 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
6732 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
6733 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
6734 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
6735 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
6737 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
6738 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
6739 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
6740 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
6742 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
6744 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
6745 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
6746 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
6747 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
6748 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
6749 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
6751 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
6752 Editing group once the package is loaded.
6754 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
6755 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
6756 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
6758 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
6759 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
6763 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
6764 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
6765 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
6767 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
6768 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
6769 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
6770 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
6773 o URLs are automatically skipped
6774 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
6776 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
6778 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
6780 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
6781 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
6782 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
6783 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
6785 *** New recursive parser.
6787 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
6788 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
6789 recursive parser scans the individual files.
6791 *** Parsing only part of a document.
6793 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
6794 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
6795 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
6797 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
6799 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
6801 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
6803 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
6805 *** Using multiple selection buffers
6807 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
6808 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
6810 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
6812 *** References to external documents.
6814 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
6815 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
6816 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
6817 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
6818 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
6819 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
6820 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
6822 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
6824 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
6825 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
6827 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
6828 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
6830 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
6832 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
6833 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
6835 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
6837 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
6838 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
6839 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
6840 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
6841 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
6842 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
6845 *** Support for the varioref package
6847 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
6851 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
6852 and citations are created. These hooks are
6853 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
6854 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
6856 *** Citations outside LaTeX
6858 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
6859 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
6861 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
6863 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
6864 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
6867 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
6869 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
6870 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
6871 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
6872 directories that contain the same file name.
6874 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
6875 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
6876 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
6877 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
6878 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
6879 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
6880 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
6883 ** New modes and packages
6885 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
6886 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
6887 it, but some do not.
6889 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
6892 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
6893 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
6896 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
6898 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
6899 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
6900 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
6901 established system of notation similar to Chess.
6903 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
6904 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
6905 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
6907 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
6908 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
6909 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
6910 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
6911 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
6914 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
6915 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
6917 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
6918 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
6919 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
6920 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
6922 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
6924 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
6925 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
6926 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
6927 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
6928 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
6929 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
6930 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
6931 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
6932 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
6933 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
6934 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
6936 Platform-specific modes:
6938 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
6939 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
6940 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
6941 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
6942 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
6943 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
6944 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
6945 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
6946 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
6948 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6950 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
6951 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
6952 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
6953 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
6955 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
6956 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
6957 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
6959 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
6960 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
6961 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
6962 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
6964 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
6965 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
6966 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
6969 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
6970 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
6971 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
6972 current input method for reading this one event.
6974 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
6975 now control whether to output certain characters as
6976 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
6977 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
6978 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
6979 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
6981 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
6983 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
6984 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
6986 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
6987 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
6988 always increases point by 1.
6990 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
6991 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
6993 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
6995 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
6996 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
6997 default value changed. For example,
6999 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
7004 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
7007 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
7008 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
7009 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
7010 `:version' in the top level group.
7012 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
7014 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
7015 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
7017 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
7018 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
7019 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
7022 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
7023 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
7026 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
7027 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
7028 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
7030 ** Frame-local variables.
7032 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
7033 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
7034 local bindings for that variable.
7036 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
7037 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
7038 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
7041 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
7042 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
7043 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
7044 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
7046 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
7047 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
7048 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
7049 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
7051 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
7052 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
7053 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
7054 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
7055 See the documentation in sregex.el.
7057 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
7058 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
7059 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
7060 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
7062 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
7063 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
7065 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
7066 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
7067 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
7069 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
7070 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
7071 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
7072 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
7074 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
7075 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
7078 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
7079 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
7080 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
7081 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
7082 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
7084 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
7085 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
7086 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
7087 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
7089 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
7090 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
7091 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
7092 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
7093 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
7095 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
7096 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
7097 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
7098 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
7100 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
7101 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
7102 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
7104 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
7105 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
7106 was directed to display this buffer.
7108 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
7109 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
7110 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
7111 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
7112 set-window-configuration.
7114 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
7115 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
7116 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
7117 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
7119 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
7120 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
7121 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
7123 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
7124 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
7125 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
7127 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
7128 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
7130 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
7131 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
7133 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
7134 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
7135 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
7137 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
7138 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
7139 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
7140 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
7144 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
7145 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
7148 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
7149 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
7150 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
7151 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
7152 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
7154 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
7156 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
7157 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
7158 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
7159 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
7162 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
7163 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
7164 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
7165 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
7166 The supported properties include
7168 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
7170 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
7171 item should appear in the menu.
7173 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
7174 which will be REAL-BINDING.
7175 It should return a binding to use instead.
7177 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
7178 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
7179 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
7180 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
7181 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
7184 This means that the command normally has no
7185 keyboard equivalent.
7186 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
7187 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
7188 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
7189 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
7190 value says whether this button is currently selected.
7192 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
7193 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
7195 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
7199 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
7200 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
7201 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
7202 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
7204 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
7206 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
7207 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
7208 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
7209 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
7210 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
7211 forward, away from the user.
7213 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
7215 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
7216 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
7217 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
7218 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
7219 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
7221 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
7223 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
7224 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
7225 that were dragged and dropped.
7227 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
7229 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
7231 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
7232 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
7233 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
7235 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
7236 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
7237 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
7239 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
7240 in Emacs 19 and before.
7242 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
7243 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
7245 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
7246 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
7247 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
7248 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
7250 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
7251 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
7252 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
7253 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
7254 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
7256 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
7257 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
7258 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
7259 consistent with the new representation.
7261 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
7262 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
7263 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
7264 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
7266 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
7267 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
7268 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
7270 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
7271 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
7272 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
7274 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
7275 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
7276 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
7278 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
7279 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
7281 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
7282 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
7284 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
7285 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
7286 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
7287 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
7289 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
7290 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
7292 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
7293 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
7294 buffer or string being searched.
7296 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
7297 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
7298 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
7299 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
7300 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
7301 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
7302 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
7304 *** Structure of coding system changed.
7306 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
7307 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
7308 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
7309 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
7310 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
7311 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
7312 define-coding-system-alias.
7314 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
7315 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
7316 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
7317 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
7318 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
7319 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
7320 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
7323 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
7324 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
7325 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
7326 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
7328 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
7329 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
7330 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
7331 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
7333 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
7334 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
7335 This function requires a user interaction.
7337 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
7338 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
7339 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
7340 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
7341 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
7342 select-safe-coding-system.
7344 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
7345 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
7346 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
7349 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
7350 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
7351 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
7353 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
7354 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
7355 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
7356 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
7358 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
7359 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
7360 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
7363 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
7364 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
7366 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
7367 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
7368 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
7369 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
7370 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
7371 range of characters.
7373 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
7374 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
7376 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
7377 in the current buffer at position POS.
7379 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
7380 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
7381 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
7382 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
7383 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
7384 binding input-method-function to nil.
7386 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
7387 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
7388 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
7389 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
7390 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
7392 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
7393 subsequent events of a key sequence.
7395 *** You can customize any language environment by using
7396 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
7398 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
7399 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
7400 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
7401 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
7402 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
7404 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
7406 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
7407 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
7408 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
7411 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
7412 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
7414 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
7415 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
7416 in your .emacs file.)
7418 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
7419 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
7421 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
7422 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
7424 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
7425 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
7428 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
7429 delete the character before point, as usual.
7431 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
7432 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
7433 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
7435 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
7436 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
7437 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
7438 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
7439 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
7442 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
7443 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
7444 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
7445 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
7446 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
7448 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
7449 and is an alias for it.
7451 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
7452 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
7454 ** Scrolling changes
7456 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
7457 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
7459 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
7460 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
7463 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
7464 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
7465 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
7466 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
7468 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
7469 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
7470 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
7471 recenters the window.
7473 ** International character set support (MULE)
7475 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
7476 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
7477 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
7478 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
7479 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
7480 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
7482 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
7483 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
7484 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
7485 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
7486 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
7488 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
7489 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
7490 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
7491 language, to make it possible to type them.
7493 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
7494 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
7496 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
7497 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
7499 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
7501 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
7503 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
7504 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
7505 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
7506 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
7507 characters for their work until they want to change.
7511 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
7512 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
7513 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
7514 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
7515 support several input methods.
7517 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
7518 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
7521 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
7522 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
7523 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
7524 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
7525 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
7528 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
7529 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
7530 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
7531 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
7532 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
7534 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
7535 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
7536 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
7537 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
7539 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
7540 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
7541 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
7542 the first guess is wrong.
7544 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
7545 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
7547 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
7548 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
7549 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
7550 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
7552 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
7553 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
7554 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
7555 translate automatically to and from either one.
7557 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
7559 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
7560 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
7561 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
7564 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
7565 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
7566 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
7567 multibyte characters in that buffer.
7569 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
7570 character conversion as well.
7572 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
7574 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
7575 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
7576 requires using many fonts.
7578 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
7579 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
7581 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
7582 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
7583 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
7584 you would use a font.
7586 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
7587 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
7588 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
7590 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
7591 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
7594 *** Defining fontsets.
7596 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
7597 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
7598 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
7600 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
7601 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
7602 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
7603 standard fontset are created automatically.
7605 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
7606 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
7607 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
7608 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
7609 name is `fontset-startup'.
7611 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
7612 The resource value should have this form:
7613 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
7614 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
7615 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
7616 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
7617 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
7618 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
7619 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
7620 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
7621 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
7623 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
7624 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
7625 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
7627 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
7628 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
7630 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
7631 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
7632 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
7633 Here is the substitution rule:
7634 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
7635 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
7636 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
7637 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
7638 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
7640 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
7641 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
7642 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
7644 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
7645 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
7646 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
7647 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
7650 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
7651 defaults for a particular choice of language.
7653 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
7654 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
7655 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
7656 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
7657 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
7658 system for new files that you create.
7660 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
7661 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
7662 whole Emacs session.
7664 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
7665 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
7666 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
7668 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
7669 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
7670 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
7671 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
7672 coding systems that Emacs supports.
7674 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
7675 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
7676 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
7677 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
7678 is used for *the immediately following command*.
7680 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
7681 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
7683 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
7684 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
7686 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
7687 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
7689 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
7690 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
7691 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
7692 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
7695 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
7696 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
7697 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
7698 translated into that character code.
7700 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
7701 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
7703 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
7705 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
7706 the coding system for keyboard input.
7708 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
7709 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
7710 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
7712 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
7714 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
7715 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
7716 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
7717 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
7718 designed to work with terminals.
7720 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
7721 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
7722 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
7723 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
7724 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
7725 in the corresponding buffer.
7727 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
7729 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
7730 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
7731 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
7733 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
7734 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
7735 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
7738 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
7739 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
7741 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
7742 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
7743 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
7744 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
7746 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
7747 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
7748 related information.
7750 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
7751 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
7754 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
7755 information about the support for a particular language.
7756 You specify the language as an argument.
7758 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
7759 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
7762 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
7763 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
7764 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
7765 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
7767 A alternativnyj (Russian)
7769 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
7770 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
7771 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
7772 E euc-japan (Japanese)
7773 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7774 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
7775 K euc-korea (Korean)
7778 S shift_jis (Japanese)
7781 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
7782 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
7783 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
7787 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
7788 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
7789 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
7790 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
7792 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
7793 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
7795 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
7796 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
7797 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
7798 Rmail files themselves.
7800 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
7801 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
7803 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
7806 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
7807 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
7808 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
7809 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
7810 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
7812 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
7813 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
7814 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
7817 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
7818 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
7819 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
7820 without any conversion.
7822 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
7823 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
7824 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
7825 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
7827 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
7828 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
7830 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
7831 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
7833 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
7834 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
7836 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
7837 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
7838 in the buffer before point.
7840 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
7841 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
7844 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
7845 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
7847 ** File locking works with NFS now.
7849 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
7850 in the same directory as FILENAME.
7852 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
7853 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
7854 can become a bottleneck.
7856 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
7857 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
7858 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
7859 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
7860 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
7861 so useful that the change is worth while.
7863 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
7864 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
7865 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
7866 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
7868 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
7869 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
7872 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
7873 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
7874 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
7876 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
7877 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
7878 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
7880 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
7881 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
7882 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
7884 ** Changes in View mode.
7886 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
7887 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
7889 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
7890 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
7892 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
7895 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
7896 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
7898 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
7899 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
7900 not just the selected window.
7902 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
7903 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
7904 turns View mode on or off.
7906 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
7907 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
7908 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
7910 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
7911 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
7913 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
7914 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
7915 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
7916 which version to compare with.
7918 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
7919 blocks if a match is inside the block.
7921 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
7922 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
7923 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
7924 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
7926 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
7927 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
7928 blocks, all of them or none.
7930 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
7931 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
7934 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
7935 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
7936 However, the mode will not be changed if
7937 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
7938 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
7939 not suitable for ordinary files, or
7940 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
7942 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
7944 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
7945 these commands do not change the major mode.
7947 ** M-x occur changes.
7949 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
7950 it performs a case-sensitive search.
7952 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
7953 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
7954 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
7956 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
7957 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
7958 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
7959 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
7960 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
7962 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
7963 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
7964 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
7965 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
7967 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7968 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
7969 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
7971 ** Outline mode changes.
7973 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
7975 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
7977 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
7978 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
7979 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
7982 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
7983 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
7986 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
7987 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
7989 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
7991 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7992 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
7993 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
7994 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
7996 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
7997 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
7998 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
8000 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
8001 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
8004 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
8005 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
8006 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
8007 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
8009 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
8010 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
8011 can be. The default value is 30.
8013 ** Changes in Mail mode.
8015 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
8016 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
8017 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
8018 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
8019 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
8022 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
8023 compose-mail-other-frame.
8025 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
8026 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
8027 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
8028 buffer that shows the original message.
8030 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
8031 with separator lines around the contents.
8033 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
8034 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
8035 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
8036 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
8038 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
8040 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
8041 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
8042 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
8043 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
8045 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
8046 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
8049 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
8050 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
8053 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
8054 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
8055 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
8056 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
8058 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
8059 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
8060 be taken to be magic.
8062 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
8063 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
8064 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
8066 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
8067 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
8069 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
8070 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
8072 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
8074 new key dired.el binding old key
8075 ------- ---------------- -------
8076 * c dired-change-marks c
8078 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
8079 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
8080 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
8082 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
8083 * ? dired-unmark-all-files C-M-?
8084 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
8085 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
8086 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
8087 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
8091 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
8092 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
8093 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
8094 each time you run it.
8096 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
8097 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
8099 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
8100 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
8101 means to move in the opposite direction.
8103 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
8104 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
8106 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
8107 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
8108 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
8109 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
8114 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
8116 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
8119 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
8120 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
8122 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
8125 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
8127 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
8129 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
8131 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
8132 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
8133 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
8135 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
8137 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
8139 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
8140 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
8142 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
8143 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
8144 used to pick articles.
8146 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
8147 another have been added.
8149 `M-x gnus-change-server'
8151 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
8152 generating lines in buffers.
8154 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
8157 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
8159 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
8161 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
8163 *** Scores can be decayed.
8165 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
8167 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
8168 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
8170 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
8173 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
8175 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
8176 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `C-M-d'.
8178 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
8180 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
8181 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
8183 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
8184 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
8186 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
8189 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
8190 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
8192 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
8194 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
8196 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
8198 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
8200 Use the `Y c' command.
8202 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
8204 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
8206 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
8208 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
8209 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
8211 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
8213 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
8215 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
8216 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
8218 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
8220 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
8221 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
8222 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
8223 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
8226 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
8227 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
8228 particular news group. This can be done by:
8230 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
8232 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
8233 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
8234 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
8235 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
8236 for reading and posting).
8238 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
8239 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
8240 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
8241 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
8244 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
8245 default. Here are some of these default settings:
8247 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
8248 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
8249 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
8250 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
8251 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
8253 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
8254 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
8258 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
8259 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
8260 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
8261 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
8262 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
8265 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
8266 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
8267 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
8268 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
8269 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
8270 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
8272 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
8273 of the current buffer.
8275 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
8276 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
8277 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
8279 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
8280 style that the Python developers like.
8282 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
8283 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
8284 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
8288 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
8289 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
8290 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
8292 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
8293 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
8296 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
8297 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
8299 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
8300 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
8301 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
8302 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
8304 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
8305 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
8307 ** Calendar changes.
8309 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
8310 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
8311 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
8312 following/previous years.
8314 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
8315 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
8316 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
8317 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
8318 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
8319 supposed attribute of God.
8323 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
8326 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
8328 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
8329 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
8330 printer system has this behavior, set variable
8331 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
8333 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
8334 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
8335 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
8337 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
8338 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
8340 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
8341 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
8342 printing for your printer.
8344 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
8345 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
8347 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
8348 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
8350 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
8351 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
8352 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
8353 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
8354 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
8355 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
8356 The default value is nil.
8358 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
8359 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
8361 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
8362 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
8363 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
8364 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
8365 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
8366 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
8367 color). The default is 0 ("black").
8369 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
8370 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
8372 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
8373 The default is 0 ("black").
8375 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
8376 The default is 0 ("black").
8378 border-width Specify the border width.
8381 Any other property is ignored.
8383 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
8384 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
8387 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
8388 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
8389 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
8390 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
8391 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
8392 controlling headers.
8394 *** Color management (subgroup)
8396 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
8399 *** Face Management (subgroup)
8401 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
8402 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
8403 background should be used. Valid values are:
8405 t always use face background color.
8406 nil never use face background color.
8407 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
8409 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
8411 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
8414 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
8415 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
8417 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
8420 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
8421 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
8422 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
8424 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
8428 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
8432 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
8436 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
8440 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
8442 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
8444 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
8447 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
8448 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
8449 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
8451 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
8452 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
8453 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8454 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8455 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8459 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8460 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8461 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8464 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
8465 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
8466 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
8467 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
8468 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
8469 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8470 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8471 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
8472 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
8473 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
8474 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
8477 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
8479 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
8482 *** Printer management (subgroup)
8484 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
8485 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
8486 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
8487 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
8490 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
8491 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
8492 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
8494 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
8495 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
8498 *** Page settings (subgroup)
8500 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
8501 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
8502 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
8503 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
8504 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
8505 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
8508 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
8509 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
8510 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
8512 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
8513 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
8514 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
8515 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
8516 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
8517 its TO, are ignored.
8519 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
8520 pages. Valid values are:
8522 nil print all pages.
8524 `even-page' print only even pages.
8526 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
8528 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
8529 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
8530 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
8531 print only the even sheet of paper.
8533 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
8534 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
8535 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
8536 only the odd sheet of paper.
8538 Any other value is treated as nil.
8540 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
8541 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
8542 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
8544 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
8546 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
8547 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
8549 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
8550 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
8551 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
8552 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
8553 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
8554 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
8555 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
8557 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
8558 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
8559 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
8560 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
8561 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
8562 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
8563 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
8565 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
8567 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
8568 messages should be sent.
8570 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
8571 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
8572 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
8574 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
8576 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
8577 points for line numbers.
8579 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
8580 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
8582 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
8583 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
8584 to 2, the printing will look like:
8596 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
8597 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
8600 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
8601 zebra stripe is to be printed.
8603 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
8605 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
8606 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
8607 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
8608 3, the output will look like:
8622 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
8623 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
8625 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
8626 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8629 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
8630 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
8633 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
8635 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
8636 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
8638 ** hideshow changes.
8640 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
8643 *** Support for java-mode added.
8645 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
8646 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
8648 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
8649 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
8650 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
8652 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
8653 robust and a lot faster.
8655 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
8657 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
8658 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
8659 documentation for more details.
8661 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
8663 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
8664 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
8665 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
8666 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
8667 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
8669 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
8670 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
8671 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
8672 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
8678 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
8679 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
8680 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
8681 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
8682 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
8683 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
8685 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
8687 *** Maximum decoration
8689 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
8690 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
8691 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
8692 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
8693 to get the old behavior.
8697 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
8699 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
8700 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
8702 *** Configurable support
8704 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
8705 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
8706 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
8707 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
8708 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
8709 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
8710 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
8712 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
8713 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
8714 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
8716 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
8718 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
8719 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
8722 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
8724 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
8730 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
8731 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
8732 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
8733 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
8735 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
8737 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
8738 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
8739 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
8741 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
8743 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
8744 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
8745 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
8746 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
8747 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
8748 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
8749 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
8751 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
8752 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
8753 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
8754 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
8755 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
8756 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
8758 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
8760 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
8761 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
8762 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
8763 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
8765 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
8768 ** Ada mode changes.
8770 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
8771 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
8772 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
8773 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
8776 *** There are two new commands:
8777 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
8778 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
8780 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
8781 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
8782 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
8784 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
8785 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
8786 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
8788 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
8789 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
8790 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
8791 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
8793 ** Scheme mode changes.
8795 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
8796 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
8797 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
8798 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
8801 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
8802 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
8803 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
8804 variables as buffer-local variables.
8806 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
8809 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
8811 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
8812 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
8813 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
8814 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
8816 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
8817 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
8820 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
8821 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
8822 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
8823 option takes precedence.
8825 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
8826 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
8827 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
8829 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
8830 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
8833 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
8834 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
8836 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
8837 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
8840 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
8841 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
8842 these register values no longer become completely useless.
8843 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
8844 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
8845 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
8847 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
8848 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
8849 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
8850 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
8852 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
8853 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
8854 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
8855 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
8856 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
8858 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
8859 since it applies only to the current frame.
8861 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
8862 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
8863 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
8865 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
8866 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
8867 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
8868 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
8869 instead of just the file you are editing.
8873 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
8874 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
8875 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
8876 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
8877 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
8880 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
8881 knows which kind of label is needed.
8883 C-c ) reftex-reference
8884 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
8885 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
8887 C-c [ reftex-citation
8888 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
8889 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
8891 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
8892 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
8895 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
8896 can quickly jump to every section.
8898 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
8899 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
8900 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
8901 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
8902 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
8904 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8906 *** Info documentation is now available.
8908 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
8909 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
8911 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
8912 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
8914 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
8915 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
8917 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
8918 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
8919 appropriate functions.
8921 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
8922 entries. They are bound by default to C-M-l and C-M-h.
8924 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
8927 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
8928 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
8930 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
8933 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
8934 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
8935 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
8937 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
8938 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
8939 prefixed with `ALT'.
8941 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
8942 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
8943 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
8946 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
8947 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
8948 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
8950 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
8951 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
8953 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
8954 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
8955 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
8957 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
8959 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
8961 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
8964 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
8965 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
8968 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
8971 *** Added support for imenu.
8973 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
8974 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
8975 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
8976 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
8978 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
8979 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
8981 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
8983 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
8985 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
8986 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
8987 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
8990 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
8991 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
8993 ** browse-url changes
8995 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
8996 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
8997 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
8998 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
8999 customization variables.
9001 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
9003 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
9004 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
9005 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
9009 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
9010 pops up the Info file for this command.
9012 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
9013 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
9014 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
9017 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
9018 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
9019 files in the same directory.
9021 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
9022 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
9023 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
9027 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
9028 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
9030 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
9031 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
9032 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
9033 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
9034 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
9035 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
9036 color when Viper is in insert state.
9037 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
9038 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
9039 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
9043 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
9044 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
9045 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
9046 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
9047 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
9049 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
9051 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
9052 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
9054 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
9055 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
9056 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
9058 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
9059 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
9060 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
9061 methods and protocols.
9063 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
9064 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
9065 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
9068 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
9069 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
9070 at least M times and as many as N times.
9072 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
9073 in files has changed slightly.
9075 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
9076 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
9077 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
9078 with old time-stamp-format values.
9080 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
9081 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
9082 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
9085 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
9086 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
9087 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
9088 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
9089 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
9090 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
9092 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
9093 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
9094 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
9096 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
9097 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
9098 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
9099 recommended now will continue to work then.
9101 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
9104 ** There are some additional major modes:
9106 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
9107 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
9108 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
9110 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
9111 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
9114 ** New Lisp packages include:
9116 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
9118 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
9119 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
9121 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
9123 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
9126 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
9127 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
9130 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
9131 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
9132 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
9133 strings or comments.
9135 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
9136 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
9137 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
9138 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
9141 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
9142 can visit them by short forms of their names.
9144 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
9145 Emacs Lisp function at point.
9147 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
9149 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
9150 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
9152 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
9154 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
9156 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
9158 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
9159 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
9161 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
9162 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
9163 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
9164 original place after inserting the copy.
9166 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
9169 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
9170 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
9171 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
9173 Enable mouse-drag with:
9174 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
9176 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
9178 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
9179 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
9181 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
9182 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
9186 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
9187 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
9188 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
9189 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
9190 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
9191 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
9192 instance) and vice versa.
9194 To use this package load it using
9195 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
9196 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
9197 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
9198 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
9199 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
9200 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
9202 *** Interface to ph.
9204 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
9206 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
9207 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
9210 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
9212 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
9213 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
9214 while the real cursor does not move.
9216 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
9217 for visiting your favorite web sites.
9219 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
9220 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
9224 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
9225 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
9226 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
9227 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
9229 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
9231 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
9233 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
9235 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
9236 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
9237 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
9238 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
9239 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
9241 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
9242 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
9243 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
9244 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
9245 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
9246 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
9248 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
9250 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
9251 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
9252 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
9253 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
9255 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
9256 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
9258 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
9259 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
9262 ** Basic Lisp changes
9264 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
9265 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
9267 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
9268 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
9271 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
9273 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
9275 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
9276 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
9278 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
9279 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
9282 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
9284 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
9286 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
9288 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
9289 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
9290 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
9293 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
9294 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
9295 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
9297 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
9298 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
9299 adding one of these suffixes.
9301 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
9302 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
9303 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
9305 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
9306 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
9308 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
9310 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
9311 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
9313 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
9314 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
9316 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
9318 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
9319 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
9321 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
9322 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
9323 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
9324 works using `save-current-buffer'.
9326 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
9327 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
9330 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
9331 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
9332 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
9335 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
9336 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
9339 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
9341 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
9342 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
9343 Then it returns that string.
9345 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
9347 (with-output-to-string
9348 (princ "The buffer is ")
9349 (princ (buffer-name)))
9351 returns "The buffer is foo".
9353 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
9356 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
9357 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
9358 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
9360 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
9361 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
9363 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
9364 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
9365 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
9366 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
9367 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
9368 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
9370 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
9371 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
9372 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
9375 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
9376 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
9377 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
9378 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
9379 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
9381 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
9382 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
9383 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
9384 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
9386 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
9387 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
9389 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
9391 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
9392 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
9393 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
9394 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
9397 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
9398 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
9401 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
9403 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
9404 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
9405 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
9406 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
9407 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
9409 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
9411 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
9412 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
9413 more than the number of characters.
9415 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
9416 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
9417 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
9418 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
9419 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
9420 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
9422 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
9423 and returns a string containing those characters.
9425 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
9426 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
9427 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
9428 character, sref signals an error.
9430 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
9431 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
9432 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
9434 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
9435 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
9436 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
9438 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
9439 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
9440 to a vector of the characters in it.
9442 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
9443 of a string. You call it as follows:
9445 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
9447 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
9448 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
9449 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
9450 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
9451 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
9453 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
9454 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
9456 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
9457 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
9459 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
9460 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
9461 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
9462 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
9464 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
9466 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
9468 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
9469 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
9470 are not included in the resulting value.
9472 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
9473 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
9474 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
9475 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
9477 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
9478 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
9479 character extends across that column), then the padding character
9480 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
9481 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
9482 column START-COLUMN.
9484 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
9485 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
9486 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
9487 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
9488 changed text, before the change.
9490 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
9491 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
9492 one character set for each script, not for each language.
9494 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
9496 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
9498 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
9499 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
9501 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
9502 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
9503 which identify the character within that character set.
9505 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
9506 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
9507 opposite of split-char.
9509 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
9510 of all the characters between BEG and END.
9512 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
9513 of all the characters in a string.
9515 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
9516 and specifying coding systems.
9518 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
9519 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
9520 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
9521 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
9522 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
9523 as what to do about code conversion.)
9525 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
9526 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
9528 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
9529 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
9530 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
9532 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
9533 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
9534 to match against a file name.
9536 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
9537 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
9538 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
9539 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
9540 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
9541 specifies the coding system for encoding.
9543 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
9544 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
9546 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
9547 the coding system to use for network sockets.
9549 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
9550 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
9551 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
9554 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
9555 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
9556 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
9557 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
9558 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
9559 specifies the coding system for encoding.
9561 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
9562 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
9564 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
9565 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
9566 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
9567 start the subprocess.
9569 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
9570 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
9571 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
9572 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
9573 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
9575 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
9576 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
9579 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
9580 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
9581 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
9582 connection permanently or until overridden.
9584 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
9585 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
9586 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
9587 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
9588 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
9589 system for one operation at a time.
9591 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
9592 files, subprocesses or network connections.
9594 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
9595 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
9596 The value is a cons cell,
9597 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
9598 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
9599 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
9600 input to the subprocess.
9602 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
9603 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
9605 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
9606 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
9607 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
9609 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
9610 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
9611 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
9612 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
9615 Thus, instead of writing
9617 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
9618 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
9620 you would now write this:
9622 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
9623 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
9627 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
9628 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
9629 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
9630 for a description of them.
9632 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
9633 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
9635 (defgroup ispell nil
9636 "Spell checking using Ispell."
9639 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
9640 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
9641 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
9642 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
9643 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
9645 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
9646 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
9647 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
9648 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
9649 first-level subgroups.
9651 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
9653 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
9654 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
9658 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
9659 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
9660 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
9661 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
9662 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
9663 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
9665 ** Text property changes
9667 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
9670 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
9671 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
9672 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
9673 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
9674 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
9676 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
9677 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
9678 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
9679 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
9681 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
9682 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
9683 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
9685 ** Changes in invisibility features
9687 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
9688 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
9689 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
9690 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
9691 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
9692 make the overlay visible.
9694 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
9695 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
9696 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
9697 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
9698 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
9699 t when it should hide it.
9701 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
9703 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
9704 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
9705 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
9706 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
9707 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
9708 Here is an example of how to do this:
9710 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
9711 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9712 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
9713 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9716 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
9719 ;; When done with the overlays:
9720 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
9722 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
9724 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
9726 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
9727 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
9728 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
9729 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
9731 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
9732 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
9733 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
9735 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
9736 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
9738 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
9739 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
9741 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
9742 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
9743 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
9745 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
9746 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
9747 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
9748 determine the syntax type of the character.
9750 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
9751 of the current buffer.
9753 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
9754 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
9755 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
9757 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
9758 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
9759 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
9760 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
9761 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
9763 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
9766 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
9767 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
9768 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
9770 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
9771 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
9772 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
9773 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
9774 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
9776 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
9777 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
9778 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
9780 ** Changes in face features
9782 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
9783 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
9785 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
9786 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
9788 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
9789 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
9791 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
9792 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
9794 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
9795 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
9796 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
9797 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
9800 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
9801 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
9803 ** Changes in file-handling functions
9805 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
9806 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
9807 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
9808 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
9810 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
9813 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
9814 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
9816 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
9817 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
9819 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
9820 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
9822 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
9823 character code conversion as well as other things.
9825 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
9826 (formerly it did not).
9828 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
9829 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
9831 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
9832 instead of constant strings.
9834 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
9835 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
9836 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
9838 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
9839 in the same way as before.
9841 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
9842 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
9843 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
9845 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
9846 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
9847 else, and returns nil.
9849 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
9850 directory cannot be listed.
9852 ** Changes in minibuffer input
9854 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
9855 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
9856 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
9857 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
9860 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
9861 It is available through the history command M-n.
9863 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
9864 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
9865 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
9866 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
9867 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
9869 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
9870 argument in this way.
9872 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
9873 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
9874 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
9876 ** Echo area features
9878 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
9879 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
9880 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
9881 after the echo area is cleared.
9883 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
9884 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
9886 ** Keyboard input features
9888 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
9889 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
9891 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
9892 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
9895 ** Frame-related changes
9897 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
9898 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
9899 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
9901 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
9902 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
9903 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
9905 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
9906 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
9907 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
9908 in the selected frame.
9910 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
9911 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
9912 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
9914 ** X Windows features
9916 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
9917 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
9918 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
9920 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
9921 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
9923 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
9924 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
9925 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
9927 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
9928 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
9930 ** Subprocess features
9932 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
9933 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
9936 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
9937 and returns the output from the command as a string.
9939 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
9940 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
9942 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
9943 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
9945 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
9946 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
9947 goes after the other menu items.
9949 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
9950 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
9951 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
9954 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
9955 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
9957 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
9958 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
9961 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
9962 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
9963 but its hook is still run.
9965 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
9966 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
9968 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
9969 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
9970 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
9972 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
9973 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
9974 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
9977 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
9978 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
9980 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
9981 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
9982 functions like display-time.
9984 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
9985 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
9987 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
9988 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
9989 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
9991 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
9992 if there is an error in compilation.
9994 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
9995 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
9996 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
9997 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
9999 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
10000 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
10001 the *scratch* buffer.
10003 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
10004 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
10005 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
10006 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
10008 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
10009 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
10010 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
10012 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
10013 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
10014 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
10015 and compose-mail-other-frame.
10017 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
10018 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
10019 full name of the specified user will be returned.
10021 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
10022 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
10023 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
10024 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
10025 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
10028 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
10029 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
10030 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
10031 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
10033 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
10034 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
10035 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
10036 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
10038 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
10040 ** imenu.el changes.
10042 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
10043 item from menu created by imenu.
10045 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
10046 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
10047 select one of those items.
10049 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
10051 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
10052 Copyright information:
10054 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
10056 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
10057 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
10058 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
10059 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
10061 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
10062 of this document, or of portions of it,
10063 under the above conditions, provided also that they
10064 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
10068 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"