Documented emacsclient changes.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17 Temporary note:
18 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
19 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
20 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
21 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
22
23 \f
24 * About external Lisp packages
25
26 \f
27 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
28
29 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
30 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
31 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
32
33 ** New font code.
34 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
35 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
36
37 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
38 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
39
40 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
41 where Emacs is running).
42
43 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
44
45 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
46 OpenType fonts.
47
48 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
49
50 ** Changes to image support
51 ---
52 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
53 a GIF library.
54 +++
55 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
56
57 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
58
59 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
60 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
61 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
62
63 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
64 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
65 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
66 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
67
68 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
69 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
70
71 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
72 bindings for Emacs.
73
74 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
75 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
76 ---
77 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
78 ---
79 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
80 ---
81 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
82
83 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
84 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
85 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
86
87 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
88
89 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
90 executable format.
91
92 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
93
94 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
95
96 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
97
98 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
99
100 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
101 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
102
103 ---
104 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
105 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
106 you need control over which C compiler is used.
107
108 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
109
110 ---
111 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
112 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
113 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
114 \f
115 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
116
117 ** Improved X Window System support
118 +++
119 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
120 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
121 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
122 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
123 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
124
125 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
126 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
127 +++
128 **** Emacsclient can now open new terminal frames.
129 Now, the default behavior is to open a new Emacs frame by default.
130 Use the -c option to get the old behavior of opening files in the
131 currently selected Emacs frame.
132 +++
133 *** Emacs can now start in background, as a daemon when using the
134 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
135 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
136 terminal frames using emacsclient.
137
138 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
139 remote display.
140
141 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
142 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
143 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
144 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
145 for details about XEmbed.
146
147 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
148 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
149 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
150 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, or on
151 Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
152
153 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
154 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
155 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
156 active frame and INACTIVE is the opactity of non-active frames.
157
158 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
159 opacity; the default is 20.
160
161 ** Internationalization changes
162
163 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
164 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
165
166 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
167 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs'. This encoding is backwards
168 compatible with Unicode's UTF-8 encoding. The internal encoding
169 previously used by Emacs, `emacs-mule', is still available.
170
171 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
172 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
173 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
174 or 22 are loaded correctly as emacs-mule (whether or not they contain
175 multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it may be
176 worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be shared
177 with older Emacsen.
178
179 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
180
181 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
182 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
183 as tables of unicodes.
184
185 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
186 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
187
188 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
189 characters for display.
190
191 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
192 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
193 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
194
195 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
196 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
197
198 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
199 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
200 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
201
202 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
203 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
204 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
205 and others.
206
207 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
208 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
209 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
210 the mode-line mouse menu.
211
212 ** Menu Bar changes
213 ---
214 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
215 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
216 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
217 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
218 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
219 ---
220 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
221 "Save Options" item is used.
222
223 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
224 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
225 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
226 ---
227 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
228 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
229 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
230 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
231
232 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
233 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
234 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
235
236 ** Mode-line changes
237 +++
238 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
239 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
240 ---
241 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
242 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
243
244 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
245 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
246 ---
247 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
248 +++
249 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
250 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
251
252 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
253 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
254 and directories will then be sent to the Recyle Bin on Windows, and
255 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
256
257 +++
258 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
259 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-settings.el for directory-local
260 variables. For more information, see `set-directory-project' and
261 `define-project-bindings'.
262
263 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
264 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
265 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
266 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
267
268 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
269
270 \f
271 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
272
273 +++
274 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
275 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
276 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
277 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
278 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
279
280 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
281 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
282 file or directory.
283
284 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
285 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
286 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
287 following arguments.
288
289 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
290
291 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
292 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
293 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
294 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
295 documented.)
296 \f
297 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
298
299 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
300 on the regexp command prefix map.
301
302 +++
303 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
304 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
305 the history list.
306
307 +++
308 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
309 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
310 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
311 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
312 toggle word search.
313
314 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound
315 from `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the
316 global prefix map `M-o' intended for such formatting commands.
317
318 ---
319 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
320 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
321 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
322 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
323 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
324 identical.
325
326 \f
327 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
328
329 +++
330 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
331 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
332 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
333 behavior (motion by logical lines based on buffer contents alone).
334
335 +++
336 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
337 invokes `suspend-frame'. This change is for compatibility with the
338 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
339
340 ** Mark changes
341 +++
342 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
343 +++
344 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
345 +++
346 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
347 activating it.
348 +++
349 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
350 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
351 +++
352 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
353 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
354 word at point.
355 +++
356 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
357 region is active.
358
359 *** `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty active region
360 in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on that empty
361 region.
362
363 ** Temporarily active regions
364 +++
365 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
366 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
367 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
368 region, similar to mouse-selection.
369 +++
370 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
371 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
372 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
373 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
374 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
375 buffer).
376
377 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
378 +++
379 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
380 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
381 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
382 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
383 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
384 searching minibuffer completion items.
385 ---
386 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
387
388 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
389 name of the current buffer.
390
391 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
392 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
393 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
394 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
395 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
396
397 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
398 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
399 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
400 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
401 ---
402 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
403 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
404 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
405 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
406 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
407 +++
408 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
409 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
410 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
411 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
412 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
413 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
414 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
415
416 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
417 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
418
419 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
420 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
421 ---
422 *** `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your favorite
423 completion style.
424 ---
425 *** The default completion styles include a form of partial-completion.
426 ---
427 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
428 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
429 +++
430 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
431 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
432 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
433
434 ** Face changes
435 +++
436 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
437 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
438 via face remapping (see below).
439
440 *** FIXME face-remap
441
442 ** Primary selection changes
443 +++
444 *** If `select-active-regions' is t, setting the mark automatically
445 makes the new region into the primary selection (for interaction with
446 other window applications). If you enable this, you might want to
447 bind `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
448 +++
449 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
450 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
451
452 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
453 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
454 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
455 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
456 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
457 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
458 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
459 New Modes and Packages, below.
460
461 ** Window management changes
462
463 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
464 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
465 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
466
467 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
468 vertically and horizontally.
469
470 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
471 is on a different frame.
472
473 *** New functions window-parameters, window-parameter, set-window-parameter.
474
475 ** Miscellaneous changes:
476 +++
477 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
478 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
479 successive invokations.
480
481 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
482 +++
483 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
484 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
485 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
486 +++
487 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
488 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
489 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
490
491 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
492 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
493 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
494 run processes remotely.
495 +++
496 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
497 matches a regexp.
498
499 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
500 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
501
502 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
503 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
504 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number.
505 +++
506 *** If you set find-file-confirm-nonexistent-file to t, then C-x C-f
507 requires confirmation before opening a non-existent file.
508
509 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
510 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
511 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
512
513 \f
514 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
515
516 ** FIXME add details of new packages imported from lisp/gnus.
517 [Maybe some information from doc/misc/gnus-coding.texi can be reused]
518
519 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
520 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
521 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
522
523 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
524
525 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
526
527 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
528 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
529 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
530
531 ** Doc View mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
532 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
533 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
534
535 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
536
537 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
538 the postscript file.
539
540 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
541 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
542 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
543 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
544
545 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
546 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
547
548 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
549 current buffer.
550
551 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
552 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
553 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
554 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
555 Maildir/MH setups.
556
557 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
558
559 ** nXML Mode
560 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
561 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
562 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
563
564 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
565 any invalid parts of your document.
566
567 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
568 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
569 allowed by the schema in that context.
570
571 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on processes.
572 Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the current
573 processes (using ps(1)). You can use the normal Emacs commands to
574 move around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on
575 the processes listed.
576
577 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
578 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
579 Manual.
580
581 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing ReSTructured-Text files.
582
583 +++
584 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
585 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
586 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
587 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
588 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
589 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
590
591 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
592 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
593 requires D-Bus for communication.
594
595 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
596 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
597 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
598 which have installed this software.
599
600 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
601 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
602 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
603 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
604 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
605 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
606 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
607 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
608 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
609
610 \f
611 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
612
613 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
614 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
615 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
616 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
617 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
618 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
619 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
620 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
621 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
622 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
623 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
624 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
625 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
626
627 ** Apropos
628 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
629 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
630
631 +++
632 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
633 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
634 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
635
636 ** BibTeX mode
637
638 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
639
640 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
641 `string', disabled by default.
642
643 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
644 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
645
646 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
647
648 ** Calendar and diary
649
650 +++
651 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
652 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
653 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
654 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
655
656 +++
657 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
658 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
659 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
660 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
661 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
662 using the new names.
663
664 +++
665 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
666 See the variables:
667 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
668 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
669
670 +++
671 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
672 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
673
674 +++
675 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
676 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
677
678 ---
679 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
680 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
681
682 ** Change Log mode
683
684 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
685 associated with the current log entry.
686
687 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
688 source code associated with a log entry.
689
690 ** Compile and grep modes
691
692 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
693 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
694 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
695
696 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
697 the first error encountered during compilations.
698
699 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
700 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
701 C++ sources and headers.
702
703 ** Copyright
704
705 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
706 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
707 considered for update.
708
709 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
710 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
711
712 ** Custom
713 +++
714 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
715 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
716
717 ** Diff mode
718 +++
719 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
720 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
721 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
722 +++
723 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
724 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
725 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
726 +++
727 *** The new function `diff-show-trailing-whitespaces' shows
728 trailing whitespace problems in the modified lines of a diff buffer.
729
730 ** Dired
731
732 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
733 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
734 saving changes.
735
736 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
737 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
738 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
739 Command*'.
740
741 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
742 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is non-nil, then even
743 ordinary Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names
744 in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or off
745 by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
746
747 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
748 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
749 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
750
751 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
752 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
753 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
754 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
755 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
756 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
757 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
758
759 ** Fortran
760 +++
761 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
762 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
763
764 +++
765 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
766 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
767
768 +++
769 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
770
771 ** Gnus
772
773 *** The Gnus package has been updated
774 There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
775 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
776
777 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
778 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
779 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
780 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
781
782 *** Password are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
783 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
784 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
785 authentication respectively.
786
787 ** Help mode
788 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
789 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
790
791 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
792 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
793
794 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits to specify new
795 position of point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
796
797 ** Isearch
798 +++
799 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
800 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
801 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
802 while Isearch is active.
803
804 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
805 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
806 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
807 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
808 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
809 +++
810 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
811 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
812 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
813 ---
814 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
815 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
816 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
817 if there is one (e.g. go from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
818 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
819
820 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
821 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
822 `M-s a M-C-s'.
823 +++
824 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
825 `isearch-fail' face.
826
827 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
828 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
829 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
830 documentation of Isearch mode. All the rest Help commands exit Isearch mode
831 and execute their global definitions.
832 +++
833 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
834 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
835
836 +++
837 ** MH-E
838
839 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.1. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
840
841 ** Python
842 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
843 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
844
845 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
846 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
847 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
848 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
849
850 ** Recentf
851
852 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
853 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
854 corresponding remote host.
855
856 ** TeX modes
857
858 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
859 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
860 by escaped parens.
861
862 ** T-mouse Mode
863 ---
864 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
865 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
866 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
867 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
868 minibuffer.
869
870 +++
871 ** Tramp
872
873 *** New connection methods.
874 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
875 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
876 "tunnel" and "socks".
877
878 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
879 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead of, multi hops
880 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
881
882 *** More default settings.
883 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
884 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
885
886 *** Connection information is cached.
887 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
888 connections are kept persistent in a file. The name of this file is
889 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
890
891 *** Control of remote processes.
892 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
893 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
894
895 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
896 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
897 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
898
899 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
900 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
901 necessary.
902
903 ** VC and related modes
904 +++
905 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
906 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
907 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
908 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
909 a single changeset.
910 +++
911 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
912 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
913 directory or a set of files/directories.
914 +++
915 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
916 +++
917 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
918 +++
919 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
920 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
921 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
922 line" menu entry does the same thing.
923 +++
924 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
925 +++
926 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
927 the current line.
928 ---
929 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
930 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
931 active.
932 +++
933 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
934 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
935 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
936 +++
937 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
938 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
939 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
940 +++
941 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
942
943 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
944 +++
945 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of maintainer able
946 to update it to the new VC.
947
948 ** Miscellaneous
949
950 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
951 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
952 on the corresponding remote system.
953
954 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
955 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
956
957 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
958 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
959 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
960
961 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
962 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
963
964 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
965 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
966
967 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
968
969 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
970 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
971
972 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
973 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
974
975 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
976
977 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
978 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
979
980 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
981 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
982
983 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
984
985 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
986
987 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
988 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
989 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
990
991 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
992
993 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
994 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
995 several time zones.
996
997 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
998 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
999 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1000 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1001
1002 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1003 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1004
1005 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1006 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1007
1008 \f
1009 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1010
1011 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1012 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1013 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1014 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1015 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1016
1017 ---
1018 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1019 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1020 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1021 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1022 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1023
1024 ---
1025 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1026 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1027 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1028
1029 ---
1030 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1031 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1032 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1033 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1034 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1035
1036 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1037 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1038 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1039 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1040 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1041
1042 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1043 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1044 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1045 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1046 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1047 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1048
1049 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1050 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1051 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1052 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1053 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1054 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1055 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1056 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1057 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1058
1059 \f
1060 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1061
1062 +++
1063 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1064
1065 +++
1066 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1067 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1068
1069 +++
1070 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1071 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1072 that range have the same value.
1073
1074 ** Process changes
1075 +++
1076 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1077 +++
1078 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1079 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1080 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1081 obsolete.
1082
1083 ---
1084 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1085 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1086 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1087 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1088 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1089 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1090 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1091
1092 +++
1093 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1094 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1095
1096 ** Internationalization changes
1097
1098 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1099
1100 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1101 have been removed.
1102
1103 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1104 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1105 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1106
1107 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1108 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1109 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1110
1111 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1112 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1113
1114 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1115 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1116
1117 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1118 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1119
1120 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1121 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1122
1123 \f
1124 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1125
1126 ** New coding system alias `emacs-internal'.
1127
1128 +++
1129 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `system-process-attributes'
1130 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1131 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1132 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1133 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1134
1135 +++
1136 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1137 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1138
1139 +++
1140 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1141 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1142 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1143
1144 +++
1145 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1146 the selected frame.
1147
1148 +++
1149 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1150 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1151 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1152 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1153
1154 +++
1155 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1156
1157 +++
1158 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1159 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1160 strings on the kill ring.
1161
1162 +++
1163 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1164 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1165 like this:
1166
1167 (condition-case nil
1168 (foo bar)
1169 ((debug error) nil))
1170
1171 +++
1172 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1173
1174 +++
1175 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count
1176 given to `beginning-of-defun'.
1177
1178 +++
1179 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1180 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1181 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1182 remote connection has been established already.
1183
1184 +++
1185 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1186 undefined functions.
1187
1188 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1189
1190 +++
1191 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1192 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1193 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1194
1195 +++
1196 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1197 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1198 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1199
1200 +++
1201 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1202 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1203 interactive forms to subroutines.
1204
1205 ** Region changes
1206
1207 +++
1208 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
1209 an active region that they should operate on.
1210
1211 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
1212 enabled and there is an active region. This is NOT the best function
1213 to use to test whether a command should operate on the region instead
1214 of the usual behavior -- for that, use `use-region-p'.
1215
1216 +++
1217 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
1218 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
1219 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
1220 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
1221 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
1222
1223 ** Emacs session information
1224
1225 +++
1226 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
1227 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
1228
1229 +++
1230 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
1231
1232 +++
1233 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
1234 Emacs initialization.
1235
1236 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
1237
1238 +++
1239 *** New value nil for split-height-threshold inhibits vertical splitting
1240 unless there's no other window.
1241
1242 +++
1243 *** New option split-width-threshold controls horizontal splitting.
1244
1245 +++
1246 *** A window can be split horizontally even when it's not full-width.
1247
1248 +++
1249 *** New option split-window-preferred-function can be set to a function
1250 to override the default splitting mechanism of display-buffer.
1251
1252 +++
1253 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
1254 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
1255
1256 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1257 +++
1258 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
1259 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
1260 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
1261 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
1262 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
1263
1264 +++
1265 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
1266 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
1267 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
1268
1269 +++
1270 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
1271 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
1272
1273 ---
1274 *** `all-completions' may now return the base size in the last cdr.
1275 Since this means the returned list is not properly nil-terminated, this
1276 is an incompatible change and is thus enabled by the new variable
1277 completion-all-completions-with-base-size.
1278
1279 +++
1280 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts a new value
1281 `confirm-only'.
1282
1283 ** Search and replacement changes
1284 +++
1285 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
1286 +++
1287 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
1288 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
1289
1290 +++
1291 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
1292 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
1293 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
1294 argument is nil.
1295
1296 +++
1297 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
1298 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
1299 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
1300 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
1301 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
1302
1303 +++
1304 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
1305 for search related commands.
1306
1307 +++
1308 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
1309 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
1310
1311 ---
1312 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
1313 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
1314
1315 ---
1316 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
1317 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
1318 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
1319 unless it ends in whitespace.
1320
1321 ** File handling changes
1322
1323 +++
1324 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
1325 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
1326 +++
1327 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
1328 variables defined in the current buffer.
1329
1330 ** Process changes
1331 +++
1332 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
1333 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
1334 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
1335 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
1336 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
1337
1338 +++
1339 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
1340 returns its output as a list of lines.
1341
1342 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
1343
1344 The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF with no gap.
1345 Characters of code 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the same code points.
1346 Characters of code 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit bytes.
1347
1348 +++
1349 Generic characters no longer exist.
1350
1351 In buffers and strings, characters are represented by UTF-8 byte
1352 sequences in a multibyte buffer/string.
1353
1354 The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may belong
1355 to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
1356 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
1357
1358 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
1359 positional codes instead of just 2.
1360
1361 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
1362
1363 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
1364 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
1365
1366 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
1367 priorities of charsets.
1368
1369 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
1370 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
1371 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
1372 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
1373 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
1374 `titlecase'.
1375
1376 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
1377 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
1378 entries in that range of characters.
1379
1380 +++
1381 *** `translation-table-for-input' is now obsolete.
1382
1383 *** New functions:
1384
1385 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
1386 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
1387
1388 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
1389
1390 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
1391
1392 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
1393
1394 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
1395
1396 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
1397
1398 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
1399
1400 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
1401 a character code property.
1402
1403 *** New variables:
1404
1405 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
1406 search for a word boundary.
1407
1408 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
1409
1410 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
1411
1412 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
1413 property on printing a string.
1414
1415 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
1416
1417 ** Code conversion changes
1418
1419 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
1420 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
1421
1422 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
1423 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
1424 conversion should go.
1425
1426 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
1427 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
1428 of conversion.
1429
1430 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
1431
1432 *** New functions:
1433
1434 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
1435 coding system priority order.
1436
1437 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
1438 encodable by the specified coding systems.
1439
1440 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
1441
1442 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
1443 by a coding system.
1444
1445 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
1446 ordered by their priorities.
1447
1448 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
1449
1450 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
1451 It has three functionalities:
1452 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
1453 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
1454 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
1455 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
1456
1457 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
1458
1459 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
1460
1461 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
1462 as an input method.
1463
1464 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
1465 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
1466 character.
1467
1468 ** Changes related to the new font backend
1469
1470 Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource "FontBackend".
1471 For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
1472
1473 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
1474
1475 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
1476 available on your graphic device.
1477
1478 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
1479 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
1480 currently `x' and `xft'.
1481
1482 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
1483 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
1484 set the font.
1485
1486 *** New functions:
1487
1488 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
1489
1490 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
1491
1492 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
1493
1494 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
1495
1496 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
1497
1498 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
1499
1500 **** `font-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
1501
1502 **** `list-families' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
1503
1504 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
1505 entity, or font object.
1506
1507 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
1508
1509 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
1510
1511 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
1512 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
1513
1514 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
1515
1516 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
1517 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
1518 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
1519 takes a frame argument.
1520
1521 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
1522 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
1523
1524 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
1525 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
1526
1527 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
1528 session, and `make-frame-on-tty' works during a graphical session.
1529
1530 *** A new data type for terminals with functions: `get-device-terminal',
1531 `terminal-parameters', `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter'.
1532
1533 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
1534 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
1535 which is not used directly any more.
1536
1537 *** New hooks:
1538
1539 +++
1540 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
1541 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
1542 file-local variables.
1543
1544 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
1545 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
1546 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
1547 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
1548
1549 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
1550 deleting a terminal.
1551
1552 *** New functions:
1553
1554 **** `environment'
1555
1556 **** `make-frame-on-tty' creates a new frame on another tty device.
1557
1558 **** `delete-tty'
1559
1560 **** `suspend-tty'
1561
1562 **** `resume-tty'.
1563
1564 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
1565
1566 ** Redisplay changes
1567
1568 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
1569 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
1570
1571 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
1572 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
1573 Convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer position
1574 (e.g. in before/after-strings).
1575
1576 +++
1577 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
1578
1579 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
1580 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
1581 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
1582 times the default column width.
1583
1584 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
1585
1586 ** Miscellaneous new functions
1587
1588 +++
1589 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
1590 string of days, hours, etc.
1591
1592 +++
1593 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
1594
1595 +++
1596 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
1597 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
1598
1599 +++
1600 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
1601 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
1602
1603 +++
1604 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
1605
1606 +++
1607 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
1608 attributes of a given face.
1609
1610 +++
1611 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
1612 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
1613 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
1614
1615 +++
1616 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
1617 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
1618 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
1619 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
1620
1621 +++
1622 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
1623 specification.
1624
1625 +++
1626 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
1627 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
1628 the match data.
1629
1630 +++
1631 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
1632 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
1633 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
1634
1635 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
1636 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
1637 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
1638
1639 ** Miscellaneous new variables
1640
1641 +++
1642 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
1643 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
1644
1645 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
1646 marker used for window-point.
1647
1648 ---
1649 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
1650 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
1651 relevant data.
1652
1653 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
1654 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
1655
1656 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
1657 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
1658
1659 \f
1660 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
1661
1662 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
1663
1664 +++
1665 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
1666 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
1667
1668 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
1669
1670 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
1671 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
1672 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
1673 of multiple buffers. Top-level commands `multi-isearch-buffers',
1674 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
1675 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
1676 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
1677
1678 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
1679 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
1680
1681 \f
1682 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1683 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1684
1685 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1686 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1687 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1688 (at your option) any later version.
1689
1690 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1691 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1692 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1693 GNU General Public License for more details.
1694
1695 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1696 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1697
1698 \f
1699 Local variables:
1700 mode: outline
1701 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
1702 end:
1703
1704 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2