Documented define-obsolete-face-alias.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.2
26
27 ** New configure options for Emacs developers
28 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
29
30 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
31 This might not work on all platforms.
32
33 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
34
35 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
36
37 ** Unibyte sessions are declared obsolete.
38 I.e. the use of the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE, or command line
39 arguments --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
40 is deprecated. Similarly for custom-izing enable-multibyte-characters, or
41 setting default-enable-multibyte-characters.
42
43 ** The default value of `trash-directory' has changed to nil, which
44 means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
45 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
46 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
47 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
48
49 +++
50 ** Emacs frames can be maximized.
51 The command line arguments -mm/--maximized and the value maximized to the
52 frame parameter fullscreen makes the Emacs frame maximized.
53
54 +++
55 ** New frame parameter sticky makes Emacs frames sticky in virtual desktops.
56
57 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
58 Customize make-pointer-invisible to turn it off.
59
60 ---
61 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
62 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
63
64 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks a confirmation.
65 You can remove this query in two ways: either removing
66 `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from `kill-buffer-query-functions' or
67 setting the appropriate process flag with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
68
69 +++
70 ** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
71 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
72 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
73 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
74
75 ** The variable `load-in-progress' won't get corrupted by binding it
76 with `let'. In certain situations, loading an Emacs Lisp file from
77 source while in the midst of loading another file (e.g., with
78 `require' or `autoload') could cause the value of `load-in-progress'
79 to be corrupted once the outer load completed. Most code doesn't care
80 about this, but some (like c-mode) may check it.
81
82 ** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, emacs will not
83 clobber the the interprogram paste when something is killed in it by
84 saving the former in the `kill-ring' before the latter.
85
86 ** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical subsequent
87 kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
88
89 ** File-local variable changes
90
91 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
92 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
93 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
94
95 *** New commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
96 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
97 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
98 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
99
100 *** New commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
101 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
102 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
103 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
104 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
105 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
106
107 ** New coding system `utf-8-hfs' is available in
108 international/ucs-normalize.el. It is suitable for
109 default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X.
110
111 \f
112 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
113
114 +++
115 ** The default value for `blink-matching-paren-distance' has been increased.
116
117 \f
118 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
119
120 ** .calc.el and .abbrev_defs obey user-emacs-directory.
121
122 ** Calc graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows,
123 if you have the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later
124 installed.
125
126 ** FIXME mail-user-agent change
127 This probably affects a lot of documentation.
128
129 ** FIXME gdb-mi
130
131 ** Info
132
133 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
134 matched topics found in the index.
135
136 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
137 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
138 through a menu structure.
139
140 +++
141 ** New connection methods in Tramp.
142 The new connection method "rsyncc" has been introduced. On systems
143 which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new connection methods
144 "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
145
146 +++
147 ** Autorevert Tail mode
148 Autorevert Tail mode works now for remote files.
149
150 ** VC and related modes
151
152 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
153
154 *** vc-git changes
155
156 **** The new variable vc-git-add-signoff can be used to add a
157 Signed-off-by line when committing.
158
159 **** vc-dir displays the stash status
160
161 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
162 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
163
164 ** Calendar and diary
165
166 ---
167 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
168 giving an offset from today.
169
170 ** Desktop
171
172 ---
173 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
174 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
175 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
176 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
177 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
178 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
179
180 ** Miscellaneous
181
182 *** The new command `async-shell-command' bound globally to `M-&' executes
183 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand to
184 the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
185 Command*'.
186
187 ---
188 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode, and recognizes more built-in
189 functions and variables.
190
191 \f
192 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
193
194 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
195
196 \f
197 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
198
199 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
200 variable, are now declared obsolete.
201
202 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
203 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
204
205 ** start-process-shell-command start-file-process-shell-command only
206 take a single `command' argument any more.
207
208 ** The variable `process-file-side-effects' shall be bound to nil, if
209 a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. By this, file
210 name handlers like Tramp can apply optimizations.
211
212 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
213 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
214 functionality.
215
216 ** Functions performing Unicode normalization are added. They are:
217 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
218 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
219 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
220 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
221 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
222 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
223
224 ** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
225 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
226
227 +++
228 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
229 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
230
231 \f
232 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
233
234 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
235 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
236 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
237
238 ** New font code.
239 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
240 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
241
242 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
243 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
244
245 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
246 where Emacs is running).
247
248 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
249
250 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
251 OpenType fonts.
252
253 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
254
255 ** Changes to image support
256
257 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
258 a GIF library.
259
260 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
261
262 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
263
264 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
265 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
266 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
267
268 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
269 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
270 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
271 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
272
273 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
274 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
275
276 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
277 bindings for Emacs.
278
279 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
280 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
281
282 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
283
284 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
285
286 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
287
288 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
289 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
290 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
291
292 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
293
294 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
295 executable format.
296
297 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
298
299 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
300
301 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
302
303 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
304
305 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
306 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
307
308 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
309 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
310 you need control over which C compiler is used.
311
312 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
313
314 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
315 or any later version.
316
317 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
318 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
319 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
320 \f
321 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
322
323 ** Improved X Window System support
324
325 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
326 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
327 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
328 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
329 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
330 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
331 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
332
333 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
334 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
335
336 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
337 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
338 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
339 terminal frames using emacsclient.
340
341 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
342 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
343 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
344 emacs server.
345
346 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
347 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
348
349 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
350 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
351 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
352 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
353 for details about XEmbed.
354
355 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
356 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
357 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
358 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
359 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
360
361 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
362 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
363 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
364 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
365
366 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
367 opacity; the default is 20.
368
369 ** Internationalization changes
370
371 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
372 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
373
374 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
375 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
376 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
377 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
378 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
379
380 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
381 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
382 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
383 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
384 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
385 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
386 shared with older Emacsen.
387
388 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
389
390 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
391 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
392 as tables of unicodes.
393
394 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
395 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
396 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
397
398 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
399 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
400
401 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
402 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
403 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
404
405 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
406 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
407 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
408 and others.
409
410 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
411 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
412 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
413 the mode-line mouse menu.
414
415 ** Menu Bar changes
416
417 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
418 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
419 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
420 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
421 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
422
423 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
424 "Save Options" item is used.
425
426 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
427 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
428 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
429
430 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
431 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
432 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
433 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
434
435 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
436 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
437 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
438
439 ** Mode-line changes
440
441 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
442 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
443
444 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
445 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
446
447 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
448 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
449
450 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
451
452 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
453 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
454
455 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
456 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
457 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
458 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
459
460 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
461 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
462 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
463 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
464
465 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
466 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
467 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
468 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
469
470 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
471
472 \f
473 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
474
475 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
476 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
477 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
478 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
479 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
480
481 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
482 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
483 file or directory.
484
485 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
486 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
487 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
488 following arguments.
489
490 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
491
492 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
493 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
494 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
495 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
496 documented.)
497 \f
498 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
499
500 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
501 on the regexp command prefix map.
502
503 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
504 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
505 the history list.
506
507 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
508 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
509 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
510 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
511 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
512 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
513
514 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
515 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
516 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
517 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
518 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
519 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
520
521 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
522 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
523 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
524
525 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
526 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
527 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
528 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
529 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
530 identical.
531
532 \f
533 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
534
535 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
536 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
537 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
538 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
539 alone).
540
541 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
542 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
543 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
544
545 ** Mark changes
546
547 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
548
549 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
550
551 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
552 activating it.
553
554 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
555 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
556
557 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
558 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
559 word at point.
560
561 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
562 region is active.
563
564 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
565 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
566 that empty region.
567
568 ** Temporarily active regions
569
570 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
571 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
572 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
573 region, similar to mouse-selection.
574
575 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
576 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
577 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
578 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
579 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
580 buffer).
581
582 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
583
584 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
585 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
586 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
587 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
588 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
589 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
590 to create the file or buffer.
591
592 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
593 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
594 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
595 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
596
597 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
598 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
599 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
600 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
601 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
602 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
603 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
604 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
605 performing completion.
606
607 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
608 favorite completion style.
609
610 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
611 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
612 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
613 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
614 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
615 searching minibuffer completion items.
616
617 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
618
619 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
620 name of the current buffer.
621
622 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
623 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
624 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
625 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
626 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
627
628 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
629 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
630 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
631 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
632
633 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
634 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
635 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
636 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
637 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
638
639 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
640 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
641 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
642 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
643 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
644 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
645 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
646
647 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
648 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
649
650 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
651 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
652
653 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
654 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
655
656 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
657 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
658 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
659
660 ** Face changes
661
662 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
663 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
664 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
665
666 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
667 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
668 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
669 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
670
671 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
672 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
673 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
674 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
675
676 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
677 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
678 under New Modes and Packages.
679
680 ** Primary selection changes
681
682 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
683 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
684
685 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
686 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
687 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
688 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
689 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
690 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
691 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
692 New Modes and Packages, below.
693
694 ** Window management changes
695
696 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
697 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
698 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
699
700 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
701 vertically and horizontally.
702
703 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
704 is on a different frame.
705
706 ** Miscellaneous changes:
707
708 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
709 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
710 successive invocations.
711
712 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
713
714 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
715 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
716 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
717
718 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
719 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
720 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
721
722 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
723 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
724 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
725 run processes remotely.
726
727 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
728 matches a regexp.
729
730 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
731 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
732 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
733
734 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
735 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
736
737 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
738 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
739 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
740 convenience alias for this function.
741
742 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
743 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
744 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
745
746 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
747 kill into the password.
748
749 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
750 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
751
752 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
753 \f
754 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
755
756 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
757 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
758 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
759
760 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
761
762 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
763 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
764 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
765 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
766 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
767 description of face remapping.
768
769 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
770 See http://xkcd.com/378/
771
772 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
773
774 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
775 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
776 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
777
778 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
779 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
780 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
781
782 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
783
784 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
785 the postscript file.
786
787 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
788 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
789 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
790 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
791
792 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
793 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
794
795 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
796 current buffer.
797
798 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
799 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
800 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
801 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
802 Maildir/MH setups.
803
804 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
805
806 ** nXML Mode
807 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
808 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
809 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
810
811 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
812 any invalid parts of your document.
813
814 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
815 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
816 allowed by the schema in that context.
817
818 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
819 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
820 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
821 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
822 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
823 MS-Windows and Solaris.
824
825 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
826 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
827 Manual.
828
829 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
830
831 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
832
833 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
834 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
835 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
836 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
837 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
838 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
839
840 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
841 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
842 requires D-Bus for communication.
843
844 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
845 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
846 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
847 which have installed this software.
848
849 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
850 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
851 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
852 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
853 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
854 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
855 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
856 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
857 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
858
859 \f
860 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
861
862 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
863
864 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
865 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
866
867 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
868
869 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
870 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
871
872 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
873
874 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
875
876 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
877 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
878
879 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
880 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
881 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
882
883 ** Apropos
884
885 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
886
887 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
888
889 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
890 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
891 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
892
893 ** BibTeX mode
894
895 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
896
897 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
898 `string', disabled by default.
899
900 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
901 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
902
903 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
904
905 ** Calendar and diary
906
907 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
908 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
909 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
910 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
911
912 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
913 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
914 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
915 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
916 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
917 using the new names.
918
919 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
920 See the variables:
921 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
922 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
923
924 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
925 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
926
927 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
928 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
929
930 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
931 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
932
933 ** Change Log mode
934
935 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
936 associated with the current log entry.
937
938 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
939 source code associated with a log entry.
940
941 ** Compile and grep modes
942
943 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
944 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
945 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
946
947 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
948 the first error encountered during compilations.
949
950 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
951 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
952
953 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
954 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
955 C++ sources and headers.
956
957 ** Copyright
958
959 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
960 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
961 considered for update.
962
963 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
964 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
965
966 ** Custom
967
968 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
969 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
970
971 ** Diff mode
972
973 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
974 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
975 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
976
977 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
978 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
979 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
980
981 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
982 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
983
984 ** Dired
985
986 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
987 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
988 saving changes.
989
990 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
991 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
992 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
993 Command*'.
994
995 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
996 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
997 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
998 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
999 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
1000 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1001 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1002 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1003
1004 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1005 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1006 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1007
1008 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1009 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1010 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1011 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1012 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1013 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1014 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1015
1016 ** Fortran
1017
1018 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1019 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1020
1021 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1022 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1023
1024 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1025
1026 ** Gnus
1027
1028 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1029 There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1030 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1031
1032 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1033 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1034 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1035 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1036
1037 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1038 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1039 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1040 authentication respectively.
1041
1042 ** Help mode
1043
1044 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1045 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1046
1047 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1048 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1049
1050 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1051 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1052
1053 ** Isearch
1054
1055 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1056 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1057 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1058 while Isearch is active.
1059
1060 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1061 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1062 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1063 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1064 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1065
1066 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1067 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1068 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1069
1070 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1071 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1072 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1073 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1074 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1075
1076 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1077 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1078 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1079
1080 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1081 `isearch-fail' face.
1082
1083 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1084 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1085 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1086 documentation of Isearch mode. All the rest Help commands exit Isearch mode
1087 and execute their global definitions.
1088
1089 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1090 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1091
1092 ** MH-E
1093
1094 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1095
1096 ** Python
1097 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1098 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1099
1100 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1101 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1102 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1103 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1104
1105 ** Recentf
1106
1107 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1108 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1109 corresponding remote host.
1110
1111 ** Rmail
1112
1113 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1114 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1115 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1116
1117 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1118 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1119 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1120 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1121 Rmail usage unaltered.
1122
1123 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1124 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1125 mbox-format file.
1126
1127 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1128 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1129 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1130 instead.
1131
1132 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1133 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1134 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1135 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1136 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1137 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1138 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1139 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1140 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1141 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1142
1143 You may find the following functions useful:
1144
1145 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1146 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1147
1148 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1149 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1150 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1151
1152 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1153 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1154 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1155 to save attachments.
1156
1157 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1158 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1159 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1160 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1161
1162 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1163 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1164 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1165 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1166 copies the full headers of the message.
1167
1168 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1169 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1170
1171 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1172 Previously, this information was hidden.
1173
1174 ** TeX modes
1175
1176 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1177 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1178 by escaped parens.
1179
1180 ** T-mouse Mode
1181
1182 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1183 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1184 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1185 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1186 minibuffer.
1187
1188 ** Tramp
1189
1190 *** New connection methods.
1191 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1192 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1193 "tunnel" and "socks".
1194
1195 *** IPv6 addresses.
1196 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1197 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1198
1199 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1200 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1201 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1202
1203 *** More default settings.
1204 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1205 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1206
1207 *** Connection information is cached.
1208 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1209 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1210 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1211
1212 *** Control of remote processes.
1213 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1214 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1215
1216 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1217 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1218 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1219
1220 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1221 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1222 necessary.
1223
1224 ** VC and related modes
1225
1226 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1227 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1228 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1229 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1230 a single changeset.
1231
1232 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1233 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1234 directory or a set of files/directories.
1235
1236 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1237 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1238 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1239 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1240 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1241 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1242 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1243
1244 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1245
1246 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1247
1248 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1249 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1250
1251 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1252 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1253 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1254 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1255
1256 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1257
1258 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1259 the current line.
1260
1261 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1262 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1263 active.
1264
1265 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1266 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1267 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1268
1269 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1270 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1271 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1272
1273 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1274
1275 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1276
1277 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1278 to update it to the new VC.
1279
1280 ** Miscellaneous
1281
1282 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1283 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1284 on the corresponding remote system.
1285
1286 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1287 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1288
1289 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1290 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1291 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1292
1293 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1294 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1295
1296 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1297 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1298
1299 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1300
1301 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1302 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1303
1304 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1305 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1306
1307 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1308
1309 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1310 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1311
1312 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1313 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1314
1315 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1316
1317 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1318
1319 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1320 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1321 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1322
1323 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1324
1325 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1326 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1327 several time zones.
1328
1329 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1330 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1331 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1332 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1333
1334 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1335 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1336
1337 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1338 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1339
1340 \f
1341 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1342
1343 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1344 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1345 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1346 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1347 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1348
1349 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1350 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1351 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1352 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1353 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1354
1355 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1356 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1357 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1358
1359 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1360 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1361 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1362 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1363 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1364
1365 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1366 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1367 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1368 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1369 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1370
1371 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1372 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1373 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1374 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1375 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1376 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1377
1378 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1379 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1380 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1381 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1382 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1383 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1384 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1385 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1386 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1387
1388 \f
1389 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1390
1391 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1392
1393 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1394 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1395
1396 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1397 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1398 that range have the same value.
1399
1400 ** Process changes
1401
1402 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1403
1404 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1405 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1406 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1407 obsolete.
1408
1409 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1410 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1411 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1412 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1413 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1414 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1415 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1416
1417 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1418 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1419
1420 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1421 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1422
1423 ** Internationalization changes
1424
1425 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1426
1427 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1428 have been removed.
1429
1430 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1431 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1432 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1433
1434 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1435 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1436 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1437
1438 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1439 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1440
1441 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1442 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1443
1444 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1445 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1446
1447 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1448 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1449
1450 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1451 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1452 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1453
1454 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1455 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1456 default fontset.
1457
1458 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1459 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1460 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1461 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1462 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1463 of `kill-buffer'.
1464
1465 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1466 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1467 temporary-file-directory instead.
1468
1469 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1470 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1471 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1472
1473 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1474 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1475 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1476 whitespace after calling it.
1477
1478 \f
1479 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1480
1481 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1482 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1483 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1484 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1485 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1486 respectively.
1487
1488 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1489 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1490 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1491 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1492 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1493
1494 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1495 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1496
1497 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1498 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1499 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1500
1501 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1502 the selected frame.
1503
1504 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1505 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1506 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1507 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1508
1509 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1510
1511 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1512 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1513 strings on the kill ring.
1514
1515 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1516 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1517 like this:
1518
1519 (condition-case nil
1520 (foo bar)
1521 ((debug error) nil))
1522
1523 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1524
1525 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1526 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1527 arguments.)
1528
1529 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1530 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1531 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1532 remote connection has been established already.
1533
1534 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1535 undefined functions.
1536
1537 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1538
1539 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1540 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1541 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1542
1543 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1544 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1545 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1546
1547 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1548 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1549 interactive forms to subroutines.
1550
1551 ** Region changes
1552
1553 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
1554 an active region that they should operate on.
1555
1556 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
1557 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
1558 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
1559 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
1560 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
1561
1562 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
1563 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
1564 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
1565 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
1566 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
1567
1568 ** Emacs session information
1569
1570 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
1571 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
1572
1573 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
1574
1575 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
1576 Emacs initialization.
1577
1578 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
1579
1580 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
1581 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
1582 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
1583 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
1584 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
1585 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
1586 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
1587 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
1588 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
1589 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
1590 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
1591
1592 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
1593 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
1594
1595 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
1596 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
1597 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
1598
1599 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
1600 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
1601 individual windows.
1602
1603 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
1604 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
1605
1606 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1607
1608 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
1609 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
1610 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
1611 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
1612 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
1613
1614 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
1615 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
1616 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
1617
1618 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
1619 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
1620
1621 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
1622 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
1623
1624 ** Search and replacement changes
1625
1626 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
1627
1628 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
1629 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
1630
1631 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
1632 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
1633 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
1634 argument is nil.
1635
1636 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
1637 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
1638 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
1639 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
1640 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
1641
1642 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
1643 for search related commands.
1644
1645 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
1646 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
1647
1648 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
1649 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
1650
1651 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
1652 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
1653 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
1654 unless it ends in whitespace.
1655
1656 ** File handling changes
1657
1658 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
1659 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
1660
1661 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
1662 variables defined in the current buffer.
1663
1664 ** Face-remapping
1665
1666 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
1667 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
1668 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
1669 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
1670 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
1671
1672 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
1673 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
1674 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
1675 Editing Changes, above).
1676
1677 *** New functions:
1678
1679 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
1680 current buffer.
1681
1682 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
1683 the current buffer.
1684
1685 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
1686
1687 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
1688
1689 ** Process changes
1690
1691 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
1692 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
1693 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
1694 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
1695 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
1696
1697 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
1698 returns its output as a list of lines.
1699
1700 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
1701
1702 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
1703 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
1704 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
1705 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
1706 bytes.
1707
1708 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
1709
1710 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
1711 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
1712 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
1713
1714 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
1715 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
1716
1717 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
1718 characters for display.
1719
1720 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
1721 positional codes instead of just 2.
1722
1723 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
1724
1725 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
1726 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
1727
1728 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
1729 priorities of charsets.
1730
1731 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
1732 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
1733 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
1734 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
1735 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
1736 `titlecase'.
1737
1738 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
1739 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
1740 entries in that range of characters.
1741
1742 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
1743 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
1744 internal representation of characters.
1745
1746 *** New functions:
1747
1748 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
1749 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
1750
1751 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
1752
1753 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
1754
1755 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
1756
1757 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
1758
1759 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
1760
1761 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
1762
1763 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
1764 a character code property.
1765
1766 *** New variables:
1767
1768 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
1769 search for a word boundary.
1770
1771 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
1772
1773 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
1774
1775 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
1776 property on printing a string.
1777
1778 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
1779
1780 ** Code conversion changes
1781
1782 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
1783 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
1784
1785 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
1786 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
1787 conversion should go.
1788
1789 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
1790 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
1791 of conversion.
1792
1793 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
1794 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
1795 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
1796 bytes.
1797
1798 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
1799
1800 *** New functions:
1801
1802 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
1803 coding system priority order.
1804
1805 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
1806 encodable by the specified coding systems.
1807
1808 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
1809
1810 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
1811 by a coding system.
1812
1813 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
1814 ordered by their priorities.
1815
1816 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
1817
1818 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
1819 the argument name.
1820
1821
1822 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
1823 It has three functionalities:
1824 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
1825 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
1826 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
1827 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
1828
1829 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
1830
1831 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
1832
1833 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
1834 as an input method.
1835
1836 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
1837 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
1838 character.
1839
1840 ** Changes related to the new font backend
1841
1842 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
1843 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
1844
1845 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
1846
1847 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
1848 available on your graphic device.
1849
1850 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
1851 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
1852 currently `x' and `xft'.
1853
1854 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
1855 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
1856 set the font.
1857
1858 *** New functions:
1859
1860 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
1861
1862 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
1863
1864 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
1865
1866 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
1867
1868 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
1869
1870 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
1871
1872 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
1873
1874 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
1875
1876 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
1877 entity, or font object.
1878
1879 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
1880
1881 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
1882
1883 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
1884 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
1885
1886 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
1887
1888 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
1889 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
1890 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
1891 takes a frame argument.
1892
1893 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
1894 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
1895
1896 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
1897 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
1898
1899 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
1900 session.
1901
1902 *** A new `terminal' data type.
1903 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
1904 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
1905
1906 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
1907 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
1908 which is not used directly any more.
1909
1910 *** New hooks:
1911
1912 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
1913 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
1914 file-local variables.
1915
1916 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
1917 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
1918 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
1919 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
1920
1921 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
1922 deleting a terminal.
1923
1924 *** New functions:
1925
1926 **** `delete-terminal'
1927
1928 **** `suspend-tty'
1929
1930 **** `resume-tty'.
1931
1932 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
1933
1934 ** Redisplay changes
1935
1936 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
1937 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
1938
1939 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
1940 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
1941 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
1942 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
1943
1944 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
1945
1946 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
1947 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
1948 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
1949 times the default column width.
1950
1951 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
1952 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
1953 instead.
1954
1955 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
1956 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
1957 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
1958 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
1959 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
1960 name, but take precedence.
1961
1962 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
1963
1964 ** Miscellaneous new functions
1965
1966 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
1967
1968 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
1969 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
1970
1971 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
1972 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
1973 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
1974 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
1975
1976 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
1977 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
1978
1979 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
1980 attributes of a given face.
1981
1982 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
1983 string of days, hours, etc.
1984
1985 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
1986 specification.
1987
1988 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
1989 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
1990 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
1991
1992 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
1993
1994 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
1995 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
1996
1997 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
1998 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
1999 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
2000
2001 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2002 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2003 the match data.
2004
2005 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2006 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2007 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2008
2009 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2010
2011 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2012 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2013
2014 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2015 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2016
2017 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2018 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2019
2020 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2021 marker used for window-point.
2022
2023 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2024 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2025 relevant data.
2026
2027 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2028 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2029
2030 \f
2031 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2032
2033 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2034
2035 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2036 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2037
2038 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2039
2040 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2041 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2042 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2043 of multiple buffers. Top-level commands `multi-isearch-buffers',
2044 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2045 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2046 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2047
2048 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2049 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2050
2051 \f
2052 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2053 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2054
2055 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2056 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2057 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2058 (at your option) any later version.
2059
2060 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2061 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2062 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2063 GNU General Public License for more details.
2064
2065 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2066 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2067
2068 \f
2069 Local variables:
2070 mode: outline
2071 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2072 end:
2073
2074 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2