1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 2001-03-15
2 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 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 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
11 See the INSTALL file for information on installing extra libraries and
12 fonts to take advantage of the new graphical features and extra
13 charsets in this release.
15 ** Support for GNU/Linux on IA64 machines has been added.
17 ** Support for LynxOS has been added.
19 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
20 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
22 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
23 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
26 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
27 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if these are available.
29 ** There is a new configure option `--disable-largefile' to omit
30 Unix-98-style support for large files if that is available.
32 ** You can build a 64-bit Emacs for SPARC/Solaris systems which
33 support 64-bit executables and also on Irix 6.5. This increases the
34 maximum buffer size. See etc/MACHINES for instructions. Changes to
35 build on other 64-bit systems should be straightforward modulo any
36 necessary changes to unexec.
38 ** Note that the MS-Windows port does not yet implement various of the
39 new display features described below.
41 ** This version can be built for the Macintosh, but does not implement
42 all of the new display features described below. The port currently
43 lacks unexec, asynchronous processes, and networking support. See the
44 "Emacs and the Mac OS" appendix in the Emacs manual, for the
45 description of aspects specific to the Mac.
48 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
50 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
52 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
53 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
54 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
55 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
58 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
60 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
61 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
62 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
63 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
66 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
67 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
68 under Lisp changes, below.
70 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
72 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
73 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
74 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
75 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
76 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
77 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
80 The command-line options `-fg COLOR', `-bg COLOR', and `-rv' are now
81 supported on character terminals.
83 ** New default font is Courier 12pt under X.
86 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
88 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
89 longer than one line, Emacs can resize the minibuffer window unless it
90 is on a frame of its own. You can control resizing and the maximum
91 minibuffer window size by setting the following variables:
93 - User option: max-mini-window-height
95 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
96 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
97 specifies a number of lines.
101 - User option: resize-mini-windows
103 How to resize mini-windows. If nil, don't resize. If t, always
104 resize to fit the size of the text. If `grow-only', let mini-windows
105 grow only, until they become empty, at which point they are shrunk
108 Default is `grow-only'.
112 Emacs now runs with the LessTif toolkit (see
113 <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will need version 0.92.26, or later.
115 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
117 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
118 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
121 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
123 Emacs now uses toolkit scroll bars if available. When configured for
124 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scroll bar. Otherwise, when
125 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
126 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
127 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
130 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
131 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
132 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
133 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
134 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
135 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
137 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
138 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
139 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
140 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
141 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
142 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
144 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
145 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
146 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
147 imake configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
148 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
151 ** Automatic Hscrolling
153 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
154 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
157 If a window is scrolled horizontally with set-window-hscroll, or
158 scroll-left/scroll-right (C-x <, C-x >), this serves as a lower bound
159 for automatic horizontal scrolling. Automatic scrolling will scroll
160 the text more to the left if necessary, but won't scroll the text more
161 to the right than the column set with set-window-hscroll etc.
166 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
167 of how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level
168 changes. Tool-bar global minor mode controls whether or not it is
169 displayed and is on by default. The appearance of the bar is improved
170 if Emacs has been built with XPM image support. Otherwise monochrome
173 To make the tool bar more useful, we need contributions of extra icons
174 for specific modes (with copyright assignments). Contributions would
175 also be useful to touch up some of the PBM icons manually.
180 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
181 mouse position. The Lisp package `tooltip' implements them. You can
182 turn them off via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
184 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
185 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
186 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
187 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
190 ** When using a windowing terminal, each Emacs window now has a cursor
191 of its own. By default, when a window is selected, the cursor is
192 solid; otherwise, it is hollow. The user-option
193 `cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to display the
194 cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is shown, if
195 non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown.
197 ** Fringes to the left and right of windows are used to display
198 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
199 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
200 customizing face `fringe'.
202 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default.
203 You can change its appearance by modifying the face `mode-line'.
204 In particular, setting the `:box' attribute to nil turns off the 3D
205 appearance of the mode line. (The 3D appearance makes the mode line
206 occupy more space, and thus might cause the first or the last line of
207 the window to be partially obscured.)
209 The variable `mode-line-inverse-video', which was used in older
210 versions of emacs to make the mode-line stand out, now defaults to nil,
211 and its use is deprecated.
214 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
216 Different parts of the mode line have been made mouse-sensitive on all
217 systems which support the mouse. Moving the mouse to a
218 mouse-sensitive part in the mode line changes the appearance of the
219 mouse pointer to an arrow, and help about available mouse actions is
220 displayed either in the echo area, or in the tooltip window if you
223 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
225 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
228 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
229 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
231 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
233 - Mouse-2 on the read-only or modified status in the mode line (`%' or
234 `*') toggles the status.
236 - Mouse-3 on the mode name displays a minor-mode menu.
241 Emacs can optionally display an hourglass pointer under X. You can
242 turn the display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
247 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
248 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
249 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
253 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
255 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
256 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
257 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
260 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
261 have to do anything to activate it.
264 ** The default for user-option `next-line-add-newlines' has been
265 changed to nil, i.e. C-n will no longer add newlines at the end of a
268 ** The <home> and <end> keys now move to the beginning or end of the
269 current line, respectively. C-<home> and C-<end> move to the
270 beginning and end of the buffer.
272 ** Emacs now checks for recursive loads of Lisp files. If the
273 recursion depth exceeds `recursive-load-depth-limit', an error is
276 ** When an error is signaled during the loading of the user's init
277 file, Emacs now pops up the *Messages* buffer.
280 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
281 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
284 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
285 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
288 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
290 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
291 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
292 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
294 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
295 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
296 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
298 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
302 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
304 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
305 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
306 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
307 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
308 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
312 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
313 all frames except the selected one.
315 ** The new user-option `confirm-kill-emacs' can be customized to
316 let Emacs ask for confirmation before exiting.
319 ** Highlighting of mouse-sensitive regions is now supported in the
320 MS-DOS version of Emacs.
322 ** The header line in an Info buffer is now displayed as an emacs
323 header-line (which is like a mode-line, but at the top of the window),
324 so that it remains visible even when the buffer has been scrolled.
325 This behavior may be disabled by customizing the option
326 `Info-use-header-line'.
329 ** The recommended way of using Iswitchb is via the new global minor
330 mode `iswitchb-mode'.
333 ** Just loading the msb package doesn't switch on Msb mode anymore.
334 If you have `(require 'msb)' in your .emacs, please replace it with
337 ** Polish, Czech, German, and French translations of Emacs' reference card
338 have been added. They are named `pl-refcard.tex', `cs-refcard.tex',
339 `de-refcard.tex' and `fr-refcard.tex'. Postscript files are included.
341 ** An `Emacs Survival Guide', etc/survival.tex, is available.
343 ** A reference card for Dired has been added. Its name is
344 `dired-ref.tex'. A French translation is available in
348 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
349 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
350 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
351 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
353 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
354 a version-dependent component.
356 ** The new user-option `normal-erase-is-backspace' can be set to
357 determine the effect of the Delete and Backspace function keys.
359 On window systems, the default value of this option is chosen
360 according to the keyboard used. If the keyboard has both a Backspace
361 key and a Delete key, and both are mapped to their usual meanings, the
362 option's default value is set to t, so that Backspace can be used to
363 delete backward, and Delete can be used to delete forward. On
364 keyboards which either have only one key (usually labeled DEL), or two
365 keys DEL and BS which produce the same effect, the option's value is
366 set to nil, and these keys delete backward.
368 If not running under a window system, setting this option accomplishes
369 a similar effect by mapping C-h, which is usually generated by the
370 Backspace key, to DEL, and by mapping DEL to C-d via
371 `keyboard-translate'. The former functionality of C-h is available on
372 the F1 key. You should probably not use this setting on a text-only
373 terminal if you don't have both Backspace, Delete and F1 keys.
375 Programmatically, you can call function normal-erase-is-backspace-mode
376 to toggle the behavior of the Delete and Backspace keys.
379 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
380 point in a pop-up window.
383 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
384 under XFree86. To enable this, use the `mouse-wheel-mode' command, or
385 customize the variable `mouse-wheel-mode'.
387 The variables `mouse-wheel-follow-mouse' and `mouse-wheel-scroll-amount'
388 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
391 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
392 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
393 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
394 You can customize `auto-save-list-file-prefix' to change this location.
397 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
399 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
400 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
403 ** The environment variable `EMACSLOCKDIR' is no longer used on MS-Windows.
404 This environment variable was used when creating lock files. Emacs on
405 MS-Windows does not use this variable anymore. This change was made
406 before Emacs 21.1, but wasn't documented until now.
408 ** Flyspell mode has various new options. See the `flyspell' Custom
411 ** The user option `backward-delete-char-untabify-method' controls the
412 behavior of `backward-delete-char-untabify'. The following values
415 `untabify' -- turn a tab to many spaces, then delete one space;
416 `hungry' -- delete all whitespace, both tabs and spaces;
417 `all' -- delete all whitespace, including tabs, spaces and newlines;
418 nil -- just delete one character.
420 Default value is `untabify'.
422 [This change was made in Emacs 20.3 but not mentioned then.]
424 ** In Cperl mode `cperl-invalid-face' should now be a normal face
425 symbol, not double-quoted.
427 ** Some packages are declared obsolete, to be removed in a future
428 version. They are: auto-show, c-mode, hilit19, hscroll, ooutline,
429 rnews, rnewspost. Their implementations have been moved to
433 ** The new Custom option `keyboard-coding-system' specifies a coding
434 system for keyboard input.
437 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
438 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
441 ** The new command `msdos-set-mouse-buttons' forces Emacs to behave
442 as if the mouse had a specified number of buttons. This comes handy
443 with mice that don't report their number of buttons correctly. One
444 example is the wheeled mice, which report 3 buttons, but clicks on the
445 middle button are not passed to the MS-DOS version of Emacs.
447 ** The new command M-x delete-trailing-whitespace RET will delete the
448 trailing whitespace within the current restriction. You can also add
449 this function to `write-file-hooks' or `local-write-file-hooks'.
451 ** When visiting a file with M-x find-file-literally, no newlines will
452 be added to the end of the buffer even if `require-final-newline' is
455 ** auto-compression mode is no longer enabled just by loading jka-compr.el.
456 To control it, set `auto-compression-mode' via Custom or use the
457 `auto-compression-mode' command.
459 ** `browse-url-gnome-moz' is a new option for
460 `browse-url-browser-function', invoking Mozilla in GNOME, and
461 `browse-url-kde' can be chosen for invoking the KDE browser.
463 ** The user-option `browse-url-new-window-p' has been renamed to
464 `browse-url-new-window-flag'.
467 ** The functions `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many' now
468 operate on the active region in Transient Mark mode.
471 ** `gnus-user-agent' is a new possibility for `mail-user-agent'. It
472 is like `message-user-agent', but with all the Gnus paraphernalia.
477 The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in
478 four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment,
479 internationalization and mail-fetching.
481 *** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the
482 many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone.
484 If you used procmail like in
486 (setq nnmail-use-procmail t)
487 (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail)
488 (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/")
489 (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in")
491 this now has changed to
494 '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/"
497 More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods ->
498 Getting Mail -> Mail Sources
500 *** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of
501 Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details.
502 Separate MIME packages like RMIME, mime-compose etc., will probably no
503 longer work; remove them and use the native facilities.
505 The FLIM/SEMI package still works with Emacs 21, but if you want to
506 use the native facilities, you must remove any mailcap.el[c] that was
507 installed by FLIM/SEMI version 1.13 or earlier.
509 *** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many
510 parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. There
511 are built-in facilities equivalent to those of gnus-mule.el, which is
512 now just a compatibility layer.
514 *** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be
515 called to position point.
517 *** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in
518 summary buffers and NOV files.
520 *** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number
521 of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added.
523 *** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now work in a
524 subtly different manner.
526 *** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive
527 and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with
528 ever-changing layouts.
530 *** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap.
532 *** There is image support of various kinds and some sound support.
535 ** When your terminal can't display characters from some of the ISO
536 8859 character sets but can display Latin-1, you can display
537 more-or-less mnemonic sequences of ASCII/Latin-1 characters instead of
538 empty boxes (under a window system) or question marks (not under a
539 window system). Customize the option `latin1-display' to turn this
542 ** The new user-option `find-file-suppress-same-file-warnings' can be
543 set to suppress warnings ``X and Y are the same file'' when visiting a
544 file that is already visited under a different name.
546 ** The new user-option `electric-help-shrink-window' can be set to
547 nil to prevent adjusting the help window size to the buffer size.
549 ** The Strokes package has been updated. If your Emacs has XPM
550 support, you can use it for pictographic editing. In Strokes mode,
551 use C-mouse-2 to compose a complex stoke and insert it into the
552 buffer. You can encode or decode a strokes buffer with new commands
553 M-x strokes-encode-buffer and M-x strokes-decode-buffer. There is a
554 new command M-x strokes-list-strokes.
557 ** New command M-x describe-character-set reads a character set name
558 and displays information about that.
560 ** The new variable `auto-mode-interpreter-regexp' contains a regular
561 expression matching interpreters, for file mode determination.
563 This regular expression is matched against the first line of a file to
564 determine the file's mode in `set-auto-mode' when Emacs can't deduce a
565 mode from the file's name. If it matches, the file is assumed to be
566 interpreted by the interpreter matched by the second group of the
567 regular expression. The mode is then determined as the mode
568 associated with that interpreter in `interpreter-mode-alist'.
570 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
571 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to `executable-chmod'.
574 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
575 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
576 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
577 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
578 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
579 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
580 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
583 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
584 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
585 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
586 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
587 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
588 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
589 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
590 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
591 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
593 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
594 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
597 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
598 displays all characters in that character set.
600 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
601 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
604 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
605 on the context. M-x kill-comment is now an alias to comment-kill,
606 defined in newcomment.el. You can choose different styles of region
607 commenting with the variable `comment-style'.
610 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
611 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
612 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
613 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
616 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
617 on the display using several methods
620 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
621 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
622 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
625 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
626 equivalent to specifying the frame parameter.
628 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
630 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
631 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
634 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
635 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
636 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
637 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
640 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
641 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
642 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
644 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
645 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
648 ** New X resources recognized
650 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
651 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
652 is useful for debugging X problems.
656 emacs.synchronous: true
658 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
659 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
660 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
661 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
662 visual class names are
671 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
672 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
675 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
676 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
677 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
682 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
684 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
685 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
686 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
687 resource values are `true' or `on'.
691 emacs.privateColormap: true
694 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
696 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
697 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
699 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
700 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X, on MS-Windows, and
701 MS-DOS, either in the echo area or with tooltips. Many standard menus
702 displayed by Emacs now have help strings.
704 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
705 read mail from the menu etc.
708 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
709 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
711 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
713 *** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
717 -------------------------
723 C-c C-o @<block> ... @end <block>
726 *** The " key now inserts either " or `` or '' depending on context.
728 ** Changes in Outline mode.
730 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
731 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
732 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
734 ** Changes to Emacs Server
737 *** The new option `server-kill-new-buffers' specifies what to do
738 with buffers when done with them. If non-nil, the default, buffers
739 are killed, unless they were already present before visiting them with
740 Emacs Server. If nil, `server-temp-file-regexp' specifies which
741 buffers to kill, as before.
743 Please note that only buffers are killed that still have a client,
744 i.e. buffers visited with `emacsclient --no-wait' are never killed in
747 ** Changes to Show Paren mode.
749 *** Overlays used by Show Paren mode now use a priority property.
750 The new user option show-paren-priority specifies the priority to
751 use. Default is 1000.
754 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
755 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
758 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either
759 M-x clone-buffer, C-u m <entry> RET or C-u g <entry> RET.
760 M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and several other special
763 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
764 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
765 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
767 ** Faces and frame parameters.
769 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
770 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
771 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
772 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
773 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
774 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
775 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
777 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
778 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
779 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
780 `default' face and vice versa.
785 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
788 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
790 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
791 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
792 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
793 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
795 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
796 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
797 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
799 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
802 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
804 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
805 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
806 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
807 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
809 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
812 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
814 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
816 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
819 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
824 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
825 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
826 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
829 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
830 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
831 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
832 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
833 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
834 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
836 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
839 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
841 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
842 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
843 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
846 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
847 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
849 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
850 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
851 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
854 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
856 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
857 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggressively' is a
858 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
859 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
861 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
862 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggressively' is a
863 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
864 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
866 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
867 notably at the end of lines.
869 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
870 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
873 ** The function `replace-rectangle' is an alias for `string-rectangle'.
875 ** The new command M-x string-insert-rectangle is like `string-rectangle',
876 but inserts text instead of replacing it.
878 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
879 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
880 after each match to get the replacement text.
883 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
884 you edit the replacement string.
886 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', lets
887 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
888 lisp-complete-symbol.
890 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
892 ** Changes to hideshow.el
894 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
896 A block is now recognized by its start and end regexps (both strings),
897 and an integer specifying which sub-expression in the start regexp
898 serves as the place where a `forward-sexp'-like function can operate.
899 See the documentation of variable `hs-special-modes-alist'.
901 *** During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active,
902 hidden blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' can
903 be used in the mode line format to show the line at the beginning of
906 *** User option `hs-hide-all-non-comment-function' specifies a
907 function to be called at each top-level block beginning, instead of
908 the normal block-hiding function.
910 *** The command `hs-show-region' has been removed.
912 *** The key bindings have changed to fit the Emacs conventions,
913 roughly imitating those of Outline minor mode. Notably, the prefix
914 for all bindings is now `C-c @'. For details, see the documentation
917 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
920 *** If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes
921 an entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
922 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
925 **** New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the
929 *** New command M-x change-log-redate fixes any old-style date entries
933 *** Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log
934 entries if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
935 Unless the file is under version control the search for a file's
936 version number is performed based on regular expressions from
937 `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be customized.
938 Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of a file.
940 *** Change Log mode now defines its own faces for font-lock highlighting.
942 ** Changes to cmuscheme
944 *** The user-option `scheme-program-name' has been renamed
945 `cmuscheme-program-name' due to conflicts with xscheme.el.
947 ** Changes in Font Lock
949 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
950 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major mode.
952 *** Multi-line patterns are now supported. Modes using this, should
953 set font-lock-multiline to t in their font-lock-defaults.
955 *** `font-lock-syntactic-face-function' allows major-modes to choose
956 the face used for each string/comment.
958 *** A new standard face `font-lock-doc-face'.
959 Meant for Lisp docstrings, Javadoc comments and other "documentation in code".
961 ** Comint (subshell) changes
963 These changes generally affect all modes derived from comint mode, which
964 include shell-mode, gdb-mode, scheme-interaction-mode, etc.
966 *** Comint now by default removes CRs from CR LF sequences. Comint
967 now treats single CRs in the output in a way similar to a terminal, by
968 deleting everything to the beginning of the line. This is achieved by
969 adding `comint-cr-magic' to `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' by
972 *** By default, comint no longer uses the variable `comint-prompt-regexp'
973 to distinguish prompts from user-input. Instead, it notices which
974 parts of the text were output by the process, and which entered by the
975 user, and attaches `field' properties to allow emacs commands to use
976 this information. Common movement commands, notably beginning-of-line,
977 respect field boundaries in a fairly natural manner. To disable this
978 feature, and use the old behavior, customize the user option
979 `comint-use-prompt-regexp-instead-of-fields'.
981 *** Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
982 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
984 *** The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
985 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
986 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
988 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
989 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
990 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
992 *** Packages based on comint now highlight user input and program prompts,
993 and support choosing previous input with mouse-2. To control these features,
994 see the user-options `comint-highlight-input' and `comint-highlight-prompt'.
996 *** The new command `comint-write-output' (usually bound to `C-c C-s')
997 saves the output from the most recent command to a file. With a prefix
998 argument, it appends to the file.
1000 *** The command `comint-kill-output' has been renamed `comint-delete-output'
1001 (usually bound to `C-c C-o'); the old name is aliased to it for
1004 *** The new function `comint-add-to-input-history' adds commands to the input
1007 *** The new variable `comint-input-history-ignore' is a regexp for
1008 identifying history lines that should be ignored, like tcsh time-stamp
1009 strings, starting with a `#'. The default value of this variable is "^#".
1011 ** Changes to Rmail mode
1013 *** The new user-option rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
1014 set to fine tune the identification of the correspondent when
1015 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
1016 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
1017 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
1020 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
1021 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
1022 regexp matching your mail addresses.
1024 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
1025 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
1026 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
1027 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
1028 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
1030 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
1033 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
1034 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
1037 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
1038 in which folder to put messages automatically.
1040 *** The new function `rmail-redecode-body' allows to fix a message
1041 with non-ASCII characters if Emacs happens to decode it incorrectly
1042 due to missing or malformed "charset=" header.
1044 ** Changes to TeX mode
1046 *** The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
1049 *** latex-mode now has a simple indentation algorithm.
1051 *** M-f and M-p jump around \begin...\end pairs.
1053 *** Added support for outline-minor-mode.
1055 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
1057 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
1058 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
1059 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
1060 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
1061 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
1062 can be edited from that buffer.
1064 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
1065 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
1066 `A' to use all marked entries).
1068 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
1069 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
1071 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
1072 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
1073 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
1076 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
1077 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
1078 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
1079 in column 1 are always made leaves.
1081 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
1082 has the following new features:
1084 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
1085 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
1086 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
1087 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
1089 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
1090 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
1091 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
1092 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
1093 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
1096 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
1100 ** Customize changes
1102 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
1103 `State' menu to add comments, or give a prefix argument to
1104 M-x customize-set-variable or M-x customize-set-value. Note that
1105 customization comments will cause the customizations to fail in
1106 earlier versions of Emacs.
1108 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
1109 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
1112 ** New features in evaluation commands
1114 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
1115 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
1116 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
1117 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
1118 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
1120 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
1121 code when called with a prefix argument.
1126 *** The command `ispell' now spell-checks a region if
1127 transient-mark-mode is on, and the mark is active. Otherwise it
1128 spell-checks the current buffer.
1131 *** Support for synchronous subprocesses - DOS/Windoze - has been
1134 *** An "alignment error" bug was fixed when a manual spelling
1135 correction is made and re-checked.
1137 *** An Italian, Portuguese, and Slovak dictionary definition has been added.
1139 *** Region skipping performance has been vastly improved in some
1142 *** Spell checking HTML buffers has been improved and isn't so strict
1145 *** The buffer-local words are now always placed on a new line at the
1150 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
1151 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
1152 is, delete only empty directories.
1154 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
1155 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
1156 copy directories recursively.
1158 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
1159 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
1160 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
1162 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
1163 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
1166 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
1167 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
1168 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
1169 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
1170 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
1172 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
1175 *** Dired commands that prompt for a destination file now allow the use
1176 of the `M-n' command in the minibuffer to insert the source filename,
1177 which the user can then edit. This only works if there is a single
1178 source file, not when operating on multiple marked files.
1180 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
1181 use the -f option when sending mail.
1185 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
1186 current user setups (although it's believed that these
1187 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
1188 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
1189 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
1190 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
1193 *** The hardcoded switch to "java" style in Java mode is gone.
1194 CC Mode used to automatically set the style to "java" when Java mode
1195 is entered. This has now been removed since it caused too much
1198 However, to keep backward compatibility to a certain extent, the
1199 default value for c-default-style now specifies the "java" style for
1200 java-mode, but "gnu" for all other modes (as before). So you won't
1201 notice the change if you haven't touched that variable.
1203 *** New cleanups, space-before-funcall and compact-empty-funcall.
1204 Two new cleanups have been added to c-cleanup-list:
1206 space-before-funcall causes a space to be inserted before the opening
1207 parenthesis of a function call, which gives the style "foo (bar)".
1209 compact-empty-funcall causes any space before a function call opening
1210 parenthesis to be removed if there are no arguments to the function.
1211 It's typically useful together with space-before-funcall to get the
1212 style "foo (bar)" and "foo()".
1214 *** Some keywords now automatically trigger reindentation.
1215 Keywords like "else", "while", "catch" and "finally" have been made
1216 "electric" to make them reindent automatically when they continue an
1217 earlier statement. An example:
1219 for (i = 0; i < 17; i++)
1221 res += a[i]->offset;
1224 Here, the "else" should be indented like the preceding "if", since it
1225 continues that statement. CC Mode will automatically reindent it after
1226 the "else" has been typed in full, since it's not until then it's
1227 possible to decide whether it's a new statement or a continuation of
1230 CC Mode uses Abbrev mode to achieve this, which is therefore turned on
1233 *** M-a and M-e now moves by sentence in multiline strings.
1234 Previously these two keys only moved by sentence in comments, which
1235 meant that sentence movement didn't work in strings containing
1236 documentation or other natural language text.
1238 The reason it's only activated in multiline strings (i.e. strings that
1239 contain a newline, even when escaped by a '\') is to avoid stopping in
1240 the short strings that often reside inside statements. Multiline
1241 strings almost always contain text in a natural language, as opposed
1242 to other strings that typically contain format specifications,
1243 commands, etc. Also, it's not that bothersome that M-a and M-e misses
1244 sentences in single line strings, since they're short anyway.
1246 *** Support for autodoc comments in Pike mode.
1247 Autodoc comments for Pike are used to extract documentation from the
1248 source, like Javadoc in Java. Pike mode now recognize this markup in
1249 comment prefixes and paragraph starts.
1251 *** The comment prefix regexps on c-comment-prefix may be mode specific.
1252 When c-comment-prefix is an association list, it specifies the comment
1253 line prefix on a per-mode basis, like c-default-style does. This
1254 change came about to support the special autodoc comment prefix in
1257 *** Better handling of syntactic errors.
1258 The recovery after unbalanced parens earlier in the buffer has been
1259 improved; CC Mode now reports them by dinging and giving a message
1260 stating the offending line, but still recovers and indent the
1261 following lines in a sane way (most of the time). An "else" with no
1262 matching "if" is handled similarly. If an error is discovered while
1263 indenting a region, the whole region is still indented and the error
1264 is reported afterwards.
1266 *** Lineup functions may now return absolute columns.
1267 A lineup function can give an absolute column to indent the line to by
1268 returning a vector with the desired column as the first element.
1270 *** More robust and warning-free byte compilation.
1271 Although this is strictly not a user visible change (well, depending
1272 on the view of a user), it's still worth mentioning that CC Mode now
1273 can be compiled in the standard ways without causing trouble. Some
1274 code have also been moved between the subpackages to enhance the
1275 modularity somewhat. Thanks to Martin Buchholz for doing the
1278 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
1279 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
1280 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
1281 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
1282 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
1285 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
1286 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
1287 and edits both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
1288 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
1289 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
1290 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
1292 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
1293 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
1294 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
1295 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
1296 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
1297 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
1298 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
1299 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
1301 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
1302 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
1303 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
1304 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
1307 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
1308 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
1309 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
1310 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
1311 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
1312 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
1313 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
1314 function documentation for more info.
1316 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
1317 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
1318 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
1319 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
1320 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
1321 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
1322 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
1323 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
1325 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
1327 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
1328 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
1330 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
1331 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
1332 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
1333 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
1334 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
1337 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
1338 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
1339 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
1342 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
1343 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
1344 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
1345 chapter about this in the manual.
1347 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
1348 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
1349 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
1350 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
1351 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
1353 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
1354 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
1355 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
1357 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
1358 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
1360 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
1361 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
1362 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
1365 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
1366 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
1367 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
1368 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
1371 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
1372 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
1373 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
1376 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
1377 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
1378 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
1379 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
1382 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
1383 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
1384 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
1385 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
1386 Thanks to Eric Eide.
1388 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
1389 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
1390 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
1392 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
1394 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
1395 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
1396 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
1397 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
1399 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
1400 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
1401 the column specified by comment-column.
1403 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
1404 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
1405 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
1406 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
1407 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
1408 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
1410 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
1411 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
1414 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
1416 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
1417 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
1418 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
1419 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
1422 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
1424 ** Makefile mode changes
1426 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
1428 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
1429 Fontlock mode is active.
1433 *** Isearch now puts a call to `isearch-resume' in the command history,
1434 so that searches can be resumed.
1436 *** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
1437 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
1438 that started the search.
1440 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
1441 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
1444 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
1446 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
1447 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
1448 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
1449 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
1450 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
1451 `secondary-selection'.
1453 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
1454 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
1455 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
1456 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
1457 usual snappy response.
1459 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
1460 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
1461 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
1462 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
1465 ** Changes in sort.el
1467 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
1468 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
1469 new user-option sort-numeric-base can be used to specify a default
1472 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
1475 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
1476 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
1477 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
1479 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
1480 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
1482 *** Ange-ftp handles the output of the w32-style clients which
1483 output ^M at the end of lines.
1485 ** Shell script mode changes.
1487 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
1488 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizable, and
1489 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
1493 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
1495 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
1496 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
1497 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
1498 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
1499 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
1501 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
1502 declarations when given the --declarations option.
1504 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
1505 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
1507 *** You shouldn't generally need any more the -C or -c++ option: etags
1508 automatically switches to C++ parsing when it meets the `class' or
1509 `template' keywords.
1511 *** Etags now is able to delve at arbitrary deeps into nested structures in
1512 C-like languages. Previously, it was limited to one or two brace levels.
1514 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
1517 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
1519 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
1521 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
1524 *** In makefiles, tags the targets.
1526 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
1527 variables are tagged.
1529 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1531 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1535 ** Changes in etags.el
1537 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1538 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1539 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1541 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1542 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1544 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1545 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1546 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1547 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1549 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1551 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1552 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1554 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1556 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1557 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1558 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1560 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1561 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1563 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1564 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1566 *** You can now search for tags that are part of the filename itself.
1567 If you have tagged the files topfile.c subdir/subfile.c
1568 /tmp/tempfile.c, you can now search for tags "topfile.c", "subfile.c",
1569 "dir/sub", "tempfile", "tempfile.c". If the tag matches the file name,
1570 point will go to the beginning of the file.
1572 *** Compressed files are now transparently supported if
1573 auto-compression-mode is active. You can tag (with Etags) and search
1574 (with find-tag) both compressed and uncompressed files.
1576 *** Tags commands like M-x tags-search no longer change point
1577 in buffers where no match is found. In buffers where a match is
1578 found, the original value of point is pushed on the marker ring.
1581 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1582 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1583 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1586 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1587 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1588 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1589 GNU Intlfonts doesn't support these yet but recent X releases have
1590 8859-15. See etc/INSTALL for information on obtaining extra fonts.
1591 There are new Leim input methods for Latin-8 and Latin-9 prefix (only)
1595 ** New language environments `Dutch' and `Spanish'.
1596 These new environments mainly select appropriate translations
1599 ** In Ethiopic language environment, special key bindings for
1600 function keys are changed as follows. This is to conform to "Emacs
1601 Lisp Coding Convention".
1603 new command old-binding
1604 --- ------- -----------
1605 f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-buffer f5
1606 S-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-region f5
1607 C-f3 ethio-fidel-to-sera-mail-or-marker f5
1609 f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-buffer unchanged
1610 S-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-region unchanged
1611 C-f4 ethio-sera-to-fidel-mail-or-marker unchanged
1613 S-f5 ethio-toggle-punctuation f3
1614 S-f6 ethio-modify-vowel f6
1615 S-f7 ethio-replace-space f7
1616 S-f8 ethio-input-special-character f8
1617 S-f9 ethio-replace-space unchanged
1618 C-f9 ethio-toggle-space f2
1620 ** The rule of input method "slovak" is slightly changed. Now the
1621 rules for translating "q" and "Q" to "`" (backquote) are deleted, thus
1622 typing them inserts "q" and "Q" respectively. Rules for translating
1623 "=q", "+q", "=Q", and "+Q" to "`" are also deleted. Now, to input
1624 "`", you must type "=q".
1627 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1628 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1629 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1631 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1634 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1637 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignored-regexps'
1638 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1639 expression from that list, are not checked.
1641 ** Emacs can now figure out modification times of remote files.
1642 When you do C-x C-f /user@host:/path/file RET and edit the file,
1643 and someone else modifies the file, you will be prompted to revert
1644 the buffer, just like for the local files.
1646 ** The buffer menu (C-x C-b) no longer lists the *Buffer List* buffer.
1649 ** When invoked with a prefix argument, the command `list-abbrevs' now
1650 displays local abbrevs, only.
1654 VC has been overhauled internally. It is now modular, making it
1655 easier to plug-in arbitrary version control backends. (See Lisp
1656 Changes for details on the new structure.) As a result, the mechanism
1657 to enable and disable support for particular version systems has
1658 changed: everything is now controlled by the new variable
1659 `vc-handled-backends'. Its value is a list of symbols that identify
1660 version systems; the default is '(RCS CVS SCCS). When finding a file,
1661 each of the backends in that list is tried in order to see whether the
1662 file is registered in that backend.
1664 When registering a new file, VC first tries each of the listed
1665 backends to see if any of them considers itself "responsible" for the
1666 directory of the file (e.g. because a corresponding subdirectory for
1667 master files exists). If none of the backends is responsible, then
1668 the first backend in the list that could register the file is chosen.
1669 As a consequence, the variable `vc-default-back-end' is now obsolete.
1671 The old variable `vc-master-templates' is also obsolete, although VC
1672 still supports it for backward compatibility. To define templates for
1673 RCS or SCCS, you should rather use the new variables
1674 vc-{rcs,sccs}-master-templates. (There is no such feature under CVS
1675 where it doesn't make sense.)
1677 The variables `vc-ignore-vc-files' and `vc-handle-cvs' are also
1678 obsolete now, you must set `vc-handled-backends' to nil or exclude
1679 `CVS' from the list, respectively, to achieve their effect now.
1683 The variable `vc-checkout-carefully' is obsolete: the corresponding
1684 checks are always done now.
1686 VC Dired buffers are now kept up-to-date during all version control
1689 `vc-diff' output is now displayed in `diff-mode'.
1690 `vc-print-log' uses `log-view-mode'.
1691 `vc-log-mode' (used for *VC-Log*) has been replaced by `log-edit-mode'.
1693 The command C-x v m (vc-merge) now accepts an empty argument as the
1694 first revision number. This means that any recent changes on the
1695 current branch should be picked up from the repository and merged into
1696 the working file (``merge news'').
1698 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1699 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) now ask for a directory name from which to work
1702 *** Multiple Backends
1704 VC now lets you register files in more than one backend. This is
1705 useful, for example, if you are working with a slow remote CVS
1706 repository. You can then use RCS for local editing, and occasionally
1707 commit your changes back to CVS, or pick up changes from CVS into your
1710 To make this work, the ``more local'' backend (RCS in our example)
1711 should come first in `vc-handled-backends', and the ``more remote''
1712 backend (CVS) should come later. (The default value of
1713 `vc-handled-backends' already has it that way.)
1715 You can then commit changes to another backend (say, RCS), by typing
1716 C-u C-x v v RCS RET (i.e. vc-next-action now accepts a backend name as
1717 a revision number). VC registers the file in the more local backend
1718 if that hasn't already happened, and commits to a branch based on the
1719 current revision number from the more remote backend.
1721 If a file is registered in multiple backends, you can switch to
1722 another one using C-x v b (vc-switch-backend). This does not change
1723 any files, it only changes VC's perspective on the file. Use this to
1724 pick up changes from CVS while working under RCS locally.
1726 After you are done with your local RCS editing, you can commit your
1727 changes back to CVS using C-u C-x v v CVS RET. In this case, the
1728 local RCS archive is removed after the commit, and the log entry
1729 buffer is initialized to contain the entire RCS change log of the file.
1733 There is a new user option, `vc-cvs-stay-local'. If it is `t' (the
1734 default), then VC avoids network queries for files registered in
1735 remote repositories. The state of such files is then only determined
1736 by heuristics and past information. `vc-cvs-stay-local' can also be a
1737 regexp to match against repository hostnames; only files from hosts
1738 that match it are treated locally. If the variable is nil, then VC
1739 queries the repository just as often as it does for local files.
1741 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, then VC also makes local backups of
1742 repository versions. This means that ordinary diffs (C-x v =) and
1743 revert operations (C-x v u) can be done completely locally, without
1744 any repository interactions at all. The name of a local version
1745 backup of FILE is FILE.~REV.~, where REV is the repository version
1746 number. This format is similar to that used by C-x v ~
1747 (vc-version-other-window), except for the trailing dot. As a matter
1748 of fact, the two features can each use the files created by the other,
1749 the only difference being that files with a trailing `.' are deleted
1750 automatically after commit. (This feature doesn't work on MS-DOS,
1751 since DOS disallows more than a single dot in the trunk of a file
1754 If `vc-cvs-stay-local' is on, and there have been changes in the
1755 repository, VC notifies you about it when you actually try to commit.
1756 If you want to check for updates from the repository without trying to
1757 commit, you can either use C-x v m RET to perform an update on the
1758 current file, or you can use C-x v r RET to get an update for an
1759 entire directory tree.
1761 The new user option `vc-cvs-use-edit' indicates whether VC should call
1762 "cvs edit" to make files writeable; it defaults to `t'. (This option
1763 is only meaningful if the CVSREAD variable is set, or if files are
1764 "watched" by other developers.)
1766 The commands C-x v s (vc-create-snapshot) and C-x v r
1767 (vc-retrieve-snapshot) are now also implemented for CVS. If you give
1768 an empty snapshot name to the latter, that performs a `cvs update',
1769 starting at the given directory.
1771 *** Lisp Changes in VC
1773 VC has been restructured internally to make it modular. You can now
1774 add support for arbitrary version control backends by writing a
1775 library that provides a certain set of backend-specific functions, and
1776 then telling VC to use that library. For example, to add support for
1777 a version system named SYS, you write a library named vc-sys.el, which
1778 provides a number of functions vc-sys-... (see commentary at the top
1779 of vc.el for a detailed list of them). To make VC use that library,
1780 you need to put it somewhere into Emacs' load path and add the symbol
1781 `SYS' to the list `vc-handled-backends'.
1783 ** The customizable EDT emulation package now supports the EDT
1784 SUBS command and EDT scroll margins. It also works with more
1785 terminal/keyboard configurations and it now works under XEmacs.
1786 See etc/edt-user.doc for more information.
1788 ** New modes and packages
1790 *** The new global minor mode `minibuffer-electric-default-mode'
1791 automatically hides the `(default ...)' part of minibuffer prompts when
1792 the default is not applicable.
1794 *** Artist is an Emacs lisp package that allows you to draw lines,
1795 rectangles and ellipses by using your mouse and/or keyboard. The
1796 shapes are made up with the ascii characters |, -, / and \.
1800 - Intersecting: When a `|' intersects with a `-', a `+' is
1801 drawn, like this: | \ /
1805 - Rubber-banding: When drawing lines you can interactively see the
1806 result while holding the mouse button down and moving the mouse. If
1807 your machine is not fast enough (a 386 is a bit too slow, but a
1808 pentium is well enough), you can turn this feature off. You will
1809 then see 1's and 2's which mark the 1st and 2nd endpoint of the line
1812 - Arrows: After having drawn a (straight) line or a (straight)
1813 poly-line, you can set arrows on the line-ends by typing < or >.
1815 - Flood-filling: You can fill any area with a certain character by
1818 - Cut copy and paste: You can cut, copy and paste rectangular
1819 regions. Artist also interfaces with the rect package (this can be
1820 turned off if it causes you any trouble) so anything you cut in
1821 artist can be yanked with C-x r y and vice versa.
1823 - Drawing with keys: Everything you can do with the mouse, you can
1824 also do without the mouse.
1826 - Aspect-ratio: You can set the variable artist-aspect-ratio to
1827 reflect the height-width ratio for the font you are using. Squares
1828 and circles are then drawn square/round. Note, that once your
1829 ascii-file is shown with font with a different height-width ratio,
1830 the squares won't be square and the circles won't be round.
1832 - Drawing operations: The following drawing operations are implemented:
1834 lines straight-lines
1836 poly-lines straight poly-lines
1838 text (see-thru) text (overwrite)
1839 spray-can setting size for spraying
1840 vaporize line vaporize lines
1841 erase characters erase rectangles
1843 Straight lines are lines that go horizontally, vertically or
1844 diagonally. Plain lines go in any direction. The operations in
1845 the right column are accessed by holding down the shift key while
1848 It is possible to vaporize (erase) entire lines and connected lines
1849 (rectangles for example) as long as the lines being vaporized are
1850 straight and connected at their endpoints. Vaporizing is inspired
1851 by the drawrect package by Jari Aalto <jari.aalto@poboxes.com>.
1853 - Picture mode compatibility: Artist is picture mode compatible (this
1857 *** The new package Eshell is an operating system command shell
1858 implemented entirely in Emacs Lisp. Use `M-x eshell' to invoke it.
1859 It functions similarly to bash and zsh, and allows running of Lisp
1860 functions and external commands using the same syntax. It supports
1861 history lists, aliases, extended globbing, smart scrolling, etc. It
1862 will work on any platform Emacs has been ported to. And since most of
1863 the basic commands -- ls, rm, mv, cp, ln, du, cat, etc. -- have been
1864 rewritten in Lisp, it offers an operating-system independent shell,
1865 all within the scope of your Emacs process.
1868 *** The new package timeclock.el is a mode is for keeping track of time
1869 intervals. You can use it for whatever purpose you like, but the
1870 typical scenario is to keep track of how much time you spend working
1871 on certain projects.
1874 *** The new package hi-lock.el provides commands to highlight matches
1875 of interactively entered regexps. For example,
1877 M-x highlight-regexp RET clearly RET RET
1879 will highlight all occurrences of `clearly' using a yellow background
1880 face. New occurrences of `clearly' will be highlighted as they are
1881 typed. `M-x unhighlight-regexp RET' will remove the highlighting.
1882 Any existing face can be used for highlighting and a set of
1883 appropriate faces is provided. The regexps can be written into the
1884 current buffer in a form that will be recognized the next time the
1885 corresponding file is read. There are commands to highlight matches
1886 to phrases and to highlight entire lines containing a match.
1889 *** The new package zone.el plays games with Emacs' display when
1892 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1893 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1895 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1896 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1897 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1898 `comment-region' now doesn't always comment a-line-at-a-time, but only
1899 comments the region, breaking the line at point if necessary.
1902 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1903 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1904 separate Texinfo file.
1907 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine or
1908 by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1909 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS. It comes with
1910 `log-view-mode' to view RCS and SCCS logs and `log-edit-mode' used to
1911 enter check-in log messages.
1914 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1915 without invoking external programs.
1917 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1918 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1919 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1920 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1921 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1923 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1924 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1927 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1928 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1930 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1931 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1932 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1933 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1934 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1937 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1938 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1939 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1940 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1943 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1944 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1945 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1947 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1950 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1952 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1954 ; comment (until end of line)
1958 $A default non-terminal
1959 $"C" default terminal
1960 $?C? default special
1961 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1962 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1963 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1964 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1965 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1966 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1967 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1968 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1969 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1970 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1971 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1972 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1973 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1974 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1975 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1977 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1979 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1980 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1981 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1982 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1983 equal signs of assignments.
1986 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1987 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1990 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1991 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1992 buffer menu with this package. See the Custom group `bs'.
1994 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1996 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1997 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1998 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1999 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
2000 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
2001 which answers different needs.
2004 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
2005 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
2006 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
2007 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
2008 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
2012 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
2013 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
2016 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
2019 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
2021 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
2023 Please note: if `ansi-color-for-comint-mode' and
2024 `global-font-lock-mode' are non-nil, loading ansi-color.el will
2025 disable font-lock and add `ansi-color-apply' to
2026 `comint-preoutput-filter-functions' for all shell-mode buffers. This
2027 displays the output of "ls --color=yes" using the correct foreground
2028 and background colors.
2030 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
2034 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
2037 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
2040 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
2042 *** whitespace.el is a package for warning about and cleaning bogus
2043 whitespace in a file.
2045 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
2046 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
2047 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
2048 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
2049 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
2050 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
2051 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
2053 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
2055 Here is an example of columns:
2058 dog pineapple car EXTRA
2059 porcupine strawberry airplane
2061 Doing the following settings:
2063 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
2064 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
2065 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
2066 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
2069 Selecting the lines above and typing:
2071 M-x delimit-columns-region
2075 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
2076 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
2077 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
2079 delim-col has the following options:
2081 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
2084 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
2085 between each column.
2087 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
2090 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
2093 delim-col has the following commands:
2095 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
2096 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
2099 *** Recentf mode maintains a menu for visiting files that were
2100 operated on recently. User option recentf-menu-filter specifies a
2101 menu filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the
2102 recent file list can be displayed:
2104 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
2105 - sorted by file paths, file names, ascending or descending.
2106 - showing paths relative to the current default-directory
2108 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
2109 dynamically change the menu appearance.
2111 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
2115 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
2116 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
2117 specific to Message mode.
2120 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
2121 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
2122 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
2124 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
2125 interface to access directory servers using different directory
2126 protocols. It has a separate manual.
2128 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
2129 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
2132 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
2134 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
2135 minibuffer with completion.
2137 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
2138 with the diary features.
2140 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
2141 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
2143 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
2146 *** gnus-mule.el is now just a compatibility layer over the built-in
2149 *** pcomplete.el is a library that provides programmable completion
2150 facilities for Emacs, similar to what zsh and tcsh offer. The main
2151 difference is that completion functions are written in Lisp, meaning
2152 they can be profiled, debugged, etc.
2155 ** Refill minor mode provides preliminary support for keeping
2156 paragraphs filled as you modify them.
2159 ** The new global minor mode `auto-image-file-mode' allows image files
2160 to be visited as images.
2162 ** Withdrawn packages
2164 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
2165 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
2167 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
2169 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
2172 * Incompatible Lisp changes
2174 There are a few Lisp changes which are not backwards-compatible and
2175 may require changes to existing code. Here is a list for reference.
2176 See the sections below for details.
2178 ** Since `format' preserves text properties, the idiom
2179 `(format "%s" foo)' no longer works to copy and remove properties.
2180 Use `copy-sequence' and `set-text-properties'.
2182 ** Since the `keymap' text property now has significance, some code
2183 which uses both `local-map' and `keymap' properties (for portability)
2184 may, for instance, give rise to duplicate menus when the keymaps from
2185 these properties are active.
2187 ** The change in the treatment of non-ASCII characters in search
2188 ranges may affect some code.
2190 ** A non-nil value for the LOCAL arg of add-hook makes the hook
2191 buffer-local even if `make-local-hook' hasn't been called, which might
2192 make a difference to some code.
2194 ** The new treatment of the minibuffer prompt might affect code which
2195 operates on the minibuffer.
2197 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2198 cause `no-conversion' and `emacs-mule-unix' coding systems to produce
2199 different results when reading files with non-ASCII characters
2200 (previously, both coding systems would produce the same results).
2201 Specifically, `no-conversion' interprets each 8-bit byte as a separate
2202 character. This makes `no-conversion' inappropriate for reading
2203 multibyte text, e.g. buffers written to disk in their internal MULE
2204 encoding (auto-saving does that, for example). If a Lisp program
2205 reads such files with `no-conversion', each byte of the multibyte
2206 sequence, including the MULE leading codes such as \201, is treated as
2207 a separate character, which prevents them from being interpreted in
2208 the buffer as multibyte characters.
2210 Therefore, Lisp programs that read files which contain the internal
2211 MULE encoding should use `emacs-mule-unix'. `no-conversion' is only
2212 appropriate for reading truly binary files.
2214 ** Code that relies on the obsolete `before-change-function' and
2215 `after-change-function' to detect buffer changes will now fail. Use
2216 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions' instead.
2218 ** Code that uses `concat' with integer args now gets an error, as
2221 ** Not a Lisp incompatibility as such but, with the introduction of
2222 extra private charsets, there is now only one slot free for a new
2223 dimension-2 private charset. User code which tries to add more than
2224 one extra will fail unless you rebuild Emacs with some standard
2225 charset(s) removed; that is probably inadvisable because it changes
2226 the emacs-mule encoding. Also, files stored in the emacs-mule
2227 encoding using Emacs 20 with additional private charsets defined will
2228 probably not be read correctly by Emacs 21.
2230 ** The variable `directory-sep-char' is slated for removal.
2231 Not really a change (yet), but a projected one that you should be
2232 aware of: The variable `directory-sep-char' is deprecated, and should
2233 not be used. It was always ignored on GNU/Linux and Unix systems and
2234 on MS-DOS, but the MS-Windows port tried to support it by adapting the
2235 behavior of certain primitives to the value of this variable. It
2236 turned out that such support cannot be reliable, so it was decided to
2237 remove this variable in the near future. Lisp programs are well
2238 advised not to set it to anything but '/', because any different value
2239 will not have any effect when support for this variable is removed.
2242 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
2243 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
2245 ** The new function `interactive-form' can be used to obtain the
2246 interactive form of a function.
2248 ** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
2249 between custom options. Example:
2251 (defcustom default-input-method nil
2252 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
2253 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
2254 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
2256 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
2257 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
2259 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
2260 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
2261 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
2263 ** The new hook `kbd-macro-termination-hook' is run at the end of
2264 function execute-kbd-macro. Functions on this hook are called with no
2265 args. The hook is run independent of how the macro was terminated
2266 (signal or normal termination).
2269 ** Functions `butlast' and `nbutlast' for removing trailing elements
2270 from a list are now available without requiring the CL package.
2273 ** The new user-option `even-window-heights' can be set to nil
2274 to prevent `display-buffer' from evening out window heights.
2277 ** The user-option `face-font-registry-alternatives' specifies
2278 alternative font registry names to try when looking for a font.
2280 ** Function `md5' calculates the MD5 "message digest"/"checksum".
2283 ** Function `delete-frame' runs `delete-frame-hook' before actually
2284 deleting the frame. The hook is called with one arg, the frame
2288 ** `add-hook' now makes the hook local if called with a non-nil LOCAL arg.
2291 ** The treatment of non-ASCII characters in search ranges has changed.
2292 If a range in a regular expression or the arg of
2293 skip-chars-forward/backward starts with a unibyte character C and ends
2294 with a multibyte character C2, the range is divided into two: one is
2295 C..?\377, the other is C1..C2, where C1 is the first character of C2's
2299 ** The new function `display-message-or-buffer' displays a message in
2300 the echo area or pops up a buffer, depending on the length of the
2303 ** The new macro `with-auto-compression-mode' allows evaluating an
2304 expression with auto-compression-mode enabled.
2307 ** In image specifications, `:heuristic-mask' has been replaced
2308 with the more general `:mask' property.
2311 ** Image specifications accept more `:conversion's.
2313 ** A `?' can be used in a symbol name without escaping it with a
2317 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
2318 is running in batch mode. For example,
2320 (message "%s" (read t))
2322 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
2326 ** The argument of `down-list', `backward-up-list', `up-list',
2327 `kill-sexp', `backward-kill-sexp' and `mark-sexp' is now optional.
2329 ** If `display-buffer-reuse-frames' is set, function `display-buffer'
2330 will raise frames displaying a buffer, instead of creating a new
2334 ** Two new functions for removing elements from lists/sequences
2337 - Function: remove ELT SEQ
2339 Return a copy of SEQ with all occurrences of ELT removed. SEQ must be
2340 a list, vector, or string. The comparison is done with `equal'.
2342 - Function: remq ELT LIST
2344 Return a copy of LIST with all occurrences of ELT removed. The
2345 comparison is done with `eq'.
2348 ** The function `delete' now also works with vectors and strings.
2350 ** The meaning of the `:weakness WEAK' argument of make-hash-table
2354 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
2355 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
2356 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
2359 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
2360 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
2362 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
2363 function was declared obsolete.
2366 ** Function `plist-member' is renamed from `widget-plist-member' (which is
2367 retained as an alias).
2369 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
2370 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
2371 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
2373 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
2375 - Function: window-list &optional FRAME WINDOW MINIBUF
2377 Return a list of windows on FRAME, starting with WINDOW. FRAME nil or
2378 omitted means use the selected frame. WINDOW nil or omitted means use
2379 the selected window. MINIBUF t means include the minibuffer window,
2380 even if it isn't active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means include the
2381 minibuffer window only if it's active. MINIBUF neither nil nor t
2382 means never include the minibuffer window.
2384 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
2386 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
2388 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
2390 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
2391 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
2392 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
2393 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
2396 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
2397 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
2398 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
2399 minibuffer even if it is active.
2401 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
2402 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
2403 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
2404 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
2405 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
2406 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
2408 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
2409 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
2410 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
2411 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
2412 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
2413 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
2414 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
2416 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key and
2417 event names in angle brackets. When called with a second optional
2418 argument non-nil, angle brackets won't be printed.
2420 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
2421 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
2422 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
2423 Default value is nil.
2425 ** The user option `line-number-display-limit' can now be set to nil,
2428 ** `select-safe-coding-system' now also checks the most preferred
2429 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
2430 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
2433 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information about the argument
2434 list of a primitive.
2436 ** `where-is-internal' now also accepts a list of keymaps.
2439 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
2440 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
2441 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
2442 than replacing the local map.
2444 ** The obsolete variables `before-change-function' and
2445 `after-change-function' are no longer acted upon and have been
2446 removed. Use `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions'
2449 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
2452 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments,
2453 as promised long ago.
2455 ** The new function `float-time' returns the current time as a float.
2457 ** The new variable auto-coding-regexp-alist specifies coding systems
2458 for reading specific files, analogous to auto-coding-alist, but
2459 patterns are checked against file contents instead of file names.
2462 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
2464 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2465 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2466 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2467 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2469 *** The features `md5' and `overlay' are now provided by default.
2471 *** The special form `save-restriction' now works correctly even if the
2472 buffer is widened inside the save-restriction and changes made outside
2473 the original restriction. Previously, doing this would cause the saved
2474 restriction to be restored incorrectly.
2476 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
2477 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
2478 when they find 8-bit characters. Previously, they included `ascii' in a
2479 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
2481 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
2482 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
2483 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
2485 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
2486 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
2487 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
2488 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
2489 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
2490 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
2491 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
2494 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
2496 A fontset can now be specified for each independent character, for
2497 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
2498 character set as previously.
2500 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
2501 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
2502 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
2504 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
2505 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
2506 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
2507 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
2509 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
2510 name of a font and REGISTRY is a registry name of a font.
2512 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
2513 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
2516 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
2517 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
2519 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
2520 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
2521 buffers and strings.
2523 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
2524 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
2525 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
2526 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
2527 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
2528 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
2529 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
2532 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
2533 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
2534 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
2536 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
2537 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
2538 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
2539 may differ between buffer and string text.
2541 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
2542 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
2544 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
2545 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
2546 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
2547 `composition' from STRING.
2549 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
2550 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
2552 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
2555 ** The new coding system `mac-roman' is primarily intended for use on
2556 the Macintosh but may be used generally for Macintosh-encoded text.
2558 ** The new character sets `mule-unicode-0100-24ff',
2559 `mule-unicode-2500-33ff', and `mule-unicode-e000-ffff' have been
2560 introduced for Unicode characters in the range U+0100..U+24FF,
2561 U+2500..U+33FF, U+E000..U+FFFF respectively.
2563 ** The new coding system `mule-utf-8' has been added. It provides
2564 limited support for decoding/encoding UTF-8 text. For details, please
2565 see the documentation string of this coding system.
2567 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
2568 `japanese-jisx0213-2' have been introduced for the new Japanese
2569 standard JIS X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
2571 ** The new character sets `latin-iso8859-14' and `latin-iso8859-15'
2572 have been introduced.
2575 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
2576 have been introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
2577 0xA0..0xFF respectively. Note that the multibyte representation of
2578 eight-bit-control is never exposed; this leads to an exception in the
2579 emacs-mule coding system, which encodes everything else to the
2580 buffer/string internal representation. Note that to search for
2581 eight-bit-graphic characters in a multibyte buffer, the search string
2582 must be multibyte, otherwise such characters will be converted to
2583 their multibyte equivalent.
2586 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
2587 that offset in the file before writing.
2589 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
2590 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
2592 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
2593 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
2594 from which the command was issued.
2596 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
2597 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
2598 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
2599 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
2602 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
2603 to `window-buffer-height'.
2605 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
2607 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
2608 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
2609 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
2611 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
2614 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optional third argument
2615 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
2617 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
2618 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
2619 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
2621 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
2622 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
2623 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
2624 is currently displayed in some window.
2626 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
2627 argument function's results.
2629 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
2630 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
2632 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
2633 header in the list of headers passed to it.
2635 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
2636 ignores differences in case and text representation.
2638 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
2639 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
2642 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
2643 nil don't display a cursor
2644 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
2645 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
2646 others display a box cursor.
2648 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
2649 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
2650 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
2651 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
2653 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
2654 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
2655 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
2656 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
2660 (string-to-syntax "()")
2663 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
2666 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
2667 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
2674 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
2679 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
2684 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
2691 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
2692 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
2695 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
2696 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
2697 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
2698 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
2701 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
2703 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
2704 for a regexp in a string.
2706 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
2707 `mouse-position-function'.
2709 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
2710 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
2712 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
2713 Keywords are now always considered constants.
2716 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
2719 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
2720 returned by function `recent-keys'.
2723 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
2724 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
2725 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
2726 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
2730 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
2731 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
2734 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
2735 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
2736 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
2737 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
2740 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
2741 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
2742 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
2743 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
2746 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
2747 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
2748 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
2751 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
2752 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
2755 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
2757 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
2758 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
2759 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
2763 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
2764 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
2765 Also back-references like \2 are now considered as an error if the
2766 corresponding subgroup does not exist (or is not closed yet).
2767 Previously it would have been silently turned into `2' (ignoring the `\').
2770 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
2771 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
2774 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
2775 instead of being optional.
2778 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
2779 modify read-only text.
2781 ** New functions and variables for locales.
2784 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
2785 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
2786 time functions like strftime. The new variables
2787 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
2788 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
2790 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
2791 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
2792 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
2793 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
2794 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
2795 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
2796 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
2799 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
2800 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
2801 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
2805 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
2806 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
2809 ** New function `propertize'
2811 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
2812 strings with text properties.
2814 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
2816 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
2817 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
2818 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
2819 specified value of that property. Example:
2821 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
2824 ** push and pop macros.
2826 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
2827 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
2828 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
2830 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
2831 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
2832 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
2834 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
2836 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
2837 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
2839 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
2840 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
2841 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
2842 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2844 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
2845 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
2846 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
2847 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
2850 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such as
2851 [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on. These must be used within a character
2852 class--for instance, [-[:digit:].+] matches digits or a period
2855 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
2856 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
2857 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
2858 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
2859 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
2861 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
2863 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
2864 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2865 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2866 [:alpha:] matches letters.
2867 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2868 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
2869 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
2870 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
2871 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
2872 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
2873 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
2874 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
2875 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
2876 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
2877 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
2880 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
2882 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
2884 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
2886 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
2887 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
2891 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
2892 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
2893 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
2897 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
2898 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
2900 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
2902 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
2903 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
2904 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
2905 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
2906 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
2908 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
2910 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
2911 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
2912 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
2916 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value',
2917 `key-or-value', `key-and-value', or t, meaning the same as
2918 `key-and-value'. Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage
2919 collection if their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere
2920 outside of the hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
2922 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
2924 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
2926 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
2928 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
2930 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
2932 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
2935 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
2937 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
2939 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2941 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
2943 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
2945 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
2947 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
2949 Returns the size of TABLE.
2951 - Function: hash-table-test TABLE
2953 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
2955 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
2957 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
2959 - Function: clrhash TABLE
2963 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
2965 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
2968 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
2970 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
2971 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
2973 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
2975 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
2977 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
2979 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
2980 arguments KEY and VALUE.
2982 - Function: sxhash OBJ
2984 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
2986 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
2988 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
2989 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
2990 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
2991 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
2992 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
2994 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
2996 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
2997 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
2998 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
3000 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
3001 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
3003 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
3004 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
3006 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
3007 (sxhash (upcase a)))
3009 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
3010 'case-fold-string-hash))
3012 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
3015 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
3017 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
3018 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
3019 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
3022 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
3024 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
3025 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
3028 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
3029 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
3030 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
3031 is too short to reach that column.
3034 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
3035 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
3036 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
3037 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
3039 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
3040 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
3041 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
3044 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
3045 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
3048 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
3049 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
3052 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
3053 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
3054 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
3055 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
3056 temporary-file-directory instead.
3059 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
3060 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
3061 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
3062 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
3065 ** assq-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
3066 elements of an alist which have a car `eq' to a particular value.
3069 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
3071 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
3072 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
3073 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
3076 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
3078 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
3079 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
3080 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
3081 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
3082 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
3083 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
3085 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
3086 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
3087 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
3088 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
3091 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
3093 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
3094 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
3095 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
3098 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
3099 string where arguments appear in the result string.
3103 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
3105 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
3106 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
3109 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
3112 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
3114 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
3115 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
3118 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
3120 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
3121 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
3127 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
3128 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
3130 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
3131 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
3132 to enable sound support.
3134 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
3135 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
3136 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
3137 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
3138 sound to play, before playing the sound.
3140 The following sound properties are supported:
3144 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
3145 searched relative to `data-directory'.
3149 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
3150 may be present, but not both.
3154 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
3155 0..1. This property is optional.
3159 DEVICE is a string specifying the system device on which to play the
3160 sound. The default device is system-dependent.
3162 Other properties are ignored.
3164 An alternative interface is called as
3165 (play-sound-file FILE &optional VOLUME DEVICE).
3167 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
3170 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
3173 ** Changes to garbage collection
3175 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
3176 of live and free strings.
3178 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
3179 strings that have been consed so far.
3182 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
3186 ** The user-option `resize-mini-windows' controls how Emacs resizes
3190 ** The function `pos-visible-in-window-p' now has a third optional
3191 argument, PARTIALLY. If a character is only partially visible, nil is
3192 returned, unless PARTIALLY is non-nil.
3194 ** On window systems, `glyph-table' is no longer used.
3197 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
3200 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
3203 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
3205 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
3207 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
3208 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
3209 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
3210 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
3211 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
3214 ** The function `image-mask-p' can be used to determine if an image
3217 - Function: image-mask-p SPEC &optional FRAME
3219 Return t if image SPEC has a mask bitmap.
3220 FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed. FRAME nil
3221 or omitted means use the selected frame.
3224 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
3225 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
3228 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
3232 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center' (see
3236 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
3238 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
3239 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
3240 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
3241 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
3243 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
3244 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
3246 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
3247 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
3248 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
3249 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
3250 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
3251 just display it black instead.
3253 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
3256 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
3260 ** New face implementation.
3262 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
3263 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
3268 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
3270 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
3272 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
3273 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
3275 3. Font height in 1/10pt
3277 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
3279 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
3281 6. Foreground color.
3283 7. Background color.
3285 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
3287 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
3289 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
3291 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
3293 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
3296 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
3297 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
3299 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
3300 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
3301 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
3302 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
3303 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each of the face
3304 attributes mentioned above.
3306 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
3307 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
3310 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
3311 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
3317 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
3318 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
3319 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
3320 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
3321 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
3322 results in a fully-specified face.
3325 *** Face realization.
3327 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
3328 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
3329 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
3330 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
3331 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
3332 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
3334 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
3335 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
3336 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
3337 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
3339 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
3340 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
3341 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
3342 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
3343 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
3345 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
3346 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
3347 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
3348 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
3349 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
3352 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
3353 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
3354 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
3355 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
3358 **** Clearing face caches.
3360 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
3361 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
3367 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
3368 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
3369 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
3371 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
3372 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
3373 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
3374 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
3375 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
3377 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
3378 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
3379 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
3381 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
3383 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
3384 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
3385 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
3386 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
3387 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
3388 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
3389 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
3391 Setting `face-font-family-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3392 alternative font families to try if a family specified by a face
3395 Setting `face-font-registry-alternatives' allows the user to specify
3396 all alternative font registry names to try for a face specifying a
3399 Please note that the interpretations of the above two variables are
3402 Setting face-ignored-fonts allows the user to ignore specific fonts.
3408 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
3409 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
3412 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
3413 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
3414 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
3415 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
3416 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
3419 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
3421 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
3424 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
3426 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
3428 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
3429 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
3430 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
3432 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
3433 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
3434 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
3435 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
3436 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
3437 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
3438 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
3439 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
3440 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
3441 of the face font sort order.
3443 - Function: x-font-family-list
3445 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
3446 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
3447 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
3448 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
3450 - Variable: font-list-limit
3452 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
3453 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
3454 matching font. The default is currently 100.
3457 *** Setting face attributes.
3459 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
3460 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
3461 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
3464 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
3465 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
3467 The following attributes are recognized:
3471 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
3472 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
3473 and `?' are allowed.
3477 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
3478 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
3479 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
3480 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
3484 VALUE must be either an integer specifying the height of the font to use
3485 in 1/10 pt, a floating point number specifying the amount by which to
3486 scale any underlying face, or a function, which is called with the old
3487 height (from the underlying face), and should return the new height.
3491 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
3492 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
3493 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
3497 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
3498 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
3501 `:foreground', `:background'
3503 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
3507 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
3508 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
3509 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
3514 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
3515 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
3516 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
3521 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
3522 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
3523 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
3524 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
3528 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
3529 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
3530 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
3531 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
3532 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
3533 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
3534 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
3535 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
3536 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
3537 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
3538 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
3539 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
3540 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
3541 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
3542 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
3543 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
3548 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
3549 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
3553 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
3554 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
3555 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
3556 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
3557 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
3558 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
3560 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
3561 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
3565 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
3566 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
3567 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
3570 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
3571 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
3572 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
3574 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
3579 VALUE is the name of a face from which to inherit attributes, or a list
3580 of face names. Attributes from inherited faces are merged into the face
3581 like an underlying face would be, with higher priority than underlying faces.
3583 *** Face attributes and X resources
3585 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
3588 Face attribute X resource class
3589 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
3590 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
3591 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
3592 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
3593 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
3594 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
3595 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
3596 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
3597 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
3598 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
3599 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
3600 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
3601 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
3602 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
3603 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
3604 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
3605 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3606 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
3607 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
3608 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
3611 *** Text property `face'.
3613 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
3614 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
3615 specification can be
3617 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
3619 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
3620 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
3621 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
3622 for face attribute names.
3624 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
3625 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
3626 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
3629 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
3631 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
3632 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
3633 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
3634 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
3635 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
3636 used to clear the mapping table.
3638 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
3640 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
3641 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
3642 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
3643 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
3644 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
3645 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
3646 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
3647 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
3648 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
3649 modify their color-related behavior.
3651 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
3654 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
3656 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
3657 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
3658 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
3659 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
3660 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
3661 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
3662 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
3663 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
3664 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
3667 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
3669 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
3670 To disallow this completely (like previous versions of emacs), customize
3671 the variable `minibuffer-prompt-properties', and turn on the
3672 `Inviolable' option.
3674 The function minibuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
3675 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
3676 Otherwise, it returns zero.
3678 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
3680 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
3681 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
3682 property (which can be a text property or an overlay).
3684 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
3685 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
3686 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
3687 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
3688 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
3689 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
3690 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
3693 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
3694 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
3695 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
3697 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
3699 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY
3701 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
3703 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3704 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
3705 constrained position if that is different.
3707 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
3708 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
3709 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
3710 constrained to the field that has the same `field' char-property
3711 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3712 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
3713 fields. Additionally, if two fields are separated by another field with
3714 the special value `boundary', then any point within this special field is
3715 also considered to be `on the boundary'.
3717 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
3718 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
3719 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
3720 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
3721 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
3723 If the optional argument INHIBIT-CAPTURE-PROPERTY is non-nil, and OLD-POS has
3724 a non-nil property of that name, then any field boundaries are ignored.
3726 Field boundaries are not noticed if `inhibit-field-text-motion' is non-nil.
3728 - Function: delete-field &optional POS
3730 Delete the field surrounding POS.
3731 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3732 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3734 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3736 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
3737 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3738 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3739 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the beginning of its
3740 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
3742 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
3744 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
3745 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3746 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3747 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is at the end of its field,
3748 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
3750 - Function: field-string &optional POS
3752 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
3753 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3754 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3756 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
3758 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
3759 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
3760 If POS is nil, the value of point is used for POS.
3765 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
3766 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
3767 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
3768 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
3770 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
3771 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
3772 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
3773 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
3776 IMAGE is an image specification.
3778 *** Image specifications
3780 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
3781 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
3782 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
3783 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
3784 described below are ignored.
3786 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
3790 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
3791 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
3792 to use for its ascent.
3794 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
3795 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
3797 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
3798 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
3799 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
3800 overlays that apply to the image.
3804 MARGIN must be either a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put
3805 as margin around the image, or a pair (X . Y) with X specifying the
3806 horizontal margin and Y specifying the vertical margin. Default is 0.
3810 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
3815 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it.
3817 ALGO `laplace' or `emboss' means apply a Laplace or ``emboss''
3818 edge-detection algorithm to the image.
3820 ALGO `(edge-detection :matrix MATRIX :color-adjust ADJUST)' means
3821 apply a general edge-detection algorithm. MATRIX must be either a
3822 nine-element list or a nine-element vector of numbers. A pixel at
3823 position x/y in the transformed image is computed from original pixels
3824 around that position. MATRIX specifies, for each pixel in the
3825 neighborhood of x/y, a factor with which that pixel will influence the
3826 transformed pixel; element 0 specifies the factor for the pixel at
3827 x-1/y-1, element 1 the factor for the pixel at x/y-1 etc. as shown
3830 (x-1/y-1 x/y-1 x+1/y-1
3832 x-1/y+1 x/y+1 x+1/y+1)
3834 The resulting pixel is computed from the color intensity of the color
3835 resulting from summing up the RGB values of surrounding pixels,
3836 multiplied by the specified factors, and dividing that sum by the sum
3837 of the factors' absolute values.
3839 Laplace edge-detection currently uses a matrix of
3845 Emboss edge-detection uses a matrix of
3851 ALGO `disabled' means transform the image so that it looks
3856 If MASK is `heuristic' or `(heuristic BG)', build a clipping mask for
3857 the image, so that the background of a frame is visible behind the
3858 image. If BG is not specified, or if BG is t, determine the
3859 background color of the image by looking at the 4 corners of the
3860 image, assuming the most frequently occurring color from the corners is
3861 the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must be a list `(RED
3862 GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the background of the
3865 If MASK is nil, remove a mask from the image, if it has one. Images
3866 in some formats include a mask which can be removed by specifying
3871 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
3872 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
3873 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
3874 may be present in the image specification.
3878 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
3879 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
3880 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
3881 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
3883 *** Supported image types
3885 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
3887 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
3888 properties supported are
3892 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3893 is the frame's foreground.
3897 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3898 the frame's background color.
3900 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
3901 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
3902 instead of a `:file' property.
3906 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
3910 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
3916 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
3917 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
3919 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
3921 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
3924 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
3925 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
3928 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
3930 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
3931 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
3932 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
3933 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
3935 Additional image properties supported are:
3937 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
3939 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
3940 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
3943 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
3944 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
3946 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
3947 to display compressed images.
3949 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
3951 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
3952 mono images are supported. Additional image properties supported for
3957 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
3958 is the frame's foreground.
3962 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
3963 the frame's background color.
3965 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
3967 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
3968 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
3971 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
3973 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
3974 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
3977 **** GIF, image type `gif'
3979 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
3980 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
3982 Additional image properties supported are:
3986 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
3987 multi-image GIF file. An error is signaled if INDEX is too large.
3989 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
3990 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
3991 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
3994 (defun show-anim (file max)
3995 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
3996 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
3998 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
4001 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
4004 (goto-char (point-min))
4005 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
4006 (insert-image img "x"))
4007 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
4009 **** PNG, image type `png'
4011 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
4012 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
4015 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
4017 Additional image properties supported are:
4021 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
4022 integer. This is a required property.
4026 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
4027 must be a integer. This is an required property.
4031 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
4032 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
4033 files. This is an required property.
4035 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
4040 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
4041 which are supported in the current configuration.
4043 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
4044 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
4045 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
4046 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
4047 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
4049 *** Simplified image API, image.el
4051 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
4052 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
4053 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
4054 define an image based on available image types. The functions
4055 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
4061 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
4064 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
4065 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
4066 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
4067 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
4068 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
4069 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
4070 of the display margins.
4072 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
4073 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
4074 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
4075 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
4081 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
4082 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
4083 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
4084 that have a `help-echo' property.
4086 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
4087 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
4088 the window in which the help was found.
4090 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
4091 `help-echo' text property was found.
4093 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
4094 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
4096 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
4097 the `display' property), POS is the position in that string under the
4100 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
4101 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
4103 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
4104 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
4105 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
4106 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
4107 used as help string.
4109 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
4110 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
4111 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
4114 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
4116 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
4117 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
4119 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
4120 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
4121 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
4122 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
4125 (global-set-key [A-down]
4128 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4129 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
4130 (global-set-key [A-up]
4133 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
4134 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
4137 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
4139 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
4140 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
4141 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
4142 is called with one argument, POS.
4144 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
4145 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
4146 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
4147 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
4148 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
4151 ** Tool bar support.
4153 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
4154 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
4155 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
4156 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
4157 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
4158 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
4160 *** Tool bar item definitions
4162 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
4163 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
4164 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
4166 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
4167 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
4168 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
4169 property (see below).
4171 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
4172 binding are currently ignored.
4174 The following properties are recognized:
4178 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
4183 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
4187 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
4188 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
4189 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
4191 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
4193 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
4194 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
4198 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
4199 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
4200 meaning of each of the four elements:
4202 Index Use when item is
4203 ----------------------------------------
4204 0 enabled and selected
4205 1 enabled and deselected
4206 2 disabled and selected
4207 3 disabled and deselected
4209 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
4210 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
4212 `:help HELP-STRING'.
4214 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
4215 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
4217 The function `toolbar-add-item' is a convenience function for adding
4218 toolbar items generally, and `tool-bar-add-item-from-menu' can be used
4219 to define a toolbar item with a binding copied from an item on the
4222 The default bindings use a menu-item :filter to derive the tool-bar
4223 dynamically from variable `tool-bar-map' which may be set
4224 buffer-locally to override the global map.
4226 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
4228 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
4229 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
4230 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
4232 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
4233 raised when the mouse moves over them.
4235 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
4236 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
4237 pixels, or a pair of integers (X . Y) specifying horizontal and
4238 vertical margins . Default is 1.
4240 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
4241 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
4243 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
4245 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
4248 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
4249 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
4250 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
4252 is the original tool bar item definition, then
4254 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
4256 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
4259 ** Mode line changes.
4262 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
4264 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
4265 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
4266 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
4268 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
4269 a `local-map' text property.
4271 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
4272 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
4274 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
4275 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
4276 `local-map' property.
4278 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
4279 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
4282 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
4283 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
4286 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
4287 variable mode-line-format to nil.
4290 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
4292 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
4293 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
4294 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
4295 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
4298 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
4301 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
4302 position in the header-line.
4305 ** Text property `display'
4307 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text,
4308 replace text with other text, display text in marginal area, and it is
4309 also used to control other aspects of how text displays. The value of
4310 the `display' property should be a display specification, as described
4311 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
4313 *** Replacing text, displaying text in marginal areas
4315 To replace the text having the `display' property with some other
4316 text, use a display specification of the form `(LOCATION STRING)'.
4318 If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)', STRING is displayed in the left
4319 marginal area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in
4320 the right marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' STRING
4321 is displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4322 simpler form STRING as property value.
4324 *** Variable width and height spaces
4326 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
4327 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
4328 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
4329 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
4330 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
4331 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
4332 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
4334 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
4335 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
4336 properties described below.
4338 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
4339 characters having the `display' property.
4343 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
4344 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
4346 - :relative-width FACTOR
4348 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
4349 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
4350 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
4351 width of that character by FACTOR.
4355 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
4356 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
4358 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
4362 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
4365 - :relative-height FACTOR
4367 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
4368 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
4372 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
4373 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
4374 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
4377 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
4381 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
4382 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
4383 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
4384 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
4385 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
4386 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
4387 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
4388 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
4389 as display specification.
4391 *** Other display properties
4393 - (space-width FACTOR)
4395 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
4396 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
4401 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
4403 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
4404 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
4405 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
4406 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
4407 a font is available counts as a step.
4409 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
4410 as tall as the frame's default font.
4412 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
4413 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
4415 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
4416 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
4420 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
4421 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
4422 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
4423 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
4424 `height' subproperty.
4426 *** Conditional display properties
4428 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
4429 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
4430 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
4431 During evaluation, point is temporarily set to the end position of
4432 the text having the `display' property.
4434 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
4438 ** New menu separator types.
4440 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
4441 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
4442 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
4443 to specify other menu separator types.
4445 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
4447 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
4450 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
4452 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
4454 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
4456 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
4458 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
4460 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4462 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
4464 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
4466 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
4468 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the form
4469 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
4471 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
4473 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
4475 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
4477 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
4479 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
4481 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
4483 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
4485 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4487 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
4489 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
4491 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
4493 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
4495 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
4497 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
4499 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
4500 the corresponding single-line separators.
4503 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
4505 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
4506 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
4507 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
4508 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
4509 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
4510 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
4511 default foreground is black.
4513 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
4514 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
4515 `ScrollBarBackground').
4517 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
4518 settings for scroll bar colors.
4521 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
4522 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
4525 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
4526 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
4527 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
4528 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
4529 the original window start.
4532 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
4533 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
4534 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
4537 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
4539 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
4540 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
4541 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
4542 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
4544 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
4545 fixed-width and fixed-height.
4547 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
4549 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
4550 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
4551 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
4552 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
4553 temporarily to nil, for example
4555 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
4556 (enlarge-window 10))
4558 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
4559 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
4561 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
4562 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
4563 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
4564 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
4565 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
4566 support a vertical-bar cursor).
4571 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
4573 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
4576 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
4578 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
4580 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
4581 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
4582 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
4583 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
4584 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
4586 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
4590 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
4592 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
4596 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
4598 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
4599 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
4601 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
4603 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
4605 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
4606 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
4607 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
4609 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
4610 is the one that is used.
4612 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
4613 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
4614 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
4615 separate from the command's regular output.
4616 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
4617 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
4618 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
4621 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
4622 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
4623 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
4624 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
4626 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
4627 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
4628 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
4629 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
4631 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
4632 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
4633 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
4634 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
4636 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
4637 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
4638 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
4639 they never ignore case.
4641 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
4642 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
4643 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
4644 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
4645 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
4646 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
4647 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
4649 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
4650 the same format that was used in the file before.
4652 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
4653 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
4655 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
4656 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
4657 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
4659 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
4660 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
4661 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
4662 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
4663 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
4664 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
4665 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
4667 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
4668 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
4669 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
4670 format. You can now customize these variables.
4672 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
4673 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
4674 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
4675 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
4677 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
4678 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
4679 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
4681 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
4682 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
4683 doesn't have any effect.
4685 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
4688 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
4689 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
4690 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
4692 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
4693 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
4694 `auto-show-mode' command.
4696 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
4697 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
4698 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
4699 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
4700 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
4702 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
4703 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
4705 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
4706 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
4707 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
4709 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
4710 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
4711 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
4712 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
4714 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
4716 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
4717 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
4718 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
4719 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
4720 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
4722 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
4723 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
4725 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
4726 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
4727 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
4728 `?' on other systems.
4730 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
4731 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
4734 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
4735 current codepage when it starts.
4739 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
4740 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
4741 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
4742 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
4743 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
4744 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
4748 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
4749 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
4751 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
4752 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
4753 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
4754 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
4755 buffer-file-coding-system.
4757 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
4758 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
4761 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
4762 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
4763 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
4764 list of possible coding systems.
4768 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
4769 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
4770 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
4771 docstring for details.
4773 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
4774 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
4775 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
4776 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
4777 lineup functions use this feature currently.
4779 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
4780 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
4782 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
4783 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
4785 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
4786 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
4787 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
4788 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
4791 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
4792 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
4794 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
4795 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
4796 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
4797 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
4799 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
4800 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
4801 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
4802 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
4803 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
4805 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
4807 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
4809 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
4810 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
4812 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
4814 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
4815 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
4816 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
4817 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
4818 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
4822 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
4823 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
4824 Gnus manual for the full story.
4826 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
4827 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
4828 group, which is created automatically.
4830 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
4833 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
4835 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
4836 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
4838 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
4841 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
4843 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
4844 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
4846 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
4848 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
4849 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
4851 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
4852 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
4854 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
4855 control over simplification.
4857 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
4859 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
4862 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
4864 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
4866 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
4867 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
4868 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
4870 *** Canceling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
4871 `a' forces normal posting method.
4873 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
4876 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
4879 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
4880 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
4882 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
4885 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
4887 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
4889 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
4890 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
4892 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
4893 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
4895 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
4897 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
4900 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
4901 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
4903 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
4904 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
4906 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
4908 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
4910 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
4912 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
4914 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
4915 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
4916 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
4918 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
4919 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
4920 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
4921 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
4922 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
4924 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
4925 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
4926 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
4927 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
4929 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
4930 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
4931 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
4934 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4936 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
4937 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
4939 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
4940 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
4941 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
4942 removed from the label.
4944 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
4945 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
4947 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
4948 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
4950 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
4951 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
4954 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
4956 ** New/deleted modes and packages
4958 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
4959 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
4961 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
4962 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
4963 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
4965 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
4966 changes with a special face.
4968 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
4969 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
4970 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
4972 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
4974 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
4975 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
4976 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
4977 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
4978 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
4980 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
4981 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
4982 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
4984 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
4985 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
4986 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
4987 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
4988 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
4989 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
4990 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
4991 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
4992 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
4994 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
4995 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
4996 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
4997 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
4998 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
5001 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
5002 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
5003 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
5004 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
5005 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
5006 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
5008 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
5009 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
5010 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
5011 was not documented clearly before.
5013 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
5014 This includes Tetris and Snake.
5016 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
5018 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
5019 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
5020 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
5021 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
5023 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
5024 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
5025 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
5027 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
5029 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
5030 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
5032 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5033 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
5036 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
5037 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
5038 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
5039 file names and attributes are returned.
5041 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
5042 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
5043 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its attributes.
5044 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
5047 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
5048 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
5050 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
5052 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
5053 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
5054 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
5057 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
5058 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
5061 The new function process-running-child-p
5062 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
5063 terminal to its own child process.
5065 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
5066 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
5067 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
5068 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
5070 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
5071 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
5073 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
5074 :included is an alias for :visible.
5076 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
5077 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
5078 to move or copy menu entries.
5080 ** Multibyte editing changes
5082 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
5083 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
5084 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
5085 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
5086 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
5087 (setq char (sref str idx)
5088 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
5089 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
5091 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
5092 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
5093 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
5095 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
5096 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
5097 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
5099 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibited
5101 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
5102 across the boundary.
5104 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
5105 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
5106 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
5107 contains 8-bit characters.
5108 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
5109 contains invalid characters.
5111 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
5112 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
5113 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
5114 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
5117 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
5118 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
5119 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
5120 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
5122 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
5123 compose Thai characters in a string.
5125 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
5126 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
5127 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
5128 menus should always use the third argument.
5130 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
5131 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
5132 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
5133 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
5135 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
5136 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
5137 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
5138 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
5140 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
5141 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
5142 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
5145 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
5147 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
5148 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
5149 requested feature cannot be loaded.
5151 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
5152 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
5153 means to clear out that attribute.
5155 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
5156 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
5158 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
5159 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
5160 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
5161 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
5163 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
5164 the gap of the current buffer.
5166 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
5167 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
5170 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
5171 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
5172 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
5173 it back in after any modifications have been made.
5175 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
5177 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
5178 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
5179 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
5180 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
5181 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
5183 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
5184 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
5185 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
5186 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
5187 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
5189 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
5190 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
5191 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
5193 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
5194 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
5195 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
5196 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
5197 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
5200 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
5201 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
5202 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
5203 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
5205 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
5207 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
5208 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
5209 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
5210 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
5212 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
5213 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
5214 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
5215 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
5216 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
5217 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
5218 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
5221 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
5224 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
5225 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
5226 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
5227 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
5228 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
5230 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
5231 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
5232 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
5233 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
5235 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
5236 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
5237 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
5238 something that most users not do.
5240 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
5241 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
5242 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
5245 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
5248 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
5249 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
5250 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
5251 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
5254 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
5255 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
5256 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
5257 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
5258 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
5261 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
5262 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
5263 to be confused by TeX commands.
5265 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
5266 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
5267 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
5268 of various alternative replacements and actions.
5270 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
5271 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
5272 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
5273 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
5274 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
5276 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
5277 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
5279 ** Changes in input method usage.
5281 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
5282 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
5285 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
5287 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
5288 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
5290 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
5291 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
5293 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
5295 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
5297 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
5298 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
5300 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
5301 given in the following case:
5302 o When you are using a complex input method.
5303 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
5305 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
5306 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
5307 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
5308 setting it to t is helpful.
5310 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
5312 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
5314 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
5315 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
5316 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
5317 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
5320 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
5321 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
5322 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
5325 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
5327 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
5329 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
5330 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
5332 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
5333 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
5334 its owner and group.
5336 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
5337 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
5339 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
5340 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
5342 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
5343 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
5344 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
5345 by the left edge of the rectangle.
5347 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
5348 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
5349 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
5350 for writing keyboard macros.
5352 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
5353 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
5354 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
5355 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
5356 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
5359 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
5361 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
5362 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
5365 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
5366 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
5367 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
5368 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
5370 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
5371 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
5372 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
5374 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
5375 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
5376 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
5377 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
5379 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
5380 failure if the command produces no output.
5382 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
5383 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
5386 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
5387 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
5388 function and variable names.
5390 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
5391 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
5392 file-coding-system-alist.
5394 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
5395 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
5396 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
5397 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
5398 according to the current fontset.
5400 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
5402 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
5403 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
5404 nonascii-insert-offset.
5406 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
5407 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
5408 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
5409 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
5411 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
5412 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
5414 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
5415 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
5417 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
5418 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
5421 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
5422 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
5424 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
5425 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
5426 all variables that have documentation.
5428 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
5429 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
5430 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
5431 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
5432 it should show; the default is 20.
5434 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
5435 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
5438 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
5439 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
5440 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
5441 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
5442 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
5443 Newly added options are included as well.
5445 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
5446 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
5447 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
5449 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
5452 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
5453 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
5455 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
5456 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
5459 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
5460 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
5463 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
5464 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
5465 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
5466 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
5469 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
5471 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
5472 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
5473 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
5475 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
5476 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
5477 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
5482 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
5483 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
5485 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
5486 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
5488 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
5489 read and post multi-lingual articles.
5491 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
5492 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
5493 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
5494 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
5495 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
5496 made invisible again.
5498 ** Mail reading and sending changes
5500 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
5501 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
5502 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
5505 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
5506 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
5507 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
5508 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
5509 rmail-default-body-file.
5511 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
5512 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
5513 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
5515 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
5516 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
5517 is evaluated to insert the signature.
5519 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
5520 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
5521 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
5522 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
5523 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
5524 especially interested in trying feedmail.
5526 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
5527 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
5528 provided by feedmail are:
5530 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
5531 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
5532 there is also a queue for draft messages
5534 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
5535 be prompted for confirmation
5537 **** does smart filling of address headers
5539 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
5540 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
5541 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
5543 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
5544 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
5545 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
5546 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
5550 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
5551 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
5553 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
5554 run Dired on the directory name at point.
5556 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
5557 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
5558 for a specified regexp.
5562 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
5565 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
5566 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
5569 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
5570 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
5571 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
5572 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
5574 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
5575 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
5576 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
5577 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
5578 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
5580 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
5581 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
5582 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
5583 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
5584 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
5586 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
5587 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
5588 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
5589 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
5591 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
5592 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
5593 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
5595 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
5596 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
5597 session to resolve them.
5599 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
5600 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
5601 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
5604 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
5605 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
5606 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
5607 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
5608 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
5609 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
5612 ** Changes in Font Lock
5614 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
5615 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
5616 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
5617 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
5618 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
5620 ** Frame name display changes
5622 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
5623 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
5624 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
5625 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
5627 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
5628 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
5631 ** Comint (subshell) changes
5633 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
5634 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
5635 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
5637 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
5639 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
5640 that is, the line after the last line you got.
5641 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
5643 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
5644 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
5647 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
5648 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
5649 previously sent input.
5651 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
5652 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
5653 as the search string.
5655 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
5656 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
5660 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
5661 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
5662 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
5665 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
5666 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
5667 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
5668 style is still the default however.
5670 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
5672 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
5673 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
5674 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
5676 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
5677 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
5679 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
5680 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
5682 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
5683 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
5685 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
5686 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
5688 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
5689 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
5690 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
5691 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
5693 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
5695 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
5696 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
5697 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
5699 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
5700 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
5701 expanding dynamically.
5703 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
5704 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
5706 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
5707 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
5708 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
5709 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
5711 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
5713 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
5715 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
5716 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
5717 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
5718 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
5719 against the first word in the title.
5721 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
5722 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
5723 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
5724 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
5725 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
5726 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
5728 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
5729 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
5730 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
5731 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
5733 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
5735 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
5736 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
5737 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
5738 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
5739 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
5740 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
5742 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
5743 Editing group once the package is loaded.
5745 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
5746 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
5747 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behavior.
5749 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
5750 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
5754 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
5755 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
5756 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
5758 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
5759 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
5760 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
5761 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
5764 o URLs are automatically skipped
5765 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
5767 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
5769 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
5771 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
5772 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
5773 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
5774 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
5776 *** New recursive parser.
5778 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
5779 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
5780 recursive parser scans the individual files.
5782 *** Parsing only part of a document.
5784 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
5785 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
5786 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
5788 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
5790 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
5792 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
5794 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
5796 *** Using multiple selection buffers
5798 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
5799 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
5801 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
5803 *** References to external documents.
5805 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
5806 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
5807 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
5808 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
5809 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
5810 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
5811 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
5813 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
5815 The built-in command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
5816 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
5818 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
5819 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
5821 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
5823 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
5824 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
5826 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
5828 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
5829 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
5830 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
5831 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
5832 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
5833 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
5836 *** Support for the varioref package
5838 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
5842 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
5843 and citations are created. These hooks are
5844 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
5845 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
5847 *** Citations outside LaTeX
5849 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
5850 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
5852 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
5854 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
5855 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
5858 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
5860 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
5861 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
5862 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
5863 directories that contain the same file name.
5865 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
5866 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
5867 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
5868 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
5869 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
5870 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
5871 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
5874 ** New modes and packages
5876 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
5877 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
5878 it, but some do not.
5880 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
5883 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
5884 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
5887 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
5889 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
5890 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
5891 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
5892 established system of notation similar to Chess.
5894 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
5895 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
5896 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
5898 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
5899 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
5900 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
5901 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
5902 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
5905 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
5906 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
5908 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
5909 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
5910 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
5911 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
5913 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
5915 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
5916 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
5917 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
5918 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
5919 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
5920 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
5921 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
5922 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
5923 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
5924 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
5925 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
5927 Platform-specific modes:
5929 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
5930 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
5931 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
5932 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
5933 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
5934 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
5935 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
5936 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
5937 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
5939 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5941 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
5942 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
5943 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
5944 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
5946 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
5947 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
5948 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
5950 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
5951 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
5952 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
5953 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
5955 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
5956 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
5957 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
5960 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
5961 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
5962 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
5963 current input method for reading this one event.
5965 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
5966 now control whether to output certain characters as
5967 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
5968 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
5969 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
5970 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
5972 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
5974 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
5975 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
5977 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
5978 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
5979 always increases point by 1.
5981 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
5982 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
5984 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
5986 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
5987 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
5988 default value changed. For example,
5990 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
5995 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
5998 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
5999 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
6000 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
6001 `:version' in the top level group.
6003 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
6005 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
6006 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
6008 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
6009 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
6010 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
6013 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
6014 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
6017 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
6018 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
6019 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
6021 ** Frame-local variables.
6023 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
6024 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
6025 local bindings for that variable.
6027 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
6028 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
6029 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
6032 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
6033 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
6034 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
6035 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
6037 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
6038 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
6039 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
6040 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
6042 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
6043 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
6044 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
6045 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
6046 See the documentation in sregex.el.
6048 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
6049 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
6050 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
6051 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
6053 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
6054 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
6056 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
6057 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
6058 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
6060 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
6061 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
6062 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
6063 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
6065 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
6066 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
6069 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
6070 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
6071 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
6072 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
6073 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
6075 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
6076 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
6077 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
6078 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
6080 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
6081 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
6082 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
6083 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
6084 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
6086 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
6087 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
6088 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
6089 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
6091 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
6092 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
6093 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
6095 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
6096 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
6097 was directed to display this buffer.
6099 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
6100 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
6101 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
6102 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
6103 set-window-configuration.
6105 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
6106 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
6107 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
6108 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
6110 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
6111 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
6112 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
6114 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
6115 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
6116 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
6118 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
6119 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
6121 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
6122 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
6124 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
6125 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
6126 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
6128 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
6129 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
6130 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
6131 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
6135 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
6136 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
6139 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
6140 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
6141 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
6142 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
6143 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
6145 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
6147 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
6148 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
6149 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
6150 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
6153 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
6154 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
6155 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
6156 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
6157 The supported properties include
6159 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6161 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
6162 item should appear in the menu.
6164 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
6165 which will be REAL-BINDING.
6166 It should return a binding to use instead.
6168 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
6169 binding for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
6170 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
6171 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
6172 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
6175 This means that the command normally has no
6176 keyboard equivalent.
6177 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
6178 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
6179 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
6180 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
6181 value says whether this button is currently selected.
6183 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
6184 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
6186 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
6190 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
6191 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
6192 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
6193 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
6195 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
6197 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6198 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
6199 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
6200 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
6201 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
6202 forward, away from the user.
6204 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6206 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
6207 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
6208 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
6209 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
6210 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
6212 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
6214 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
6215 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
6216 that were dragged and dropped.
6218 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
6220 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
6222 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
6223 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
6224 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
6226 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
6227 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
6228 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
6230 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
6231 in Emacs 19 and before.
6233 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
6234 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
6236 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
6237 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
6238 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
6239 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
6241 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
6242 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
6243 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
6244 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
6245 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
6247 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
6248 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
6249 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
6250 consistent with the new representation.
6252 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
6253 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
6254 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
6255 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6257 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
6258 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
6259 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
6261 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
6262 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
6263 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
6265 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
6266 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
6267 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
6269 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6270 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
6272 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
6273 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
6275 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
6276 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
6277 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
6278 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
6280 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
6281 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
6283 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
6284 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
6285 buffer or string being searched.
6287 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
6288 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
6289 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
6290 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
6291 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
6292 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
6293 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
6295 *** Structure of coding system changed.
6297 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
6298 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
6299 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
6300 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
6301 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
6302 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
6303 define-coding-system-alias.
6305 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
6306 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
6307 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
6308 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
6309 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
6310 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
6311 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
6314 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
6315 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
6316 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
6317 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
6319 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
6320 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
6321 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
6322 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
6324 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
6325 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
6326 This function requires a user interaction.
6328 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
6329 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
6330 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
6331 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
6332 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
6333 select-safe-coding-system.
6335 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
6336 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
6337 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
6340 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
6341 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
6342 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
6344 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
6345 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
6346 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
6347 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
6349 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
6350 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
6351 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
6354 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
6355 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
6357 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
6358 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
6359 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
6360 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
6361 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
6362 range of characters.
6364 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
6365 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
6367 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
6368 in the current buffer at position POS.
6370 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
6371 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
6372 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
6373 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
6374 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
6375 binding input-method-function to nil.
6377 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
6378 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
6379 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
6380 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
6381 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
6383 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
6384 subsequent events of a key sequence.
6386 *** You can customize any language environment by using
6387 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
6389 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
6390 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
6391 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
6392 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
6393 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
6395 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
6397 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
6398 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
6399 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
6402 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
6403 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
6405 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
6406 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
6407 in your .emacs file.)
6409 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
6410 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
6412 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
6413 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
6415 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
6416 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
6419 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
6420 delete the character before point, as usual.
6422 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
6423 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
6424 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
6426 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
6427 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
6428 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
6429 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
6430 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
6433 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
6434 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
6435 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
6436 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
6437 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
6439 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
6440 and is an alias for it.
6442 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
6443 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
6445 ** Scrolling changes
6447 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
6448 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
6450 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
6451 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
6454 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
6455 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
6456 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
6457 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
6459 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
6460 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
6461 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
6462 recenters the window.
6464 ** International character set support (MULE)
6466 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
6467 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
6468 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
6469 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
6470 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
6471 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
6473 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
6474 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
6475 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
6476 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
6477 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
6479 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
6480 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
6481 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
6482 language, to make it possible to type them.
6484 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
6485 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
6487 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
6488 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
6490 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
6492 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
6494 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
6495 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
6496 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
6497 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
6498 characters for their work until they want to change.
6502 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
6503 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
6504 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
6505 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
6506 support several input methods.
6508 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
6509 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
6512 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
6513 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
6514 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
6515 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
6516 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
6519 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
6520 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
6521 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
6522 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
6523 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
6525 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
6526 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
6527 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
6528 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
6530 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
6531 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
6532 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
6533 the first guess is wrong.
6535 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
6536 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
6538 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
6539 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
6540 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
6541 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
6543 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
6544 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
6545 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
6546 translate automatically to and from either one.
6548 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
6550 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
6551 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
6552 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
6555 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
6556 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
6557 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
6558 multibyte characters in that buffer.
6560 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
6561 character conversion as well.
6563 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
6565 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
6566 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
6567 requires using many fonts.
6569 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
6570 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
6572 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
6573 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
6574 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
6575 you would use a font.
6577 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
6578 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
6579 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
6581 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
6582 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
6583 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
6584 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
6585 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
6587 *** Defining fontsets.
6589 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
6590 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
6591 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
6593 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
6594 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
6595 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
6596 standard fontset are created automatically.
6598 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
6599 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
6600 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
6601 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
6602 name is `fontset-startup'.
6604 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
6605 The resource value should have this form:
6606 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
6607 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
6608 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
6609 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
6610 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
6611 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
6612 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
6613 CHARSET-NAME should be the name of a character set, and FONT-NAME
6614 should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
6616 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
6617 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
6618 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
6620 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
6621 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
6623 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
6624 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
6625 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
6626 Here is the substitution rule:
6627 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
6628 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
6629 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
6630 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
6631 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
6633 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
6634 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
6635 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
6637 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
6638 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
6639 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
6640 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
6643 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
6644 defaults for a particular choice of language.
6646 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
6647 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
6648 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
6649 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
6650 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
6651 system for new files that you create.
6653 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
6654 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
6655 whole Emacs session.
6657 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
6658 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
6659 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
6661 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
6662 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
6663 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
6664 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
6665 coding systems that Emacs supports.
6667 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
6668 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
6669 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
6670 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
6671 is used for *the immediately following command*.
6673 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
6674 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
6676 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
6677 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
6679 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
6680 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
6682 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
6683 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
6684 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
6685 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
6688 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
6689 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
6690 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
6691 translated into that character code.
6693 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
6694 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
6696 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
6698 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
6699 the coding system for keyboard input.
6701 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
6702 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
6703 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
6705 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
6707 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
6708 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
6709 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
6710 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
6711 designed to work with terminals.
6713 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
6714 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
6715 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
6716 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
6717 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
6718 in the corresponding buffer.
6720 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
6722 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
6723 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
6724 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
6726 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
6727 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
6728 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
6731 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
6732 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
6734 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
6735 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
6736 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
6737 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
6739 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
6740 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
6741 related information.
6743 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
6744 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
6747 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
6748 information about the support for a particular language.
6749 You specify the language as an argument.
6751 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
6752 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
6755 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
6756 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
6757 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
6758 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
6760 A alternativnyj (Russian)
6762 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
6763 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
6764 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
6765 E euc-japan (Japanese)
6766 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6767 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
6768 K euc-korea (Korean)
6771 S shift_jis (Japanese)
6774 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
6775 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
6776 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
6780 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
6781 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
6782 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
6783 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
6785 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
6786 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
6788 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
6789 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
6790 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
6791 Rmail files themselves.
6793 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
6794 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
6796 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
6799 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
6800 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
6801 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
6802 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
6803 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
6805 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
6806 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
6807 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
6810 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
6811 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
6812 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
6813 without any conversion.
6815 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
6816 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
6817 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
6818 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
6820 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
6821 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
6823 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
6824 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
6826 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
6827 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
6829 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
6830 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
6831 in the buffer before point.
6833 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
6834 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
6837 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
6838 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
6840 ** File locking works with NFS now.
6842 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
6843 in the same directory as FILENAME.
6845 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
6846 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
6847 can become a bottleneck.
6849 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
6850 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
6851 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
6852 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
6853 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
6854 so useful that the change is worth while.
6856 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
6857 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
6858 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
6859 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
6861 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
6862 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
6865 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
6866 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
6867 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
6869 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
6870 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
6871 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
6873 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
6874 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
6875 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
6877 ** Changes in View mode.
6879 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
6880 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
6882 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
6883 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
6885 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
6888 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
6889 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
6891 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
6892 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
6893 not just the selected window.
6895 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
6896 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
6897 turns View mode on or off.
6899 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
6900 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
6901 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
6903 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
6904 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
6906 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
6907 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
6908 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
6909 which version to compare with.
6911 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
6912 blocks if a match is inside the block.
6914 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
6915 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
6916 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
6917 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
6919 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
6920 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
6921 blocks, all of them or none.
6923 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
6924 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
6927 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
6928 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
6929 However, the mode will not be changed if
6930 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
6931 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
6932 not suitable for ordinary files, or
6933 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
6935 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
6937 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
6938 these commands do not change the major mode.
6940 ** M-x occur changes.
6942 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
6943 it performs a case-sensitive search.
6945 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
6946 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
6947 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
6949 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
6950 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
6951 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
6952 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
6953 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
6955 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
6956 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
6957 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
6958 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
6960 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
6961 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
6962 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
6964 ** Outline mode changes.
6966 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
6968 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
6970 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
6971 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
6972 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
6975 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
6976 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
6979 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
6980 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
6982 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
6984 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6985 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
6986 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
6987 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
6989 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
6990 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
6991 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
6993 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
6994 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
6997 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
6998 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
6999 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
7000 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
7002 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
7003 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
7004 can be. The default value is 30.
7006 ** Changes in Mail mode.
7008 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
7009 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
7010 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
7011 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
7012 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
7015 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
7016 compose-mail-other-frame.
7018 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
7019 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
7020 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
7021 buffer that shows the original message.
7023 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
7024 with separator lines around the contents.
7026 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
7027 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
7028 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
7029 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
7031 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
7033 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
7034 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
7035 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
7036 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
7038 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
7039 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
7042 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
7043 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
7046 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
7047 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
7048 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
7049 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
7051 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
7052 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
7053 be taken to be magic.
7055 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
7056 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
7057 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
7059 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
7060 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
7062 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
7063 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
7065 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
7067 new key dired.el binding old key
7068 ------- ---------------- -------
7069 * c dired-change-marks c
7071 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
7072 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
7073 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
7075 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
7076 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
7077 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
7078 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
7079 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
7080 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
7084 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
7085 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
7086 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
7087 each time you run it.
7089 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
7090 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
7092 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
7093 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
7094 means to move in the opposite direction.
7096 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
7097 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
7099 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
7100 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
7101 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
7102 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
7107 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
7109 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
7112 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
7113 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
7115 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
7118 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
7120 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
7122 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
7124 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
7125 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
7126 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
7128 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
7130 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
7132 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
7133 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
7135 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
7136 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
7137 used to pick articles.
7139 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
7140 another have been added.
7142 `M-x gnus-change-server'
7144 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
7145 generating lines in buffers.
7147 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
7150 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
7152 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
7154 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
7156 *** Scores can be decayed.
7158 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
7160 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
7161 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
7163 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
7166 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
7168 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
7169 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
7171 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
7173 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
7174 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
7176 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
7177 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
7179 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
7182 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
7183 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
7185 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
7187 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
7189 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
7191 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
7193 Use the `Y c' command.
7195 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
7197 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
7199 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
7201 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
7202 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
7204 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
7206 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
7208 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
7209 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
7211 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
7213 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
7214 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
7215 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
7216 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
7219 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
7220 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
7221 particular news group. This can be done by:
7223 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
7225 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
7226 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
7227 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
7228 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
7229 for reading and posting).
7231 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
7232 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
7233 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
7234 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
7237 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
7238 default. Here are some of these default settings:
7240 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
7241 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
7242 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
7243 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
7244 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
7246 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
7247 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
7251 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
7252 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
7253 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
7254 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
7255 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
7258 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
7259 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
7260 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
7261 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
7262 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
7263 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
7265 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
7266 of the current buffer.
7268 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
7269 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
7270 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
7272 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
7273 style that the Python developers like.
7275 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
7276 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
7277 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
7281 *** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
7282 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
7283 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
7285 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
7286 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
7289 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
7290 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
7292 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
7293 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
7294 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
7295 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
7297 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
7298 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
7300 ** Calendar changes.
7302 *** A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or
7303 subclasses of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow
7304 you do this for the year of the selected date, or the
7305 following/previous years.
7307 *** There is now support for the Baha'i calendar system. Use `pb' in
7308 the *Calendar* buffer to display the current Baha'i date. The Baha'i
7309 calendar, or "Badi calendar" is a system of 19 months with 19 days
7310 each, and 4 intercalary days (5 during a Gregorian leap year). The
7311 calendar begins May 23, 1844, with each of the months named after a
7312 supposed attribute of God.
7316 There are some new user variables and subgroups for customizing the page
7319 *** Headers & Footers (subgroup)
7321 Some printer systems print a header page and force the first page to
7322 be printed on the back of the header page when using duplex. If your
7323 printer system has this behavior, set variable
7324 `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' to t.
7326 If variable `ps-banner-page-when-duplexing' is non-nil, it prints a
7327 blank page as the very first printed page. So, it behaves as if the
7328 very first character of buffer (or region) were a form feed ^L (\014).
7330 The variable `ps-spool-config' specifies who is responsible for
7331 setting duplex mode and page size. Valid values are:
7333 lpr-switches duplex and page size are configured by `ps-lpr-switches'.
7334 Don't forget to set `ps-lpr-switches' to select duplex
7335 printing for your printer.
7337 setpagedevice duplex and page size are configured by ps-print using the
7338 setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7340 nil duplex and page size are configured by ps-print *not* using
7341 the setpagedevice PostScript operator.
7343 The variable `ps-spool-tumble' specifies how the page images on
7344 opposite sides of a sheet are oriented with respect to each other. If
7345 `ps-spool-tumble' is nil, ps-print produces output suitable for
7346 bindings on the left or right. If `ps-spool-tumble' is non-nil,
7347 ps-print produces output suitable for bindings at the top or bottom.
7348 This variable takes effect only if `ps-spool-duplex' is non-nil.
7349 The default value is nil.
7351 The variable `ps-header-frame-alist' specifies a header frame
7352 properties alist. Valid frame properties are:
7354 fore-color Specify the foreground frame color.
7355 Value should be a float number between 0.0 (black
7356 color) and 1.0 (white color), or a string which is a
7357 color name, or a list of 3 float numbers which
7358 correspond to the Red Green Blue color scale, each
7359 float number between 0.0 (dark color) and 1.0 (bright
7360 color). The default is 0 ("black").
7362 back-color Specify the background frame color (similar to fore-color).
7363 The default is 0.9 ("gray90").
7365 shadow-color Specify the shadow color (similar to fore-color).
7366 The default is 0 ("black").
7368 border-color Specify the border color (similar to fore-color).
7369 The default is 0 ("black").
7371 border-width Specify the border width.
7374 Any other property is ignored.
7376 Don't change this alist directly; instead use Custom, or the
7377 `ps-value', `ps-get', `ps-put' and `ps-del' functions (see there for
7380 Ps-print can also print footers. The footer variables are:
7381 `ps-print-footer', `ps-footer-offset', `ps-print-footer-frame',
7382 `ps-footer-font-family', `ps-footer-font-size', `ps-footer-line-pad',
7383 `ps-footer-lines', `ps-left-footer', `ps-right-footer' and
7384 `ps-footer-frame-alist'. These variables are similar to those
7385 controlling headers.
7387 *** Color management (subgroup)
7389 If `ps-print-color-p' is non-nil, the buffer's text will be printed in
7392 *** Face Management (subgroup)
7394 If you need to print without worrying about face background colors,
7395 set the variable `ps-use-face-background' which specifies if face
7396 background should be used. Valid values are:
7398 t always use face background color.
7399 nil never use face background color.
7400 (face...) list of faces whose background color will be used.
7402 *** N-up printing (subgroup)
7404 The variable `ps-n-up-printing' specifies the number of pages per
7407 The variable `ps-n-up-margin' specifies the margin in points (pt)
7408 between the sheet border and the n-up printing.
7410 If variable `ps-n-up-border-p' is non-nil, a border is drawn around
7413 The variable `ps-n-up-filling' specifies how the page matrix is filled
7414 on each sheet of paper. Following are the valid values for
7415 `ps-n-up-filling' with a filling example using a 3x4 page matrix:
7417 `left-top' 1 2 3 4 `left-bottom' 9 10 11 12
7421 `right-top' 4 3 2 1 `right-bottom' 12 11 10 9
7425 `top-left' 1 4 7 10 `bottom-left' 3 6 9 12
7429 `top-right' 10 7 4 1 `bottom-right' 12 9 6 3
7433 Any other value is treated as `left-top'.
7435 *** Zebra stripes (subgroup)
7437 The variable `ps-zebra-color' controls the zebra stripes grayscale or
7440 The variable `ps-zebra-stripe-follow' specifies how zebra stripes
7441 continue on next page. Visually, valid values are (the character `+'
7442 to the right of each column indicates that a line is printed):
7444 `nil' `follow' `full' `full-follow'
7445 Current Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7446 1 XXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXX + 1 XXXXXX + 1 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7447 2 XXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXX + 2 XXXXXX + 2 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7448 3 XXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXX + 3 XXXXXX + 3 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7452 7 XXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXX + 7 XXXXXX + 7 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7453 8 XXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXX + 8 XXXXXX + 8 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7454 9 XXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXX + 9 XXXXXX + 9 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7457 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7458 Next Page -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7459 12 XXXXX + 12 + 10 XXXXXX + 10 +
7460 13 XXXXX + 13 XXXXXXXX + 11 XXXXXX + 11 +
7461 14 XXXXX + 14 XXXXXXXX + 12 XXXXXX + 12 +
7462 15 + 15 XXXXXXXX + 13 + 13 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7463 16 + 16 + 14 + 14 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7464 17 + 17 + 15 + 15 XXXXXXXXXXXXX +
7465 18 XXXXX + 18 + 16 XXXXXX + 16 +
7466 19 XXXXX + 19 XXXXXXXX + 17 XXXXXX + 17 +
7467 20 XXXXX + 20 XXXXXXXX + 18 XXXXXX + 18 +
7470 -------- ----------- --------- ----------------
7472 Any other value is treated as `nil'.
7475 *** Printer management (subgroup)
7477 The variable `ps-printer-name-option' determines the option used by
7478 some utilities to indicate the printer name; it's used only when
7479 `ps-printer-name' is a non-empty string. If you're using the lpr
7480 utility to print, for example, `ps-printer-name-option' should be set
7483 The variable `ps-manual-feed' indicates if the printer requires manual
7484 paper feeding. If it's nil, automatic feeding takes place. If it's
7485 non-nil, manual feeding takes place.
7487 The variable `ps-end-with-control-d' specifies whether C-d (\x04)
7488 should be inserted at end of the generated PostScript. Non-nil means
7491 *** Page settings (subgroup)
7493 If variable `ps-warn-paper-type' is nil, it's *not* treated as an
7494 error if the PostScript printer doesn't have a paper with the size
7495 indicated by `ps-paper-type'; the default paper size will be used
7496 instead. If `ps-warn-paper-type' is non-nil, an error is signaled if
7497 the PostScript printer doesn't support a paper with the size indicated
7498 by `ps-paper-type'. This is used when `ps-spool-config' is set to
7501 The variable `ps-print-upside-down' determines the orientation for
7502 printing pages: nil means `normal' printing, non-nil means
7503 `upside-down' printing (that is, the page is rotated by 180 degrees).
7505 The variable `ps-selected-pages' specifies which pages to print. If
7506 it's nil, all pages are printed. If it's a list, list elements may be
7507 integers specifying a single page to print, or cons cells (FROM . TO)
7508 specifying to print from page FROM to TO. Invalid list elements, that
7509 is integers smaller than one, or elements whose FROM is greater than
7510 its TO, are ignored.
7512 The variable `ps-even-or-odd-pages' specifies how to print even/odd
7513 pages. Valid values are:
7515 nil print all pages.
7517 `even-page' print only even pages.
7519 `odd-page' print only odd pages.
7521 `even-sheet' print only even sheets.
7522 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7523 `even-page', but for values greater than 1, it'll
7524 print only the even sheet of paper.
7526 `odd-sheet' print only odd sheets.
7527 That is, if `ps-n-up-printing' is 1, it behaves like
7528 `odd-page'; but for values greater than 1, it'll print
7529 only the odd sheet of paper.
7531 Any other value is treated as nil.
7533 If you set `ps-selected-pages' (see there for documentation), pages
7534 are filtered by `ps-selected-pages', and then by
7535 `ps-even-or-odd-pages'. For example, if we have:
7537 (setq ps-selected-pages '(1 4 (6 . 10) (12 . 16) 20))
7539 and we combine this with `ps-even-or-odd-pages' and
7540 `ps-n-up-printing', we get:
7542 `ps-n-up-printing' = 1:
7543 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7544 nil 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20
7545 even-page 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7546 odd-page 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7547 even-sheet 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 20
7548 odd-sheet 1, 7, 9, 13, 15
7550 `ps-n-up-printing' = 2:
7551 `ps-even-or-odd-pages' PAGES PRINTED
7552 nil 1/4, 6/7, 8/9, 10/12, 13/14, 15/16, 20
7553 even-page 4/6, 8/10, 12/14, 16/20
7554 odd-page 1/7, 9/13, 15
7555 even-sheet 6/7, 10/12, 15/16
7556 odd-sheet 1/4, 8/9, 13/14, 20
7558 *** Miscellany (subgroup)
7560 The variable `ps-error-handler-message' specifies where error handler
7561 messages should be sent.
7563 It is also possible to add a user-defined PostScript prologue code in
7564 front of all generated prologue code by setting the variable
7565 `ps-user-defined-prologue'.
7567 The variable `ps-line-number-font' specifies the font for line numbers.
7569 The variable `ps-line-number-font-size' specifies the font size in
7570 points for line numbers.
7572 The variable `ps-line-number-color' specifies the color for line
7573 numbers. See `ps-zebra-color' for documentation.
7575 The variable `ps-line-number-step' specifies the interval in which
7576 line numbers are printed. For example, if `ps-line-number-step' is set
7577 to 2, the printing will look like:
7589 integer an integer specifying the interval in which line numbers are
7590 printed. If it's smaller than or equal to zero, 1
7593 `zebra' specifies that only the line number of the first line in a
7594 zebra stripe is to be printed.
7596 Any other value is treated as `zebra'.
7598 The variable `ps-line-number-start' specifies the starting point in
7599 the interval given by `ps-line-number-step'. For example, if
7600 `ps-line-number-step' is set to 3, and `ps-line-number-start' is set to
7601 3, the output will look like:
7615 The variable `ps-postscript-code-directory' specifies the directory
7616 where the PostScript prologue file used by ps-print is found.
7618 The variable `ps-line-spacing' determines the line spacing in points,
7619 for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7622 The variable `ps-paragraph-spacing' determines the paragraph spacing,
7623 in points, for ordinary text, when generating PostScript (similar to
7626 The variable `ps-paragraph-regexp' specifies the paragraph delimiter.
7628 The variable `ps-begin-cut-regexp' and `ps-end-cut-regexp' specify the
7629 start and end of a region to cut out when printing.
7631 ** hideshow changes.
7633 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
7636 *** Support for java-mode added.
7638 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
7639 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
7641 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the comments at
7642 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
7643 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
7645 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
7646 robust and a lot faster.
7648 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
7650 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
7651 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
7652 documentation for more details.
7654 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
7656 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
7657 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
7658 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
7659 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
7660 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
7662 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
7663 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
7664 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
7665 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
7671 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
7672 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
7673 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
7674 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
7675 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
7676 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
7678 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
7680 *** Maximum decoration
7682 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
7683 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
7684 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
7685 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
7686 to get the old behavior.
7690 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
7692 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
7693 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
7695 *** Configurable support
7697 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
7698 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
7699 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
7700 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
7701 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
7702 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
7703 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
7705 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
7706 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
7707 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
7709 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
7711 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
7712 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
7715 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
7717 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
7723 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
7724 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
7725 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
7726 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
7728 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
7730 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
7731 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
7732 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
7734 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
7736 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
7737 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
7738 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
7739 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
7740 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
7741 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
7742 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
7744 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
7745 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
7746 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
7747 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
7748 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
7749 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
7751 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
7753 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
7754 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
7755 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
7756 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
7758 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
7761 ** Ada mode changes.
7763 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
7764 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
7765 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
7766 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
7769 *** There are two new commands:
7770 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
7771 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
7773 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
7774 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
7775 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
7777 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
7778 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
7779 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
7781 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
7782 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
7783 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
7784 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
7786 ** Scheme mode changes.
7788 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
7789 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
7790 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
7791 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
7794 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
7795 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
7796 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
7797 variables as buffer-local variables.
7799 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
7802 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
7804 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
7805 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
7806 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
7807 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
7809 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
7810 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
7813 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
7814 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
7815 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
7816 option takes precedence.
7818 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
7819 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
7820 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
7822 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
7823 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
7826 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
7827 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
7829 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
7830 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
7833 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
7834 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
7835 these register values no longer become completely useless.
7836 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
7837 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
7838 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
7840 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
7841 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
7842 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
7843 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
7845 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
7846 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
7847 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
7848 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
7849 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
7851 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
7852 since it applies only to the current frame.
7854 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
7855 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
7856 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
7858 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
7859 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
7860 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
7861 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
7862 instead of just the file you are editing.
7866 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
7867 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
7868 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
7869 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
7870 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
7873 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
7874 knows which kind of label is needed.
7876 C-c ) reftex-reference
7877 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
7878 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
7880 C-c [ reftex-citation
7881 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
7882 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
7884 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
7885 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
7888 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
7889 can quickly jump to every section.
7891 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
7892 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
7893 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
7894 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
7895 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
7897 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7899 *** Info documentation is now available.
7901 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
7902 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
7904 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
7905 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
7907 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
7908 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
7910 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
7911 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
7912 appropriate functions.
7914 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
7915 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
7917 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
7920 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
7921 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
7923 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
7926 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
7927 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
7928 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
7930 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
7931 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
7932 prefixed with `ALT'.
7934 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
7935 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
7936 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
7939 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
7940 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
7941 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
7943 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
7944 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
7946 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
7947 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
7948 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
7950 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
7952 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
7954 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
7957 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
7958 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
7961 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
7964 *** Added support for imenu.
7966 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
7967 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
7968 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
7969 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
7971 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
7972 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
7974 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
7976 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
7978 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
7979 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
7980 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
7983 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
7984 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
7986 ** browse-url changes
7988 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
7989 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
7990 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
7991 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
7992 customization variables.
7994 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
7996 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
7997 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
7998 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
8002 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
8003 pops up the Info file for this command.
8005 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
8006 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
8007 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
8010 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
8011 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
8012 files in the same directory.
8014 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
8015 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
8016 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
8020 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
8021 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
8023 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
8024 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
8025 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
8026 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
8027 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
8028 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
8029 color when Viper is in insert state.
8030 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
8031 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
8032 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
8036 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
8037 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
8038 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
8039 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
8040 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
8042 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
8044 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
8045 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
8047 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
8048 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
8049 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
8051 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
8052 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
8053 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
8054 methods and protocols.
8056 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
8057 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
8058 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
8061 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
8062 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
8063 at least M times and as many as N times.
8065 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
8066 in files has changed slightly.
8068 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
8069 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
8070 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
8071 with old time-stamp-format values.
8073 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
8074 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
8075 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
8078 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
8079 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
8080 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
8081 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
8082 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
8083 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
8085 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
8086 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
8087 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
8089 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
8090 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
8091 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
8092 recommended now will continue to work then.
8094 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
8097 ** There are some additional major modes:
8099 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
8100 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
8101 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
8103 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
8104 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
8107 ** New Lisp packages include:
8109 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
8111 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
8112 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
8114 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
8116 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
8119 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
8120 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
8123 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
8124 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
8125 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
8126 strings or comments.
8128 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
8129 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
8130 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
8131 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
8134 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
8135 can visit them by short forms of their names.
8137 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
8138 Emacs Lisp function at point.
8140 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
8142 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
8143 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
8145 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
8147 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
8149 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
8151 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
8152 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
8154 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
8155 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
8156 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
8157 original place after inserting the copy.
8159 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
8162 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
8163 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
8164 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
8166 Enable mouse-drag with:
8167 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
8169 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
8171 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
8172 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
8174 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
8175 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
8179 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
8180 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
8181 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
8182 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
8183 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
8184 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
8185 instance) and vice versa.
8187 To use this package load it using
8188 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
8189 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
8190 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
8191 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
8192 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
8193 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
8195 *** Interface to ph.
8197 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
8199 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
8200 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
8203 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
8205 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
8206 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
8207 while the real cursor does not move.
8209 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
8210 for visiting your favorite web sites.
8212 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
8213 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
8217 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
8218 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
8219 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
8220 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
8222 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
8224 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
8226 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
8228 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
8229 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
8230 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
8231 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
8232 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
8234 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
8235 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
8236 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
8237 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
8238 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
8239 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
8241 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
8243 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
8244 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
8245 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
8246 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
8248 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
8249 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
8251 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
8252 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
8255 ** Basic Lisp changes
8257 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
8258 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
8260 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
8261 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
8264 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
8266 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
8268 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
8269 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
8271 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
8272 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
8275 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
8277 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
8279 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
8281 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
8282 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
8283 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
8286 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
8287 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
8288 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
8290 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
8291 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
8292 adding one of these suffixes.
8294 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
8295 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
8296 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
8298 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
8299 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
8301 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
8303 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
8304 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
8306 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
8307 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
8309 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
8311 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
8312 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
8314 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
8315 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
8316 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
8317 works using `save-current-buffer'.
8319 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
8320 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
8323 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
8324 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
8325 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
8328 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
8329 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
8332 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
8334 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
8335 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
8336 Then it returns that string.
8338 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
8340 (with-output-to-string
8341 (princ "The buffer is ")
8342 (princ (buffer-name)))
8344 returns "The buffer is foo".
8346 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
8349 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
8350 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
8351 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
8353 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
8354 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
8356 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
8357 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
8358 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
8359 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
8360 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
8361 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
8363 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
8364 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
8365 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
8368 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
8369 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
8370 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
8371 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
8372 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
8374 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
8375 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
8376 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
8377 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
8379 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
8380 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
8382 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
8384 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
8385 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
8386 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
8387 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
8390 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
8391 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
8394 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
8396 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
8397 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
8398 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
8399 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
8400 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
8402 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
8404 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
8405 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
8406 more than the number of characters.
8408 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
8409 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
8410 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
8411 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
8412 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
8413 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
8415 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
8416 and returns a string containing those characters.
8418 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
8419 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
8420 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
8421 character, sref signals an error.
8423 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
8424 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
8425 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8427 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
8428 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
8429 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
8431 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
8432 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
8433 to a vector of the characters in it.
8435 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
8436 of a string. You call it as follows:
8438 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
8440 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
8441 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
8442 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
8443 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
8444 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
8446 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
8447 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8449 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
8450 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
8452 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
8453 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
8454 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
8455 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
8457 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
8459 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
8461 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
8462 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
8463 are not included in the resulting value.
8465 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
8466 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
8467 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
8468 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
8470 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
8471 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
8472 character extends across that column), then the padding character
8473 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
8474 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
8475 column START-COLUMN.
8477 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
8478 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
8479 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
8480 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
8481 changed text, before the change.
8483 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
8484 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
8485 one character set for each script, not for each language.
8487 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
8489 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
8491 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
8492 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
8494 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
8495 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
8496 which identify the character within that character set.
8498 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
8499 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
8500 opposite of split-char.
8502 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
8503 of all the characters between BEG and END.
8505 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
8506 of all the characters in a string.
8508 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
8509 and specifying coding systems.
8511 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
8512 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
8513 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
8514 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
8515 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
8516 as what to do about code conversion.)
8518 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
8519 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
8521 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8522 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8523 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
8525 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8526 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
8527 to match against a file name.
8529 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8530 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8531 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8532 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8533 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8534 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8536 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8537 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8539 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
8540 the coding system to use for network sockets.
8542 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
8543 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
8544 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
8547 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
8548 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
8549 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
8550 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
8551 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
8552 specifies the coding system for encoding.
8554 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
8555 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
8557 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
8558 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
8559 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
8560 start the subprocess.
8562 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
8563 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
8564 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
8565 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
8566 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
8568 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
8569 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
8572 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
8573 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
8574 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
8575 connection permanently or until overridden.
8577 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
8578 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
8579 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
8580 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
8581 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
8582 system for one operation at a time.
8584 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
8585 files, subprocesses or network connections.
8587 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
8588 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
8589 The value is a cons cell,
8590 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
8591 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
8592 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
8593 input to the subprocess.
8595 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
8596 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
8598 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
8599 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
8600 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
8602 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
8603 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
8604 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
8605 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
8608 Thus, instead of writing
8610 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
8611 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
8613 you would now write this:
8615 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
8616 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
8620 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
8621 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
8622 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
8623 for a description of them.
8625 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
8626 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
8628 (defgroup ispell nil
8629 "Spell checking using Ispell."
8632 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
8633 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
8634 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
8635 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
8636 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
8638 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
8639 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
8640 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
8641 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
8642 first-level subgroups.
8644 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
8646 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
8647 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
8651 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
8652 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
8653 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
8654 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
8655 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
8656 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
8658 ** Text property changes
8660 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
8663 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
8664 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
8665 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
8666 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
8667 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
8669 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
8670 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
8671 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
8672 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
8674 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
8675 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
8676 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
8678 ** Changes in invisibility features
8680 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
8681 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
8682 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
8683 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
8684 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
8685 make the overlay visible.
8687 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
8688 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
8689 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
8690 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
8691 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
8692 t when it should hide it.
8694 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
8696 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
8697 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
8698 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
8699 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
8700 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
8701 Here is an example of how to do this:
8703 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
8704 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8705 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
8706 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8709 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
8712 ;; When done with the overlays:
8713 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
8715 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
8717 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
8719 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
8720 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
8721 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
8722 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
8724 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
8725 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
8726 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
8728 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
8729 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
8731 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
8732 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
8734 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
8735 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
8736 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
8738 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
8739 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
8740 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
8741 determine the syntax type of the character.
8743 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
8744 of the current buffer.
8746 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
8747 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
8748 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
8750 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
8751 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
8752 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
8753 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
8754 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
8756 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
8759 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
8760 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
8761 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
8763 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
8764 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
8765 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
8766 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
8767 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
8769 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
8770 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
8771 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
8773 ** Changes in face features
8775 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
8776 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
8778 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
8779 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
8781 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
8782 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
8784 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
8785 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
8787 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
8788 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
8789 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
8790 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
8793 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
8794 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
8796 ** Changes in file-handling functions
8798 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
8799 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
8800 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
8801 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
8803 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
8806 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
8807 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
8809 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
8810 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
8812 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
8813 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
8815 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
8816 character code conversion as well as other things.
8818 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
8819 (formerly it did not).
8821 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
8822 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
8824 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
8825 instead of constant strings.
8827 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
8828 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
8829 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
8831 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
8832 in the same way as before.
8834 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
8835 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
8836 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
8838 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
8839 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
8840 else, and returns nil.
8842 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
8843 directory cannot be listed.
8845 ** Changes in minibuffer input
8847 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
8848 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
8849 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
8850 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
8853 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
8854 It is available through the history command M-n.
8856 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
8857 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
8858 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
8859 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
8860 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
8862 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
8863 argument in this way.
8865 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
8866 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
8867 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
8869 ** Echo area features
8871 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
8872 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
8873 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
8874 after the echo area is cleared.
8876 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
8877 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
8879 ** Keyboard input features
8881 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
8882 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
8884 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
8885 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
8888 ** Frame-related changes
8890 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
8891 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
8892 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
8894 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
8895 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
8896 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
8898 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
8899 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
8900 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
8901 in the selected frame.
8903 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
8904 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
8905 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
8907 ** X Windows features
8909 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
8910 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
8911 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
8913 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
8914 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
8916 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
8917 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
8918 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
8920 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
8921 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
8923 ** Subprocess features
8925 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
8926 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
8929 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
8930 and returns the output from the command as a string.
8932 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
8933 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
8935 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
8936 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
8938 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
8939 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
8940 goes after the other menu items.
8942 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
8943 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
8944 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
8947 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
8948 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
8950 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
8951 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
8954 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
8955 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
8956 but its hook is still run.
8958 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
8959 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
8961 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
8962 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
8963 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
8965 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
8966 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
8967 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
8970 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
8971 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
8973 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
8974 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
8975 functions like display-time.
8977 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
8978 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
8980 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
8981 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
8982 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
8984 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
8985 if there is an error in compilation.
8987 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
8988 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
8989 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
8990 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
8992 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
8993 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
8994 the *scratch* buffer.
8996 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
8997 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
8998 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
8999 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
9001 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
9002 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
9003 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
9005 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
9006 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
9007 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
9008 and compose-mail-other-frame.
9010 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
9011 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
9012 full name of the specified user will be returned.
9014 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
9015 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
9016 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
9017 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
9018 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
9021 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
9022 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
9023 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
9024 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
9026 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
9027 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
9028 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
9029 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
9031 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
9033 ** imenu.el changes.
9035 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
9036 item from menu created by imenu.
9038 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
9039 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
9040 select one of those items.
9042 * For older news, see the file ONEWS
9044 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
9045 Copyright information:
9047 Copyright (C) 1999, 2000, 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
9049 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
9050 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
9051 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
9052 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
9054 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
9055 of this document, or of portions of it,
9056 under the above conditions, provided also that they
9057 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
9061 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"