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[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 5 Jan 2000
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
4
5 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6 For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7
8 \f
9 * Installation Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11 ** `movemail' defaults to supporting POP. You can turn this off using
12 the --without-pop configure option, should that be necessary.
13
14 ** There are new configure options associated with the support for
15 images and toolkit scrollbars. Use the --help option in `configure'
16 to list them.
17
18 ** There is a new configure option `--without-xim' that instructs
19 Emacs to not use X Input Methods (XIM), if they these are available.
20 \f
21 * Changes in Emacs 21.1
22
23 ** C-down-mouse-3 is bound differently. Now if the menu bar is not
24 displayed it pops up a menu containing the items which would be on the
25 menu bar. If the menu bar is displayed, it pops up the major mode
26 menu or the Edit menu if there is no major mode menu.
27
28 ** Variable `load-path' is no longer customizable because it contains
29 a version-dependent component.
30
31 ** The <delete> function key is now bound to `delete-char' by default.
32 Note that this takes effect only on window systems. On TTYs, Emacs
33 will receive ASCII 127 when the DEL key is pressed. This
34 character is still bound as before.
35
36 ** Item Save Options on the Options menu allows saving options set
37 using that menu.
38
39 ** New function executable-make-buffer-file-executable-if-script-p is
40 suitable as an after-save-hook as an alternative to executable-chmod.
41
42 ** The most preferred coding-system is now used to save a buffer if
43 buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and it is safe for the buffer
44 contents. (The most preferred is set by set-language-environment or
45 by M-x prefer-coding-system.) Thus if you visit an ASCII file and
46 insert a non-ASCII character from your current language environment,
47 the file will be saved silently with the appropriate coding.
48 Previously you would be prompted for a safe coding system.
49
50 ** New variable `inhibit-iso-escape-detection' determines if Emacs'
51 coding system detection algorithm should pay attention to ISO2022's
52 escape sequences. If this variable is non-nil, the algorithm ignores
53 such escape sequences. The default value is nil, and it is
54 recommended not to change it except for the special case that you
55 always want to read any escape code verbatim. If you just want to
56 read a specific file without decoding escape codes, use C-x RET c
57 (`universal-coding-system-argument'). For instance, C-x RET c latin-1
58 RET C-x C-f filename RET.
59
60 ** Variable `default-korean-keyboard' is initialized properly from the
61 environment variable `HANGUL_KEYBOARD_TYPE'.
62
63 ** C-u C-x = provides detailed information about the character at
64 point in a pop-up window.
65
66 ** New command M-x list-charset-chars reads a character set name and
67 displays all characters in that character set.
68
69 ** M-x set-terminal-coding-system (C-x RET t) now allows CCL-based
70 coding systems such as cpXXX and cyrillic-koi8.
71
72 ** M-; now calls comment-dwim which tries to do something clever based
73 on the context.
74
75 ** The function `getenv' is now callable interactively.
76
77 ** The many obsolete language `setup-...-environment' commands have
78 been removed -- use `set-language-environment'.
79
80 ** New user options `display-time-mail-face' and
81 `display-time-use-mail-icon' control the appearance of mode-line mail
82 indicator used by the display-time package. On a suitable display the
83 indicator can be an icon and is mouse-sensitive.
84
85 ** Emacs' auto-save list files are now by default stored in a
86 sub-directory `.emacs.d/auto-save-list/' of the user's home directory.
87 (On MS-DOS, this subdirectory's name is `_emacs.d/auto-save.list/'.)
88 You can customize `auto-save-list-prefix' to change this location.
89
90 ** On window-systems, additional space can be put between text lines
91 on the display using several methods
92
93 - By setting frame parameter `line-spacing' to PIXELS. PIXELS must be
94 a positive integer, and specifies that PIXELS number of pixels should
95 be put below text lines on the affected frame or frames.
96
97 - By setting X resource `lineSpacing', class `LineSpacing'. This is
98 equivalent ot specifying the frame parameter.
99
100 - By specifying `--line-spacing=N' or `-lsp N' on the command line.
101
102 - By setting buffer-local variable `line-spacing'. The meaning is
103 the same, but applies to the a particular buffer only.
104
105 ** The new command `clone-indirect-buffer' can be used to create
106 an indirect buffer that is a twin copy of the current buffer. The
107 command `clone-indirect-buffer-other-window', bound to C-x 4 c,
108 does the same but displays the indirect buffer in another window.
109
110 ** New user options `backup-directory-alist' and
111 `make-backup-file-name-function' control the placement of backups,
112 typically in a single directory or in an invisible sub-directory.
113
114 ** New commands iso-iso2sgml and iso-sgml2iso convert between Latin-1
115 characters and the corresponding SGML (HTML) entities.
116
117 ** Emacs now refuses to load compiled Lisp files which weren't
118 compiled with Emacs. Set `load-dangerous-libraries' to t to change
119 this behavior.
120
121 The reason for this change is an incompatible change in XEmacs' byte
122 compiler. Files compiled with XEmacs can contain byte codes that let
123 Emacs dump core.
124
125 ** New X resources recognized
126
127 *** The X resource `synchronous', class `Synchronous', specifies
128 whether Emacs should run in synchronous mode. Synchronous mode
129 is useful for debugging X problems.
130
131 Example:
132
133 emacs.synchronous: true
134
135 *** The X resource `visualClass, class `VisualClass', specifies the
136 visual Emacs should use. The resource's value should be a string of
137 the form `CLASS-DEPTH', where CLASS is the name of the visual class,
138 and DEPTH is the requested color depth as a decimal number. Valid
139 visual class names are
140
141 TrueColor
142 PseudoColor
143 DirectColor
144 StaticColor
145 GrayScale
146 StaticGray
147
148 Visual class names specified as X resource are case-insensitive, i.e.
149 `pseudocolor', `Pseudocolor' and `PseudoColor' all have the same
150 meaning.
151
152 The program `xdpyinfo' can be used to list the visual classes
153 supported on your display, and which depths they have. If
154 `visualClass' is not specified, Emacs uses the display's default
155 visual.
156
157 Example:
158
159 emacs.visualClass: TrueColor-8
160
161 *** The X resource `privateColormap', class `PrivateColormap',
162 specifies that Emacs should use a private colormap if it is using the
163 default visual, and that visual is of class PseudoColor. Recognized
164 resource values are `true' or `on'.
165
166 Example:
167
168 emacs.privateColormap: true
169
170 ** The menu bar configuration has changed. The new configuration is
171 more CUA-compliant. The most significant change is that Options is
172 now a separate menu-bar item, with Mule and Customize as its submenus.
173
174 ** User-option `show-cursor-in-non-selected-windows' controls how to
175 display the cursor in non-selected windows. If nil, no cursor is
176 shown, if non-nil a hollow box cursor is shown. This option can
177 be customized.
178
179 ** The variable `echo-keystrokes' may now have a floating point value.
180
181 ** C-x 5 1 runs the new command delete-other-frames which deletes
182 all frames except the selected one.
183
184 ** If your init file is compiled (.emacs.elc), `user-init-file' is set
185 to the source name (.emacs.el), if that exists, after loading it.
186
187 ** The help string specified for a menu-item whose definition contains
188 the property `:help HELP' is now displayed under X either in the echo
189 area or with tooltips.
190
191 ** New user option `read-mail-command' specifies a command to use to
192 read mail from the menu etc.
193
194 ** Hexl contains a new command `hexl-insert-hex-string' which inserts
195 a string of hexadecimal numbers read from the mini-buffer.
196
197 ** Changes in Texinfo mode.
198
199 ** A couple of new key bindings have been added for inserting Texinfo
200 macros
201
202 Key binding Macro
203 -------------------------
204 C-c C-c C-s @strong
205 C-c C-c C-e @emph
206 C-c C-c u @url
207 C-c C-c q @quotation
208 C-c C-c m @email
209
210 ** Changes in Outline mode.
211
212 There is now support for Imenu to index headings. A new command
213 `outline-headers-as-kill' copies the visible headings in the region to
214 the kill ring, e.g. to produce a table of contents.
215
216 ** New command M-x check-parens can be used to find unbalanced paren
217 groups and strings in buffers in Lisp mode (or other modes).
218
219 ** You can now easily create new *Info* buffers using either M-x clone-buffer
220 or C-u m <entry> RET. M-x clone-buffer can also be used on *Help* and
221 several other special buffers.
222
223 ** Emacs can now support 'wheeled' mice (such as the MS IntelliMouse)
224 under XFree86. To enable this, simply put (mwheel-install) in your
225 .emacs file.
226
227 The variables `mwheel-follow-mouse' and `mwheel-scroll-amount'
228 determine where and by how much buffers are scrolled.
229
230 ** Listing buffers with M-x list-buffers (C-x C-b) now shows
231 abbreviated file names. Abbreviations can be customized by changing
232 `directory-abbrev-alist'.
233
234 ** Reading from the mini-buffer now reads from standard input if Emacs
235 is running in batch mode. For example,
236
237 (message "%s" (read t))
238
239 will read a Lisp expression from standard input and print the result
240 to standard output.
241
242 ** Faces and frame parameters.
243
244 There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
245 Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
246 `scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
247 `scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
248 sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
249 for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
250 parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
251
252 Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
253 `default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
254 `foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
255 `default' face and vice versa.
256
257 ** New face `menu'.
258
259 The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
260 Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
261 attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
262
263 ** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
264
265 The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
266 colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
267 correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
268 the screen gamma of a frame's display.
269
270 PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
271 in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
272 color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
273
274 The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
275 `ScreenGamma'.
276
277 ** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
278
279 The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
280 Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
281 oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
282 of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
283 the text.
284
285 ** Emacs has a new face implementation.
286
287 The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
288 font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
289 height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
290 These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
291 specify a font.
292
293 Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
294 These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
295 under Lisp changes, below.
296
297 ** New default font is Courier 12pt.
298
299 ** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
300 its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
301 it is hollow.
302
303 ** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
304 truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
305 foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
306 customizing face `fringe'.
307
308 ** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
309 can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
310
311 ** LessTif support.
312
313 Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
314 need a version 0.88.1 or later.
315
316 ** Toolkit scroll bars.
317
318 Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
319 LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
320 configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
321 bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
322 bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
323 Emacs.
324
325 When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
326 Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
327 Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
328 Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
329 define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
330 `s/freebsd.h' as an example.
331
332 Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
333 a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
334 directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
335 different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
336 system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
337 add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
338
339 The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
340 `float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
341 This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
342 image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
343 Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
344
345 ** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
346
347 When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
348 widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
349 Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
350
351 ** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
352
353 When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
354 whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
355 defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
356 highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
357 displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
358 whitespace.
359
360 ** Busy-cursor.
361
362 Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
363 display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
364
365 ** Blinking cursor
366
367 M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
368 terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
369 and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
370 the group `cursor'.
371
372 ** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
373
374 This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
375 generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
376 See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
377 details.
378
379 Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
380 have to do anything to activate it.
381
382 ** Tabs and variable-width text.
383
384 Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
385 defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
386 independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
387 Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
388
389 ** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
390
391 *** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
392
393 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
394
395 The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the
396 LessTif/Motif one.
397
398 *** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, as in
399 LessTif and Motif.
400
401 ** Hscrolling in C code.
402
403 Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically if
404 `automatic-hscrolling' is set (the default). This setting can be
405 customized.
406
407 ** Tool bar support.
408
409 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
410 how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
411
412 ** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
413
414 Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
415 mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
416 line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
417 about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
418 in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
419
420 Currently, the following actions have been defined:
421
422 - Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
423 buffers.
424
425 - Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
426 M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
427
428 - Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
429
430 - Mouse-2 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
431 toggles the read-only status.
432
433 - Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
434
435 ** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
436
437 When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
438 from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialog-box' is
439 non-nil.
440
441 ** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
442
443 Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
444 Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
445 the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
446 italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
447 Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
448 attributes such as `overline', `strike-through', and `box' are ignored
449 on terminals.
450
451 ** Sound support
452
453 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and FreeBSD (Voxware
454 driver and native BSD driver, a.k.a. Luigi's driver). Currently
455 supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio (*.au).
456
457 ** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
458 the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
459 forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
460 value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
461 users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
462 even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
463
464 The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
465
466 ** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
467
468 As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
469 drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
470 `x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
471
472 ** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
473 bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
474
475 This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
476 `indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
477 variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
478
479 ** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
480
481 When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
482 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
483 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
484 fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
485
486 When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
487 value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
488 number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
489 fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
490
491 ** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
492 notably at the end of lines.
493
494 All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
495 spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
496
497 There is a new command M-x replace-rectangle.
498
499 ** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
500 query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
501 after each match to get the replacement text.
502
503 ** M-x query-replace recognizes a new command `e' (or `E') that lets
504 you edit the replacement string.
505
506 ** The new command mail-abbrev-complete-alias, bound to `M-TAB', let's
507 you complete mail aliases in the text, analogous to
508 lisp-complete-symbol.
509
510 ** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
511
512 If a message is longer than one line, or minibuffer contents are
513 longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the minibuffer window unless
514 it is on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum minibuffer
515 window size by setting the following variable:
516
517 - User option: max-mini-window-height
518
519 Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
520 fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
521 specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
522
523 Default is 0.25.
524
525 ** The command `Info-search' now uses a search history.
526
527 ** Changes to hideshow.el
528
529 Hideshow is now at version 5.x. It uses a new algorithms for block
530 selection and traversal and includes more isearch support.
531
532 *** Generalized block selection and traversal
533
534 A block is now recognized by three things: its start and end regexps
535 (both strings), and a match-data selector (an integer) specifying
536 which sub-expression in the start regexp serves as the place where a
537 `forward-sexp'-like function can operate. Hideshow always adjusts
538 point to this sub-expression before calling `hs-forward-sexp-func'
539 (which for most modes evaluates to `forward-sexp').
540
541 If the match-data selector is not specified, it defaults to zero,
542 i.e., the entire start regexp is valid, w/ no prefix. This is
543 backwards compatible with previous versions of hideshow. Please see
544 the docstring for variable `hs-special-modes-alist' for details.
545
546 *** Isearch support for updating mode line
547
548 During incremental search, if Hideshow minor mode is active, hidden
549 blocks are temporarily shown. The variable `hs-headline' records the
550 line at the beginning of the opened block (preceding the hidden
551 portion of the buffer), and the mode line is refreshed. When a block
552 is re-hidden, the variable is set to nil.
553
554 To show `hs-headline' in the mode line, you may wish to include
555 something like this in your .emacs.
556
557 (add-hook 'hs-minor-mode-hook
558 (lambda ()
559 (add-to-list 'mode-line-format 'hs-headline)))
560
561 ** Changes to Change Log mode and Add-Log functions
562
563 If you invoke `add-change-log-entry' from a backup file, it makes an
564 entry appropriate for the file's parent. This is useful for making
565 log entries by comparing a version with deleted functions.
566
567 New command M-x change-log-merge merges another log into the current
568 buffer, fixing old-style date formats if necessary.
569
570 Change Log mode now adds a file's version number to change log entries
571 if user-option `change-log-version-info-enabled' is non-nil.
572
573 The search for a file's version number is performed based on regular
574 expressions from `change-log-version-number-regexp-list' which can be
575 cutomized. Version numbers are only found in the first 10 percent of
576 a file.
577
578 ** Changes in Font Lock
579
580 *** The new function `font-lock-remove-keywords' can be used to remove
581 font-lock keywords from the current buffer or from a specific major
582 mode.
583
584 ** Comint (subshell) changes
585
586 Comint now includes new features to send commands to running processes
587 and redirect the output to a designated buffer or buffers.
588
589 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command reads a command and
590 buffer name from the mini-buffer. The command is sent to the current
591 buffer's process, and its output is inserted into the specified buffer.
592
593 The command M-x comint-redirect-send-command-to-process acts like
594 M-x comint-redirect-send-command but additionally reads the name of
595 the buffer whose process should be used from the mini-buffer.
596
597 Packages based on comint.el like shell-mode, and
598 scheme-interaction-mode now highlight user input, and support choosing
599 previous input with mouse-2. To control this feature, see the
600 user-option `comint-highlight-input'.
601
602 ** Changes to Rmail mode
603
604 *** The new user-option rmail-rmail-user-mail-address-regexp can be
605 set to fine tune the identification of of the correspondent when
606 receiving new mail. If it matches the address of the sender, the
607 recipient is taken as correspondent of a mail. If nil, the default,
608 `user-login-name' and `user-mail-address' are used to exclude yourself
609 as correspondent.
610
611 Usually you don't have to set this variable, except if you collect
612 mails sent by you under different user names. Then it should be a
613 regexp matching your mail addresses.
614
615 *** The new user-option rmail-confirm-expunge controls whether and how
616 to ask for confirmation before expunging deleted messages from an
617 Rmail file. You can choose between no confirmation, confirmation
618 with y-or-n-p, or confirmation with yes-or-no-p. Default is to ask
619 for confirmation with yes-or-no-p.
620
621 *** RET is now bound in the Rmail summary to rmail-summary-goto-msg,
622 like `j'.
623
624 *** There is a new user option `rmail-digest-end-regexps' that
625 specifies the regular expressions to detect the line that ends a
626 digest message.
627
628 *** The new user option `rmail-automatic-folder-directives' specifies
629 in which folder to put messages automatically.
630
631 ** Changes to TeX mode
632
633 The default mode has been changed from `plain-tex-mode' to
634 `latex-mode'.
635
636 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
637
638 *** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
639 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
640 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
641 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
642 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
643 can be edited from that buffer.
644
645 *** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
646 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
647 `A' to use all marked entries).
648
649 *** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
650 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
651
652 *** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
653 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
654 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
655 been cited.
656
657 ** Emacs Lisp mode now allows multiple levels of outline headings.
658 The level of a heading is determined from the number of leading
659 semicolons in a heading line. Toplevel forms starting with a `('
660 in column 1 are always made leaves.
661
662 ** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
663 has the following new features:
664
665 *** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
666 may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
667 to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
668 time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
669
670 *** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
671 feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
672 file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
673 compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
674 pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
675 defaults to 1.
676
677 ** Partial Completion mode now completes environment variables in
678 file names.
679
680 ** Tooltips.
681
682 Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
683 mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
684 can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
685
686 Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
687 variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
688 the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
689 tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
690
691 ** Customize changes
692
693 *** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
694 `State' menu to add comments. Note that customization comments will
695 cause the customizations to fail in earlier versions of Emacs.
696
697 *** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
698 Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
699 default).
700
701 *** The keyword :set-after in defcustom allows to specify dependencies
702 between custom options. Example:
703
704 (defcustom default-input-method nil
705 "*Default input method for multilingual text (a string).
706 This is the input method activated automatically by the command
707 `toggle-input-method' (\\[toggle-input-method])."
708 :group 'mule
709 :type '(choice (const nil) string)
710 :set-after '(current-language-environment))
711
712 This specifies that default-input-method should be set after
713 current-language-environment even if default-input-method appears
714 first in a custom-set-variables statement.
715
716 ** New features in evaluation commands
717
718 *** The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
719 modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
720 print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
721 customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
722 eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
723
724 *** The function `eval-defun' (M-C-x) now loads Edebug and instruments
725 code when called with a prefix argument.
726
727 ** Dired changes
728
729 *** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
730 command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
731 is, delete only empty directories.
732
733 *** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
734 command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
735 copy directories recursively.
736
737 *** In command `dired-do-shell-command' (usually bound to `!') a `?'
738 in the shell command has a special meaning similar to `*', but with
739 the difference that the command will be run on each file individually.
740
741 *** The new command `dired-find-alternate-file' (usually bound to `a')
742 replaces the Dired buffer with the buffer for an alternate file or
743 directory.
744
745 *** The new command `dired-show-file-type' (usually bound to `w') shows
746 a message in the echo area describing what type of file the point is on.
747 This command invokes the external program `file' do its work, and so
748 will only work on systems with that program, and will be only as
749 accurate or inaccurate as it is.
750
751 *** Dired now properly handles undo changes of adding/removing `-R'
752 from ls switches.
753
754 ** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
755 use the -f option when sending mail.
756
757 ** CC mode changes.
758
759 Note: This release contains changes that might not be compatible with
760 current user setups (although it's believed that these
761 incompatibilities will only show in very uncommon circumstances).
762 However, since the impact is uncertain, these changes may be rolled
763 back depending on user feedback. Therefore there's no forward
764 compatibility guarantee wrt the new features introduced in this
765 release.
766
767 *** c-style-variables-are-local-p now defaults to t.
768 This is an incompatible change that has been made to make the behavior
769 of the style system wrt global variable settings less confusing for
770 non-advanced users. If you know what this variable does you might
771 want to set it to nil in your .emacs, otherwise you probably don't
772 have to bother.
773
774 Defaulting c-style-variables-are-local-p to t avoids the confusing
775 situation that occurs when a user sets some style variables globally
776 and edit both a Java and a non-Java file in the same Emacs session.
777 If the style variables aren't buffer local in this case, loading of
778 the second file will cause the default style (either "gnu" or "java"
779 by default) to override the global settings made by the user.
780
781 *** New initialization procedure for the style system.
782 When the initial style for a buffer is determined by CC Mode (from the
783 variable c-default-style), the global values of style variables now
784 take precedence over the values specified by the chosen style. This
785 is different than the old behavior: previously, the style-specific
786 settings would override the global settings. This change makes it
787 possible to do simple configuration in the intuitive way with
788 Customize or with setq lines in one's .emacs file.
789
790 By default, the global value of every style variable is the new
791 special symbol set-from-style, which causes the value to be taken from
792 the style system. This means that in effect, only an explicit setting
793 of a style variable will cause the "overriding" behavior described
794 above.
795
796 Also note that global settings override style-specific settings *only*
797 when the initial style of a buffer is chosen by a CC Mode major mode
798 function. When a style is chosen in other ways --- for example, by a
799 call like (c-set-style "gnu") in a hook, or via M-x c-set-style ---
800 then the style-specific values take precedence over any global style
801 values. In Lisp terms, global values override style-specific values
802 only when the new second argument to c-set-style is non-nil; see the
803 function documentation for more info.
804
805 The purpose of these changes is to make it easier for users,
806 especially novice users, to do simple customizations with Customize or
807 with setq in their .emacs files. On the other hand, the new system is
808 intended to be compatible with advanced users' customizations as well,
809 such as those that choose styles in hooks or whatnot. This new system
810 is believed to be almost entirely compatible with current
811 configurations, in spite of the changed precedence between style and
812 global variable settings when a buffer's default style is set.
813
814 (Thanks to Eric Eide for clarifying this explanation a bit.)
815
816 **** c-offsets-alist is now a customizable variable.
817 This became possible as a result of the new initialization behavior.
818
819 This variable is treated slightly differently from the other style
820 variables; instead of using the symbol set-from-style, it will be
821 completed with the syntactic symbols it doesn't already contain when
822 the style is first initialized. This means it now defaults to the
823 empty list to make all syntactic elements get their values from the
824 style system.
825
826 **** Compatibility variable to restore the old behavior.
827 In case your configuration doesn't work with this change, you can set
828 c-old-style-variable-behavior to non-nil to get the old behavior back
829 as far as possible.
830
831 *** Improvements to line breaking and text filling.
832 CC Mode now handles this more intelligently and seamlessly wrt the
833 surrounding code, especially inside comments. For details see the new
834 chapter about this in the manual.
835
836 **** New variable to recognize comment line prefix decorations.
837 The variable c-comment-prefix-regexp has been added to properly
838 recognize the line prefix in both block and line comments. It's
839 primarily used to initialize the various paragraph recognition and
840 adaptive filling variables that the text handling functions uses.
841
842 **** New variable c-block-comment-prefix.
843 This is a generalization of the now obsolete variable
844 c-comment-continuation-stars to handle arbitrary strings.
845
846 **** CC Mode now uses adaptive fill mode.
847 This to make it adapt better to the paragraph style inside comments.
848
849 It's also possible to use other adaptive filling packages inside CC
850 Mode, notably Kyle E. Jones' Filladapt mode (http://wonderworks.com/).
851 A new convenience function c-setup-filladapt sets up Filladapt for use
852 inside CC Mode.
853
854 Note though that the 2.12 version of Filladapt lacks a feature that
855 causes it to work suboptimally when c-comment-prefix-regexp can match
856 the empty string (which it commonly does). A patch for that is
857 available from the CC Mode web site (http://www.python.org/emacs/
858 cc-mode/).
859
860 **** It's now possible to selectively turn off auto filling.
861 The variable c-ignore-auto-fill is used to ignore auto fill mode in
862 specific contexts, e.g. in preprocessor directives and in string
863 literals.
864
865 **** New context sensitive line break function c-context-line-break.
866 It works like newline-and-indent in normal code, and adapts the line
867 prefix according to the comment style when used inside comments. If
868 you're normally using newline-and-indent, you might want to switch to
869 this function.
870
871 *** Fixes to IDL mode.
872 It now does a better job in recognizing only the constructs relevant
873 to IDL. E.g. it no longer matches "class" as the beginning of a
874 struct block, but it does match the CORBA 2.3 "valuetype" keyword.
875 Thanks to Eric Eide.
876
877 *** Improvements to the Whitesmith style.
878 It now keeps the style consistently on all levels and both when
879 opening braces hangs and when they don't.
880
881 **** New lineup function c-lineup-whitesmith-in-block.
882
883 *** New lineup functions c-lineup-template-args and c-indent-multi-line-block.
884 See their docstrings for details. c-lineup-template-args does a
885 better job of tracking the brackets used as parens in C++ templates,
886 and is used by default to line up continued template arguments.
887
888 *** c-lineup-comment now preserves alignment with a comment on the
889 previous line. It used to instead preserve comments that started in
890 the column specified by comment-column.
891
892 *** c-lineup-C-comments handles "free form" text comments.
893 In comments with a long delimiter line at the start, the indentation
894 is kept unchanged for lines that start with an empty comment line
895 prefix. This is intended for the type of large block comments that
896 contain documentation with its own formatting. In these you normally
897 don't want CC Mode to change the indentation.
898
899 *** The `c' syntactic symbol is now relative to the comment start
900 instead of the previous line, to make integers usable as lineup
901 arguments.
902
903 *** All lineup functions have gotten docstrings.
904
905 *** More preprocessor directive movement functions.
906 c-down-conditional does the reverse of c-up-conditional.
907 c-up-conditional-with-else and c-down-conditional-with-else are
908 variants of these that also stops at "#else" lines (suggested by Don
909 Provan).
910
911 *** Minor improvements to many movement functions in tricky situations.
912
913 ** Makefile mode changes
914
915 *** The mode now uses the abbrev table `makefile-mode-abbrev-table'.
916
917 *** Conditionals and include statements are now highlighted when
918 Fontlock mode is active.
919
920 ** Isearch changes
921
922 ** In Isearch mode, M-C-s and M-C-r are now bound like C-s and C-r,
923 respectively, i.e. you can repeat a regexp isearch with the same keys
924 that started the search.
925
926 *** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
927 selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
928
929 *** There is a new lazy highlighting feature in incremental search.
930
931 Lazy highlighting is switched on/off by customizing variable
932 `isearch-lazy-highlight'. When active, all matches for the current
933 search string are highlighted. The current match is highlighted as
934 before using face `isearch' or `region'. All other matches are
935 highlighted using face `isearch-lazy-highlight-face' which defaults to
936 `secondary-selection'.
937
938 The extra highlighting makes it easier to anticipate where the cursor
939 will end up each time you press C-s or C-r to repeat a pending search.
940 Highlighting of these additional matches happens in a deferred fashion
941 using "idle timers," so the cycles needed do not rob isearch of its
942 usual snappy response.
943
944 If `isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup' is set to t, highlights for
945 matches are automatically cleared when you end the search. If it is
946 set to nil, you can remove the highlights manually with `M-x
947 isearch-lazy-highlight-cleanup'.
948
949 ** Changes in sort.el
950
951 The function sort-numeric-fields interprets numbers starting with `0'
952 as octal and numbers starting with `0x' or `0X' as hexadecimal. The
953 new user-option sort-numberic-base can be used to specify a default
954 numeric base.
955
956 ** Changes to Ange-ftp
957
958 *** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
959 names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
960 sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
961
962 *** If the new user-option `ange-ftp-try-passive-mode' is set, passive
963 ftp mode will be used if the ftp client supports that.
964
965 ** Shell script mode changes.
966
967 Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
968 derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
969 sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
970
971 ** Etags changes.
972
973 *** In DOS, etags looks for file.cgz if it cannot find file.c.
974
975 *** New option --ignore-case-regex is an alternative to --regex. It is now
976 possible to bind a regexp to a language, by prepending the regexp with
977 {lang}, where lang is one of the languages that `etags --help' prints out.
978 This feature is useful especially for regex files, where each line contains
979 a regular expression. The manual contains details.
980
981 *** In C and derived languages, etags creates tags for function
982 declarations when given the --declarations option.
983
984 *** In C++, tags are created for "operator". The tags have the form
985 "operator+", without spaces between the keyword and the operator.
986
987 *** New language Ada: tags are functions, procedures, packages, tasks, and
988 types.
989
990 *** In Fortran, `procedure' is not tagged.
991
992 *** In Java, tags are created for "interface".
993
994 *** In Lisp, "(defstruct (foo", "(defun (operator" and similar constructs
995 are now tagged.
996
997 *** In Perl, the --globals option tags global variables. my and local
998 variables are tagged.
999
1000 *** New language Python: def and class at the beginning of a line are tags.
1001
1002 *** .ss files are Scheme files, .pdb is Postscript with C syntax, .psw is
1003 for PSWrap.
1004
1005 ** Changes in etags.el
1006
1007 *** The new user-option tags-case-fold-search can be used to make
1008 tags operations case-sensitive or case-insensitive. The default
1009 is to use the same setting as case-fold-search.
1010
1011 *** You can display additional output with M-x tags-apropos by setting
1012 the new variable tags-apropos-additional-actions.
1013
1014 If non-nil, the variable's value should be a list of triples (TITLE
1015 FUNCTION TO-SEARCH). For each triple, M-x tags-apropos processes
1016 TO-SEARCH and lists tags from it. TO-SEARCH should be an alist,
1017 obarray, or symbol. If it is a symbol, the symbol's value is used.
1018
1019 TITLE is a string to use to label the list of tags from TO-SEARCH.
1020
1021 FUNCTION is a function to call when an entry is selected in the Tags
1022 List buffer. It is called with one argument, the selected symbol.
1023
1024 A useful example value for this variable might be something like:
1025
1026 '(("Emacs Lisp" Info-goto-emacs-command-node obarray)
1027 ("Common Lisp" common-lisp-hyperspec common-lisp-hyperspec-obarray)
1028 ("SCWM" scwm-documentation scwm-obarray))
1029
1030 *** The face tags-tag-face can be used to customize the appearance
1031 of tags in the output of M-x tags-apropos.
1032
1033 *** Setting tags-apropos-verbose to a non-nil value displays the
1034 names of tags files in the *Tags List* buffer.
1035
1036 ** Emacs now attempts to determine the initial language environment
1037 and preferred and locale coding systems systematically from the
1038 LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables during startup.
1039
1040 ** New language environments `Polish', `Latin-8' and `Latin-9'.
1041 Latin-8 and Latin-9 correspond respectively to the ISO character sets
1042 8859-14 (Celtic) and 8859-15 (updated Latin-1, with the Euro sign).
1043 There is currently no specific input method support for them.
1044
1045 ** Fortran mode has a new command `fortran-strip-sequence-nos' to
1046 remove text past column 72. The syntax class of `\' in Fortran is now
1047 appropriate for C-style escape sequences in strings.
1048
1049 ** SGML mode's default `sgml-validate-command' is now `nsgmls'.
1050
1051 ** A new command `view-emacs-problems' (C-h P) displays the PROBLEMS file.
1052
1053 ** The Dabbrev package has a new user-option `dabbrev-ignore-regexps'
1054 containing a list of regular expressions. Buffers matching a regular
1055 expression from that list, are not checked.
1056
1057 ** New modes and packages
1058
1059 *** The new package xml.el provides a simple but generic XML
1060 parser. It doesn't parse the DTDs however.
1061
1062 *** The comment operations are now provided by the newcomment.el
1063 package which allows different styles of comment-region and should
1064 be more robust while offering the same functionality.
1065
1066 *** The Ebrowse package implements a C++ class browser and tags
1067 facilities tailored for use with C++. It is documented in a
1068 separate Texinfo file.
1069
1070 *** The PCL-CVS package available by either running M-x cvs-examine
1071 or by visiting a CVS administrative directory (with a prefix argument)
1072 provides an alternative interface to VC-dired for CVS.
1073 It comes with log-view-mode to view RCS and SCCS logs and log-edit-mode
1074 used to enter checkin log messages.
1075
1076 *** The new package called `woman' allows to browse Unix man pages
1077 without invoking external programs.
1078
1079 The command `M-x woman' formats manual pages entirely in Emacs Lisp
1080 and then displays them, like `M-x manual-entry' does. Unlike
1081 `manual-entry', `woman' does not invoke any external programs, so it
1082 is useful on systems such as MS-DOS/MS-Windows where the `man' and
1083 Groff or `troff' commands are not readily available.
1084
1085 The command `M-x woman-find-file' asks for the file name of a man
1086 page, then formats and displays it like `M-x woman' does.
1087
1088 *** The new command M-x re-builder offers a convenient interface for
1089 authoring regular expressions with immediate visual feedback.
1090
1091 The buffer from which the command was called becomes the target for
1092 the regexp editor popping up in a separate window. Matching text in
1093 the target buffer is immediately color marked during the editing.
1094 Each sub-expression of the regexp will show up in a different face so
1095 even complex regexps can be edited and verified on target data in a
1096 single step.
1097
1098 On displays not supporting faces the matches instead blink like
1099 matching parens to make them stand out. On such a setup you will
1100 probably also want to use the sub-expression mode when the regexp
1101 contains such to get feedback about their respective limits.
1102
1103 *** glasses-mode is a minor mode that makes
1104 unreadableIdentifiersLikeThis readable. It works as glasses, without
1105 actually modifying content of a buffer.
1106
1107 *** The package ebnf2ps translates an EBNF to a syntactic chart in
1108 PostScript.
1109
1110 Currently accepts ad-hoc EBNF, ISO EBNF and Bison/Yacc.
1111
1112 The ad-hoc default EBNF syntax has the following elements:
1113
1114 ; comment (until end of line)
1115 A non-terminal
1116 "C" terminal
1117 ?C? special
1118 $A default non-terminal
1119 $"C" default terminal
1120 $?C? default special
1121 A = B. production (A is the header and B the body)
1122 C D sequence (C occurs before D)
1123 C | D alternative (C or D occurs)
1124 A - B exception (A excluding B, B without any non-terminal)
1125 n * A repetition (A repeats n (integer) times)
1126 (C) group (expression C is grouped together)
1127 [C] optional (C may or not occurs)
1128 C+ one or more occurrences of C
1129 {C}+ one or more occurrences of C
1130 {C}* zero or more occurrences of C
1131 {C} zero or more occurrences of C
1132 C / D equivalent to: C {D C}*
1133 {C || D}+ equivalent to: C {D C}*
1134 {C || D}* equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1135 {C || D} equivalent to: [C {D C}*]
1136
1137 Please, see ebnf2ps documentation for EBNF syntax and how to use it.
1138
1139 *** The package align.el will align columns within a region, using M-x
1140 align. Its mode-specific rules, based on regular expressions,
1141 determine where the columns should be split. In C and C++, for
1142 example, it will align variable names in declaration lists, or the
1143 equal signs of assignments.
1144
1145 *** `paragraph-indent-minor-mode' is a new minor mode supporting
1146 paragraphs in the same style as `paragraph-indent-text-mode'.
1147
1148 *** bs.el is a new package for buffer selection similar to
1149 list-buffers or electric-buffer-list. Use M-x bs-show to display a
1150 buffer menu with this package. You can use M-x bs-customize to
1151 customize the package.
1152
1153 *** find-lisp.el is a package emulating the Unix find command in Lisp.
1154
1155 *** calculator.el is a small calculator package that is intended to
1156 replace desktop calculators such as xcalc and calc.exe. Actually, it
1157 is not too small - it has more features than most desktop calculators,
1158 and can be customized easily to get many more functions. It should
1159 not be confused with "calc" which is a much bigger mathematical tool
1160 which answers different needs.
1161
1162 *** The minor modes cwarn-mode and global-cwarn-mode highlights
1163 suspicious C and C++ constructions. Currently, assignments inside
1164 expressions, semicolon following `if', `for' and `while' (except, of
1165 course, after a `do .. while' statement), and C++ functions with
1166 reference parameters are recognized. The modes require font-lock mode
1167 to be enabled.
1168
1169 *** smerge-mode.el provides `smerge-mode', a simple minor-mode for files
1170 containing diff3-style conflict markers, such as generated by RCS.
1171
1172 *** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
1173
1174 *** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
1175
1176 *** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
1177
1178 *** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
1179 Pascal) language.
1180
1181 *** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
1182 the text at point.
1183
1184 *** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
1185
1186 *** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
1187
1188 *** whitespace.el ???
1189
1190 *** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
1191 files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
1192 (very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
1193 interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
1194 often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
1195 uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
1196 codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
1197
1198 *** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
1199
1200 Here is an example of columns:
1201
1202 horse apple bus
1203 dog pineapple car EXTRA
1204 porcupine strawberry airplane
1205
1206 Doing the following settings:
1207
1208 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
1209 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
1210 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
1211 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
1212
1213
1214 Selecting the lines above and typing:
1215
1216 M-x delimit-columns-region
1217
1218 It results:
1219
1220 [ horse , apple , bus , ]
1221 [ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
1222 [ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
1223
1224 delim-col has the following options:
1225
1226 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
1227 before all columns.
1228
1229 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
1230 between each column.
1231
1232 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
1233 after all columns.
1234
1235 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
1236 each column.
1237
1238 delim-col has the following commands:
1239
1240 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
1241 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
1242
1243 *** The package recentf.el maintains a menu for visiting files that
1244 were operated on recently.
1245
1246 M-x recentf-mode RET toggles recentf mode.
1247
1248 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-mode RET can be used to enable
1249 recentf at Emacs startup.
1250
1251 M-x customize-variable RET recentf-menu-filter RET to specify a menu
1252 filter function to change the menu appearance. For example, the recent
1253 file list can be displayed:
1254
1255 - organized by major modes, directories or user defined rules.
1256 - sorted by file pathes, file names, ascending or descending.
1257 - showing pathes relative to the current default-directory
1258
1259 The `recentf-filter-changer' menu filter function allows to
1260 dynamically change the menu appearance.
1261
1262 *** elide-head.el provides a mechanism for eliding boilerplate header
1263 text.
1264
1265 *** footnote.el provides `footnote-mode', a minor mode supporting use
1266 of footnotes. It is intended for use with Message mode, but isn't
1267 specific to Message mode.
1268
1269 *** diff-mode.el provides `diff-mode', a major mode for
1270 viewing/editing context diffs (patches). It is selected for files
1271 with extension `.diff', `.diffs', `.patch' and `.rej'.
1272
1273 *** EUDC, the Emacs Unified Directory Client, provides a common user
1274 interface to access directory servers using different directory
1275 protocols. It has a separate manual.
1276
1277 *** autoconf.el provides a major mode for editing configure.in files
1278 for Autoconf, selected automatically.
1279
1280 *** windmove.el provides moving between windows.
1281
1282 *** crm.el provides a facility to read multiple strings from the
1283 minibuffer with completion.
1284
1285 *** todo-mode.el provides management of TODO lists and integration
1286 with the diary features.
1287
1288 *** autoarg.el provides a feature reported from Twenex Emacs whereby
1289 numeric keys supply prefix args rather than self inserting.
1290
1291 *** The function `turn-off-auto-fill' unconditionally turns off Auto
1292 Fill mode.
1293
1294 ** Withdrawn packages
1295
1296 *** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
1297 functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
1298
1299 *** eval-reg.el has been obsoleted by changes to edebug.el and removed.
1300
1301 *** ph.el has been obsoleted by EUDC and removed.
1302
1303 \f
1304 * Lisp changes made after edition 2.6 of the Emacs Lisp Manual,
1305 (Display-related features are described in a page of their own below.)
1306
1307 ** Function `aset' stores any multibyte character in any string
1308 without signaling "Attempt to change char length of a string". It may
1309 convert a unibyte string to multibyte if necessary.
1310
1311 ** The value of the `help-echo' text property is called as a function
1312 or evaluated, if it is not a string already, to obtain a help string.
1313
1314 ** Function `make-obsolete' now has an optional arg to say when the
1315 function was declared obsolete.
1316
1317 ** Function plist-member is renamed from widget-plist-member (which is
1318 retained as an alias).
1319
1320 ** Easy-menu's :filter now works as in XEmacs.
1321 It takes the unconverted (i.e. XEmacs) form of the menu and the result
1322 is automatically converted to Emacs' form.
1323
1324 ** The new function `window-list' has been defined
1325
1326 - Function: window-list &optional WINDOW MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES
1327
1328 Return a list of windows in canonical order. The parameters WINDOW,
1329 MINIBUF and ALL-FRAMES are defined like for `next-window'.
1330
1331 ** There's a new function `some-window' defined as follows
1332
1333 - Function: some-window PREDICATE &optional MINIBUF ALL-FRAMES DEFAULT
1334
1335 Return a window satisfying PREDICATE.
1336
1337 This function cycles through all visible windows using `walk-windows',
1338 calling PREDICATE on each one. PREDICATE is called with a window as
1339 argument. The first window for which PREDICATE returns a non-nil
1340 value is returned. If no window satisfies PREDICATE, DEFAULT is
1341 returned.
1342
1343 Optional second arg MINIBUF t means count the minibuffer window even
1344 if not active. MINIBUF nil or omitted means count the minibuffer iff
1345 it is active. MINIBUF neither t nor nil means not to count the
1346 minibuffer even if it is active.
1347
1348 Several frames may share a single minibuffer; if the minibuffer
1349 counts, all windows on all frames that share that minibuffer count
1350 too. Therefore, if you are using a separate minibuffer frame
1351 and the minibuffer is active and MINIBUF says it counts,
1352 `walk-windows' includes the windows in the frame from which you
1353 entered the minibuffer, as well as the minibuffer window.
1354
1355 ALL-FRAMES is the optional third argument.
1356 ALL-FRAMES nil or omitted means cycle within the frames as specified above.
1357 ALL-FRAMES = `visible' means include windows on all visible frames.
1358 ALL-FRAMES = 0 means include windows on all visible and iconified frames.
1359 ALL-FRAMES = t means include windows on all frames including invisible frames.
1360 If ALL-FRAMES is a frame, it means include windows on that frame.
1361 Anything else means restrict to the selected frame.
1362
1363 ** The function `single-key-description' now encloses function key
1364 and event names in angle brackets.
1365
1366 ** If the variable `message-truncate-lines' is bound to t around a
1367 call to `message', the echo area will not be resized to display that
1368 message; it will be truncated instead, as it was done in 20.x.
1369 Default value is nil.
1370
1371 ** The user option line-number-display-limit can now be set to nil,
1372 meaning no limit.
1373
1374 ** select-safe-coding-system now also checks the most preferred
1375 coding-system if buffer-file-coding-system is `undecided' and
1376 DEFAULT-CODING-SYSTEM is not specified,
1377
1378 ** The function `subr-arity' provides information on the argument list
1379 of a primitive.
1380
1381 ** The text property `keymap' specifies a key map which overrides the
1382 buffer's local map and the map specified by the `local-map' property.
1383 This is probably what most current uses of `local-map' want, rather
1384 than replacing the local map.
1385
1386 ** The obsolete variables before-change-function and
1387 after-change-function are no longer acted upon and have been removed.
1388
1389 ** The function `apropos-mode' runs the hook `apropos-mode-hook'.
1390
1391 ** `concat' no longer accepts individual integer arguments, as
1392 promised long ago.
1393
1394 \f
1395 * Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
1396
1397 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
1398 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
1399 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
1400 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
1401
1402 *** The functions `find-charset-region' and `find-charset-string' include
1403 `eight-bit-control' and/or `eight-bit-graphic' in the returned list
1404 when it finds 8-bit characters. Previously, it included `ascii' in a
1405 multibyte buffer and `unknown' in a unibyte buffer.
1406
1407 *** The functions `set-buffer-modified', `string-as-multibyte' and
1408 `string-as-unibyte' change the byte sequence of a buffer if it
1409 contains a character from the `eight-bit-control' character set.
1410
1411 *** The handling of multibyte sequences in a multibyte buffer is
1412 changed. Previously, a byte sequence matching the pattern
1413 [\200-\237][\240-\377]+ was interpreted as a single character
1414 regardless of the length of the trailing bytes [\240-\377]+. Thus, if
1415 the sequence was longer than what the leading byte indicated, the
1416 extra trailing bytes were ignored by Lisp functions. Now such extra
1417 bytes are independent 8-bit characters belonging to the charset
1418 eight-bit-graphic.
1419
1420 ** Fontsets are now implemented using char-tables.
1421
1422 A fontset can now be specified for for each independent character, for
1423 a group of characters or for a character set rather than just for a
1424 character set as previously.
1425
1426 *** The arguments of the function `set-fontset-font' are changed.
1427 They are NAME, CHARACTER, FONTNAME, and optional FRAME. The function
1428 modifies fontset NAME to use FONTNAME for CHARACTER.
1429
1430 CHARACTER may be a cons (FROM . TO), where FROM and TO are non-generic
1431 characters. In that case FONTNAME is used for all characters in the
1432 range FROM and TO (inclusive). CHARACTER may be a charset. In that
1433 case FONTNAME is used for all character in the charset.
1434
1435 FONTNAME may be a cons (FAMILY . REGISTRY), where FAMILY is the family
1436 name of a font and REGSITRY is a registry name of a font.
1437
1438 *** Variable x-charset-registry has been deleted. The default charset
1439 registries of character sets are set in the default fontset
1440 "fontset-default".
1441
1442 *** The function `create-fontset-from-fontset-spec' ignores the second
1443 argument STYLE-VARIANT. It never creates style-variant fontsets.
1444
1445 ** The method of composing characters is changed. Now character
1446 composition is done by a special text property `composition' in
1447 buffers and strings.
1448
1449 *** Charset composition is deleted. Emacs never creates a `composite
1450 character' which is an independent character with a unique character
1451 code. Thus the following functions handling `composite characters'
1452 have been deleted: composite-char-component,
1453 composite-char-component-count, composite-char-composition-rule,
1454 composite-char-composition-rule and decompose-composite-char delete.
1455 The variables leading-code-composition and min-composite-char have
1456 also been deleted.
1457
1458 *** Three more glyph reference points are added. They can be used to
1459 specify a composition rule. See the documentation of the variable
1460 `reference-point-alist' for more detail.
1461
1462 *** The function `compose-region' takes new arguments COMPONENTS and
1463 MODIFICATION-FUNC. With COMPONENTS, you can specify not only a
1464 composition rule but also characters to be composed. Such characters
1465 may differ between buffer and string text.
1466
1467 *** The function `compose-string' takes new arguments START, END,
1468 COMPONENTS, and MODIFICATION-FUNC.
1469
1470 *** The function `compose-string' puts text property `composition'
1471 directly on the argument STRING instead of returning a new string.
1472 Likewise, the function `decompose-string' just removes text property
1473 `composition' from STRING.
1474
1475 *** The new function `find-composition' returns information about
1476 a composition at a specified position in a buffer or a string.
1477
1478 *** The function `decompose-composite-char' is now labeled as
1479 obsolete.
1480
1481 ** The new character set `mule-unicode-0100-24ff' is introduced for
1482 Unicode characters of the range U+0100..U+24FF. Currently, this
1483 character set is not used.
1484
1485 ** The new character sets `japanese-jisx0213-1' and
1486 `japanese-jisx0213-2' are introduced for the new Japanese standard JIS
1487 X 0213 Plane 1 and Plane 2.
1488
1489 +++
1490 ** The new character sets `eight-bit-control' and `eight-bit-graphic'
1491 are introduced for 8-bit characters in the ranges 0x80..0x9F and
1492 0xA0..0xFF respectively.
1493
1494 +++
1495 ** If the APPEND argument of `write-region' is an integer, it seeks to
1496 that offset in the file before writing.
1497
1498 ** The function `add-minor-mode' has been added for convenience and
1499 compatibility with XEmacs (and is used internally by define-minor-mode).
1500
1501 ** The function `shell-command' now sets the default directory of the
1502 `*Shell Command Output*' buffer to the default directory of the buffer
1503 from which the command was issued.
1504
1505 ** The functions `query-replace', `query-replace-regexp',
1506 `query-replace-regexp-eval' `map-query-replace-regexp',
1507 `replace-string', `replace-regexp', and `perform-replace' take two
1508 additional optional arguments START and END that specify the region to
1509 operate on.
1510
1511 ** The new function `count-screen-lines' is a more flexible alternative
1512 to `window-buffer-height'.
1513
1514 - Function: count-screen-lines &optional BEG END COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE WINDOW
1515
1516 Return the number of screen lines in the region between BEG and END.
1517 The number of screen lines may be different from the number of actual
1518 lines, due to line breaking, display table, etc.
1519
1520 Optional arguments BEG and END default to `point-min' and `point-max'
1521 respectively.
1522
1523 If region ends with a newline, ignore it unless optinal third argument
1524 COUNT-FINAL-NEWLINE is non-nil.
1525
1526 The optional fourth argument WINDOW specifies the window used for
1527 obtaining parameters such as width, horizontal scrolling, and so
1528 on. The default is to use the selected window's parameters.
1529
1530 Like `vertical-motion', `count-screen-lines' always uses the current
1531 buffer, regardless of which buffer is displayed in WINDOW. This makes
1532 possible to use `count-screen-lines' in any buffer, whether or not it
1533 is currently displayed in some window.
1534
1535 ** The new function `mapc' is like `mapcar' but doesn't collect the
1536 argument function's results.
1537
1538 ** The functions base64-decode-region and base64-decode-string now
1539 signal an error instead of returning nil if decoding fails.
1540
1541 ** The function sendmail-user-agent-compose now recognizes a `body'
1542 header is the list of headers passed to it.
1543
1544 ** The new function member-ignore-case works like `member', but
1545 ignores differences in case and text representation.
1546
1547 ** The buffer-local variable cursor-type can be used to specify the
1548 cursor to use in windows displaying a buffer. Values are interpreted
1549 as follows:
1550
1551 t use the cursor specified for the frame (default)
1552 nil don't display a cursor
1553 `bar' display a bar cursor with default width
1554 (bar . WIDTH) display a bar cursor with width WIDTH
1555 others display a box cursor.
1556
1557 ** The variable open-paren-in-column-0-is-defun-start controls whether
1558 an open parenthesis in column 0 is considered to be the start of a
1559 defun. If set, the default, it is considered a defun start. If not
1560 set, an open parenthesis in column 0 has no special meaning.
1561
1562 ** The new function `string-to-syntax' can be used to translate syntax
1563 specifications in string form as accepted by `modify-syntax-entry' to
1564 the cons-cell form that is used for the values of the `syntax-table'
1565 text property, and in `font-lock-syntactic-keywords'.
1566
1567 Example:
1568
1569 (string-to-syntax "()")
1570 => (4 . 41)
1571
1572 ** Emacs' reader supports CL read syntax for integers in bases
1573 other than 10.
1574
1575 *** `#BINTEGER' or `#bINTEGER' reads INTEGER in binary (radix 2).
1576 INTEGER optionally contains a sign.
1577
1578 #b1111
1579 => 15
1580 #b-1111
1581 => -15
1582
1583 *** `#OINTEGER' or `#oINTEGER' reads INTEGER in octal (radix 8).
1584
1585 #o666
1586 => 438
1587
1588 *** `#XINTEGER' or `#xINTEGER' reads INTEGER in hexadecimal (radix 16).
1589
1590 #xbeef
1591 => 48815
1592
1593 *** `#RADIXrINTEGER' reads INTEGER in radix RADIX, 2 <= RADIX <= 36.
1594
1595 #2R-111
1596 => -7
1597 #25rah
1598 => 267
1599
1600 ** The function `documentation-property' now evaluates the value of
1601 the given property to obtain a string if it doesn't refer to etc/DOC
1602 and isn't a string.
1603
1604 ** If called for a symbol, the function `documentation' now looks for
1605 a `function-documentation' property of that symbol. If it has a non-nil
1606 value, the documentation is taken from that value. If the value is
1607 not a string, it is evaluated to obtain a string.
1608
1609 +++
1610 ** The last argument of `define-key-after' defaults to t for convenience.
1611
1612 ** The new function `replace-regexp-in-string' replaces all matches
1613 for a regexp in a string.
1614
1615 ** `mouse-position' now runs the abnormal hook
1616 `mouse-position-function'.
1617
1618 ** The function string-to-number now returns a float for numbers
1619 that don't fit into a Lisp integer.
1620
1621 ** The variable keyword-symbols-constants-flag has been removed.
1622 Keywords are now always considered constants.
1623
1624 +++
1625 ** The new function `delete-and-extract-region' deletes text and
1626 returns it.
1627
1628 ** The function `clear-this-command-keys' now also clears the vector
1629 returned by function `recent-keys'.
1630
1631 +++
1632 ** Variables `beginning-of-defun-function' and `end-of-defun-function'
1633 can be used to define handlers for the functions that find defuns.
1634 Major modes can define these locally instead of rebinding M-C-a
1635 etc. if the normal conventions for defuns are not appropriate for the
1636 mode.
1637
1638 +++
1639 ** easy-mmode-define-minor-mode now takes an additional BODY argument
1640 and is renamed `define-minor-mode'.
1641
1642 +++
1643 ** If an abbrev has a hook function which is a symbol, and that symbol
1644 has a non-nil `no-self-insert' property, the return value of the hook
1645 function specifies whether an expansion has been done or not. If it
1646 returns nil, abbrev-expand also returns nil, meaning "no expansion has
1647 been performed."
1648
1649 When abbrev expansion is done by typing a self-inserting character,
1650 and the abbrev has a hook with the `no-self-insert' property, and the
1651 hook function returns non-nil meaning expansion has been done,
1652 then the self-inserting character is not inserted.
1653
1654 +++
1655 ** The function `intern-soft' now accepts a symbol as first argument.
1656 In this case, that exact symbol is looked up in the specified obarray,
1657 and the function's value is nil if it is not found.
1658
1659 +++
1660 ** The new macro `with-syntax-table' can be used to evaluate forms
1661 with the syntax table of the current buffer temporarily set to a
1662 specified table.
1663
1664 (with-syntax-table TABLE &rest BODY)
1665
1666 Evaluate BODY with syntax table of current buffer set to a copy of
1667 TABLE. The current syntax table is saved, BODY is evaluated, and the
1668 saved table is restored, even in case of an abnormal exit. Value is
1669 what BODY returns.
1670
1671 +++
1672 ** Regular expressions now support intervals \{n,m\} as well as
1673 Perl's shy-groups \(?:...\) and non-greedy *? +? and ?? operators.
1674
1675 +++
1676 ** The optional argument BUFFER of function file-local-copy has been
1677 removed since it wasn't used by anything.
1678
1679 +++
1680 ** The file name argument of function `file-locked-p' is now required
1681 instead of being optional.
1682
1683 +++
1684 ** The new built-in error `text-read-only' is signaled when trying to
1685 modify read-only text.
1686
1687 +++
1688 ** New functions and variables for locales.
1689
1690 The new variable `locale-coding-system' specifies how to encode and
1691 decode strings passed to low-level message functions like strerror and
1692 time functions like strftime. The new variables
1693 `system-messages-locale' and `system-time-locale' give the system
1694 locales to be used when invoking these two types of functions.
1695
1696 The new function `set-locale-environment' sets the language
1697 environment, preferred coding system, and locale coding system from
1698 the system locale as specified by the LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, and LANG
1699 environment variables. Normally, it is invoked during startup and need
1700 not be invoked thereafter. It uses the new variables
1701 `locale-language-names', `locale-charset-language-names', and
1702 `locale-preferred-coding-systems' to make its decisions.
1703
1704 +++
1705 ** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
1706 To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
1707 modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
1708 start sequences.
1709
1710 +++
1711 ** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
1712 because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
1713
1714 +++
1715 ** New function `propertize'
1716
1717 The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
1718 strings with text properties.
1719
1720 - Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
1721
1722 Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
1723 by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
1724 PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
1725 specified value of that property. Example:
1726
1727 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
1728
1729 +++
1730 ** push and pop macros.
1731
1732 Simple versions of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
1733 are now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
1734 as the place that holds the list to be changed.
1735
1736 (push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
1737 (pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
1738 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
1739
1740 ** New dolist and dotimes macros.
1741
1742 Simple versions of the dolist and dotimes macros of Common Lisp
1743 are now defined in Emacs Lisp.
1744
1745 (dolist (VAR LIST [RESULT]) BODY...)
1746 Execute body once for each element of LIST,
1747 using the variable VAR to hold the current element.
1748 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1749
1750 (dotimes (VAR COUNT [RESULT]) BODY...)
1751 Execute BODY with VAR bound to successive integers running from 0,
1752 inclusive, to COUNT, exclusive.
1753 Then return the value of RESULT, or nil if RESULT is omitted.
1754
1755 +++
1756 ** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
1757 as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
1758
1759 [:digit:] matches 0 through 9
1760 [:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
1761 [:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
1762 [:blank:] matches space and tab only
1763 [:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
1764 space, and DEL.
1765 [:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
1766 and DEL.
1767 [:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
1768 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1769 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1770 [:alpha:] matches letters.
1771 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1772 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
1773 [:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
1774 [:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
1775 [:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
1776 [:punct:] matches punctuation.
1777 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
1778 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
1779 [:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
1780 [:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
1781 [:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
1782
1783 +++
1784 ** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
1785
1786 The following functions are defined for hash tables:
1787
1788 - Function: make-hash-table ARGS
1789
1790 The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
1791 are optional. The following arguments are defined:
1792
1793 :test TEST
1794
1795 TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
1796 Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
1797 it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
1798
1799 :size SIZE
1800
1801 SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
1802 many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
1803
1804 :rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
1805
1806 REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
1807 full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
1808 size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
1809 1.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
1810 old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
1811
1812 :rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
1813
1814 THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
1815 hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
1816 (size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
1817
1818 :weakness WEAK
1819
1820 WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
1821 Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
1822 their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
1823 hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
1824
1825 - Function: makehash &optional TEST
1826
1827 Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
1828
1829 - Function: hash-table-p TABLE
1830
1831 Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
1832
1833 - Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
1834
1835 Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
1836 values are shared.
1837
1838 - Function: hash-table-count TABLE
1839
1840 Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
1841
1842 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1843
1844 Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
1845
1846 - Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
1847
1848 Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
1849
1850 - Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
1851
1852 Returns the size of TABLE.
1853
1854 - Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
1855
1856 Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
1857
1858 - Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
1859
1860 Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
1861
1862 - Function: clrhash TABLE
1863
1864 Clear TABLE.
1865
1866 - Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
1867
1868 Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
1869 not found.
1870
1871 - Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
1872
1873 Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
1874 another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
1875
1876 - Function: remhash KEY TABLE
1877
1878 Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
1879
1880 - Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
1881
1882 Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
1883 arguments KEY and VALUE.
1884
1885 - Function: sxhash OBJ
1886
1887 Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
1888
1889 - Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
1890
1891 Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
1892 a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
1893 comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
1894 and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
1895 of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
1896
1897 TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
1898
1899 HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
1900 code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
1901 integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
1902
1903 Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
1904 be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
1905
1906 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
1907 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
1908
1909 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
1910 (sxhash (upcase a)))
1911
1912 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
1913 'case-fold-string-hash))
1914
1915 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
1916
1917 +++
1918 ** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
1919
1920 It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
1921 circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
1922 a cons cell which is its own cdr.
1923
1924 +++
1925 ** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
1926
1927 If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
1928 #N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
1929
1930 +++
1931 ** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
1932 t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
1933 specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
1934 is too short to reach that column.
1935
1936 +++
1937 ** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
1938 now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
1939 after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
1940 two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
1941
1942 If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
1943 perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
1944 and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
1945
1946 +++
1947 ** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
1948 to specify which buffer to return the size of.
1949
1950 +++
1951 ** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
1952 calendar-move-hook after moving point.
1953
1954 +++
1955 ** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
1956 directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
1957 small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
1958 small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
1959 temporary-file-directory instead.
1960
1961 +++
1962 ** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
1963 the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
1964 `before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
1965 hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
1966
1967 +++
1968 ** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
1969 elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
1970
1971 +++
1972 ** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
1973
1974 make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
1975 creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
1976 ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
1977
1978 +++
1979 ** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
1980
1981 The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
1982 on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
1983 is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
1984 never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
1985 ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
1986 overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
1987
1988 If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
1989 that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
1990 to get an error if the file exists at that time.
1991 The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
1992
1993 +++
1994 ** Function `format' now handles text properties.
1995
1996 Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
1997 If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
1998 ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
1999 result string.
2000
2001 Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
2002 string where arguments appear in the result string.
2003
2004 Example:
2005
2006 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
2007 (s2 "world"))
2008 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
2009 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
2010 (format s1 s2))
2011
2012 results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
2013
2014 +++
2015 ** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
2016
2017 Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
2018 The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
2019 argument in it.
2020
2021 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
2022 (arg "world"))
2023 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
2024 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
2025 (message msg arg))
2026
2027 +++
2028 ** Sound support
2029
2030 Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
2031 (Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
2032
2033 Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
2034 (*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
2035 to enable sound support.
2036
2037 Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
2038 list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
2039 when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
2040 functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
2041 sound to play, before playing the sound.
2042
2043 The following sound properties are supported:
2044
2045 - `:file FILE'
2046
2047 FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
2048 searched relative to `data-directory'.
2049
2050 - `:data DATA'
2051
2052 DATA is a string containing sound data. Either :file or :data
2053 may be present, but not both.
2054
2055 - `:volume VOLUME'
2056
2057 VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
2058 0..1. This property is optional.
2059
2060 Other properties are ignored.
2061
2062 ** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
2063
2064 ** keywordp is a new predicate to test efficiently for an object being
2065 a keyword symbol.
2066
2067 ** Changes to garbage collection
2068
2069 *** The function garbage-collect now additionally returns the number
2070 of live and free strings.
2071
2072 *** There is a new variable `strings-consed' holding the number of
2073 strings that have been consed so far.
2074
2075 \f
2076 * Lisp-level Display features added after release 2.6 of the Emacs
2077 Lisp Manual
2078
2079 +++
2080 ** Help strings in menu items are now used to provide `help-echo' text.
2081
2082 ** The function `image-size' can be used to determine the size of an
2083 image.
2084
2085 - Function: image-size SPEC &optional PIXELS FRAME
2086
2087 Return the size of an image as a pair (WIDTH . HEIGHT).
2088
2089 SPEC is an image specification. PIXELS non-nil means return sizes
2090 measured in pixels, otherwise return sizes measured in canonical
2091 character units (fractions of the width/height of the frame's default
2092 font). FRAME is the frame on which the image will be displayed.
2093 FRAME nil or omitted means use the selected frame.
2094
2095 ** The function `find-image' can be used to find a usable image
2096 satisfying one of a list of specifications.
2097
2098 +++
2099 ** The STRING argument of `put-image' and `insert-image' is now
2100 optional.
2101
2102 ** Image specifications may contain the property `:ascent center'.
2103
2104 When this property is specified, the image is vertically centered
2105 around a centerline which would be the vertical center of text drawn
2106 at the position of the image, in the manner specified by the text
2107 properties and overlays that apply to the image.
2108
2109 \f
2110 * New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
2111
2112 Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
2113 --- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
2114 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
2115 so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
2116
2117 ** The function tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors can be used
2118 to make Emacs avoid displaying text with bold black foreground on TTYs.
2119
2120 Some terminals, notably PC consoles, emulate bold text by displaying
2121 text in brighter colors. On such a console, a bold black foreground
2122 is displayed in a gray color. If this turns out to be hard to read on
2123 your monitor---the problem occurred with the mode line on
2124 laptops---you can instruct Emacs to ignore the text's boldness, and to
2125 just display it black instead.
2126
2127 This situation can't be detected automatically. You will have to put
2128 a line like
2129
2130 (tty-suppress-bold-inverse-default-colors t)
2131
2132 in your `.emacs'.
2133
2134 ** New face implementation.
2135
2136 Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
2137 font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
2138
2139 +++
2140 *** New faces.
2141
2142 Each face can specify the following display attributes:
2143
2144 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
2145
2146 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
2147 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
2148
2149 3. Font height in 1/10pt
2150
2151 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
2152
2153 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
2154
2155 6. Foreground color.
2156
2157 7. Background color.
2158
2159 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
2160
2161 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
2162
2163 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
2164
2165 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
2166
2167 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
2168 color.
2169
2170 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
2171 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
2172
2173 Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
2174 same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
2175 frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
2176 faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
2177 with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
2178 attributes mentioned above.
2179
2180 There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
2181 definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
2182 created frames.
2183
2184 A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
2185 have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
2186 `fully-specified'.
2187
2188 +++
2189 *** Face merging.
2190
2191 The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
2192 combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
2193 aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
2194 properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
2195 that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
2196 results in a fully-specified face.
2197
2198 +++
2199 *** Face realization.
2200
2201 After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
2202 merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
2203 realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
2204 available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
2205 face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
2206 cache of the frame on which it was realized.
2207
2208 Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
2209 character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
2210 for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
2211 charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
2212
2213 Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
2214 specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
2215 being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
2216 the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
2217 statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
2218
2219 In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
2220 `char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
2221 0x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
2222 the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
2223 initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
2224 Emacs.
2225
2226 Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
2227 `enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
2228 registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
2229 with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
2230
2231 ++++
2232 **** Clearing face caches.
2233
2234 The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
2235 on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
2236 unused fonts.
2237
2238 +++
2239 *** Font selection.
2240
2241 Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
2242 given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
2243 for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
2244
2245 If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
2246 pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
2247 family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
2248 property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
2249 an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
2250
2251 Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
2252 against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
2253 match for the given face attributes in this font list.
2254
2255 Font selection can be influenced by the user.
2256
2257 The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
2258 attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
2259 face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
2260 names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
2261 that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
2262 width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
2263 to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
2264
2265 Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
2266 specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
2267 face doesn't exist.
2268
2269 +++
2270 **** Scalable fonts
2271
2272 Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
2273 since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
2274 servers.
2275
2276 To enable scalable font use, set the variable
2277 `scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means never use
2278 scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
2279 Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
2280 scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
2281 that list. Example:
2282
2283 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
2284
2285 allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
2286
2287 +++
2288 *** Functions and variables related to font selection.
2289
2290 - Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
2291
2292 Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
2293 is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
2294 string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
2295
2296 If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
2297 the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
2298 FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
2299 POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
2300 SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
2301 These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
2302 if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
2303 REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
2304 the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
2305 of the face font sort order.
2306
2307 - Function: x-font-family-list
2308
2309 Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
2310 omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
2311 (FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
2312 non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
2313
2314 - Variable: font-list-limit
2315
2316 Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
2317 won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
2318 matching font. The default is currently 100.
2319
2320 +++
2321 *** Setting face attributes.
2322
2323 For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
2324 with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
2325 implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
2326 `face-attribute'.
2327
2328 Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
2329 symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
2330
2331 The following attributes are recognized:
2332
2333 `:family'
2334
2335 VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
2336 or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
2337 and `?' are allowed.
2338
2339 `:width'
2340
2341 VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
2342 It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
2343 `condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
2344 `extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
2345
2346 `:height'
2347
2348 VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
2349 1/10 pt.
2350
2351 `:weight'
2352
2353 VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
2354 symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
2355 `semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
2356
2357 `:slant'
2358
2359 VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
2360 symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
2361 `reverse-oblique'.
2362
2363 `:foreground', `:background'
2364
2365 VALUE must be a color name, a string.
2366
2367 `:underline'
2368
2369 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
2370 VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
2371 a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
2372 don't underline.
2373
2374 `:overline'
2375
2376 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
2377 VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
2378 string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
2379 overline.
2380
2381 `:strike-through'
2382
2383 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
2384 striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
2385 face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
2386 is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
2387
2388 `:box'
2389
2390 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
2391 around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
2392 VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
2393 of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
2394 and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
2395 VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
2396 :color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
2397 the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
2398 specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
2399 defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
2400 the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
2401 color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
2402 should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
2403 like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
2404 that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
2405 the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
2406 box.
2407
2408 `:inverse-video'
2409
2410 VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
2411 inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
2412
2413 `:stipple'
2414
2415 If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
2416 The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
2417 searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
2418 HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
2419 is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
2420 explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
2421
2422 For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
2423 and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
2424
2425 `:font'
2426
2427 Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
2428 XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
2429 is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
2430 versions of Emacs.
2431
2432 For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
2433 be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
2434 must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
2435
2436 Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
2437 `defface'.
2438
2439 *** Face attributes and X resources
2440
2441 The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
2442 from X resources:
2443
2444 Face attribute X resource class
2445 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
2446 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
2447 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
2448 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
2449 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
2450 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
2451 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
2452 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
2453 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
2454 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
2455 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
2456 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
2457 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
2458 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
2459 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
2460 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
2461 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2462 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
2463 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
2464 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
2465
2466 +++
2467 *** Text property `face'.
2468
2469 The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
2470 specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
2471 specification can be
2472
2473 1. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
2474
2475 2. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
2476 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
2477 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
2478 for face attribute names.
2479
2480 3. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
2481 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
2482 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
2483
2484 +++
2485 ** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
2486
2487 The function `tty-color-define' can be used to define colors for use
2488 on TTY and MSDOS frames. It maps a color name to a color number on
2489 the terminal. Emacs defines a couple of common color mappings by
2490 default. You can get defined colors with a call to
2491 `defined-colors'. The function `tty-color-clear' can be
2492 used to clear the mapping table.
2493
2494 ** Unified support for colors independent of frame type.
2495
2496 The new functions `defined-colors', `color-defined-p', `color-values',
2497 and `display-color-p' work for any type of frame. On frames whose
2498 type is neither x nor w32, these functions transparently map X-style
2499 color specifications to the closest colors supported by the frame
2500 display. Lisp programs should use these new functions instead of the
2501 old `x-defined-colors', `x-color-defined-p', `x-color-values', and
2502 `x-display-color-p'. (The old function names are still available for
2503 compatibility; they are now aliases of the new names.) Lisp programs
2504 should no more look at the value of the variable window-system to
2505 modify their color-related behavior.
2506
2507 The primitives `color-gray-p' and `color-supported-p' also work for
2508 any frame type.
2509
2510 ** Platform-independent functions to describe display capabilities.
2511
2512 The new functions `display-mouse-p', `display-popup-menus-p',
2513 `display-graphic-p', `display-selections-p', `display-screens',
2514 `display-pixel-width', `display-pixel-height', `display-mm-width',
2515 `display-mm-height', `display-backing-store', `display-save-under',
2516 `display-planes', `display-color-cells', `display-visual-class', and
2517 `display-grayscale-p' describe the basic capabilities of a particular
2518 display. Lisp programs should call these functions instead of testing
2519 the value of the variables `window-system' or `system-type', or calling
2520 platform-specific functions such as `x-display-pixel-width'.
2521
2522 +++
2523 ** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
2524
2525 This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
2526
2527 The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
2528 end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
2529 Otherwise, it returns zero.
2530
2531 ** New `field' abstraction in buffers.
2532
2533 There is now code to support an abstraction called `fields' in emacs
2534 buffers. A field is a contiguous region of text with the same `field'
2535 text-property.
2536
2537 Many emacs functions, such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
2538 forward-paragraph, beginning-of-line, etc., stop moving when they come
2539 to the boundary between fields; beginning-of-line and end-of-line will
2540 not let the point move past the field boundary, but other movement
2541 commands continue into the next field if repeated. Stopping at field
2542 boundaries can be suppressed programmatically by binding
2543 `inhibit-field-text-motion' to a non-nil value around calls to these
2544 functions.
2545
2546 Now that the minibuffer prompt is inserted into the minibuffer, it is in
2547 a separate field from the user-input part of the buffer, so that common
2548 editing commands treat the user's text separately from the prompt.
2549
2550 The following functions are defined for operating on fields:
2551
2552 - Function: constrain-to-field NEW-POS OLD-POS &optional ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE ONLY-IN-LINE
2553
2554 Return the position closest to NEW-POS that is in the same field as OLD-POS.
2555 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2556 If NEW-POS is nil, then the current point is used instead, and set to the
2557 constrained position if that is is different.
2558
2559 If OLD-POS is at the boundary of two fields, then the allowable
2560 positions for NEW-POS depends on the value of the optional argument
2561 ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE: If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is nil, then NEW-POS is
2562 constrained to the field that has the same `field' text-property
2563 as any new characters inserted at OLD-POS, whereas if ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2564 is non-nil, NEW-POS is constrained to the union of the two adjacent
2565 fields.
2566
2567 If the optional argument ONLY-IN-LINE is non-nil and constraining
2568 NEW-POS would move it to a different line, NEW-POS is returned
2569 unconstrained. This useful for commands that move by line, like
2570 C-n or C-a, which should generally respect field boundaries
2571 only in the case where they can still move to the right line.
2572
2573 - Function: erase-field &optional POS
2574
2575 Erases the field surrounding POS.
2576 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2577 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2578
2579 - Function: field-beginning &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2580
2581 Return the beginning of the field surrounding POS.
2582 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2583 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2584 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at beginning of an
2585 field, then the beginning of the *previous* field is returned.
2586
2587 - Function: field-end &optional POS ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE
2588
2589 Return the end of the field surrounding POS.
2590 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2591 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2592 If ESCAPE-FROM-EDGE is non-nil and POS is already at end of a field,
2593 then the end of the *following* field is returned.
2594
2595 - Function: field-string &optional POS
2596
2597 Return the contents of the field surrounding POS as a string.
2598 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2599 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2600
2601 - Function: field-string-no-properties &optional POS
2602
2603 Return the contents of the field around POS, without text-properties.
2604 A field is a region of text with the same `field' property.
2605 If POS is nil, the position of the current buffer's point is used.
2606
2607 +++
2608 ** Image support.
2609
2610 Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
2611 strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
2612 (AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
2613 replaces the display of the characters having that property.
2614
2615 If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
2616 `(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
2617 AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
2618 window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
2619 area.
2620
2621 IMAGE is an image specification.
2622
2623 *** Image specifications
2624
2625 Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
2626 is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
2627 specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
2628 symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'. Properties not
2629 described below are ignored.
2630
2631 The following is a list of properties all image types share.
2632
2633 `:ascent ASCENT'
2634
2635 ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, or the symbol `center'.
2636 If it is a number, it specifies the percentage of the image's height
2637 to use for its ascent.
2638
2639 If not specified, ASCENT defaults to the value 50 which means that the
2640 image will be centered with the base line of the row it appears in.
2641
2642 If ASCENT is `center' the image is vertically centered around a
2643 centerline which is the vertical center of text drawn at the position
2644 of the image, in the manner specified by the text properties and
2645 overlays that apply to the image.
2646
2647 `:margin MARGIN'
2648
2649 MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
2650 margin around the image. Default is 0.
2651
2652 `:relief RELIEF'
2653
2654 RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
2655 around an image.
2656
2657 `:algorithm ALGO'
2658
2659 Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
2660 be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
2661 supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
2662 which is intended to display images "disabled."
2663
2664 `:heuristic-mask BG'
2665
2666 If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
2667 background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
2668 determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
2669 corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
2670 the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
2671 be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
2672 background of the image.
2673
2674 `:file FILE'
2675
2676 Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
2677 search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
2678 building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
2679 may be present in the image specification.
2680
2681 `:data DATA'
2682
2683 Get image data from DATA. (As of this writing, this is not yet
2684 supported for image type `postscript'). Either :file or :data may be
2685 present in an image specification, but not both. All image types
2686 support strings as DATA, some types allow additional types of DATA.
2687
2688 *** Supported image types
2689
2690 **** XBM, image type `xbm'.
2691
2692 XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
2693 properties supported are
2694
2695 `:foreground FG'
2696
2697 FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
2698 is the frame's foreground.
2699
2700 `:background FG'
2701
2702 BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
2703 the frame's background color.
2704
2705 XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
2706 case, the image specification must contain the following properties
2707 instead of a `:file' property.
2708
2709 `:width WIDTH'
2710
2711 WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
2712
2713 `:height HEIGHT'
2714
2715 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
2716
2717 `:data DATA'
2718
2719 DATA must be either
2720
2721 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
2722 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
2723
2724 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
2725
2726 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
2727 bitmap.
2728
2729 4. a string that's an in-memory XBM file. Neither width nor
2730 height may be specified in this case because these are defined
2731 in the file.
2732
2733 **** XPM, image type `xpm'
2734
2735 XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
2736 `xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
2737 found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
2738 `--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
2739
2740 Additional image properties supported are:
2741
2742 `:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
2743
2744 SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
2745 name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
2746 name.
2747
2748 XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
2749 add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
2750
2751 The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
2752 to display compressed images.
2753
2754 **** PBM, image type `pbm'
2755
2756 PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
2757 mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
2758 defined.
2759
2760 **** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
2761
2762 Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
2763 package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. Additional image properties
2764 are:
2765
2766 **** TIFF, image type `tiff'
2767
2768 Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
2769 package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2770 properties defined.
2771
2772 **** GIF, image type `gif'
2773
2774 Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
2775 `libungif-4.1.0', or later.
2776
2777 Additional image properties supported are:
2778
2779 `:index INDEX'
2780
2781 INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
2782 multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
2783
2784 This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
2785 For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
2786 at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
2787 every 0.1 seconds.
2788
2789 (defun show-anim (file max)
2790 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
2791 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
2792
2793 (defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
2794 (when (= idx max)
2795 (setq idx 0))
2796 (let ((img (create-image file nil nil :index idx)))
2797 (save-excursion
2798 (set-buffer buffer)
2799 (goto-char (point-min))
2800 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
2801 (insert-image img "x"))
2802 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
2803
2804 **** PNG, image type `png'
2805
2806 Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
2807 package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
2808 properties defined.
2809
2810 **** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
2811
2812 Additional image properties supported are:
2813
2814 `:pt-width WIDTH'
2815
2816 WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
2817 integer. This is a required property.
2818
2819 `:pt-height HEIGHT'
2820
2821 HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
2822 must be a integer. This is an required property.
2823
2824 `:bounding-box BOX'
2825
2826 BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
2827 the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
2828 files. This is an required property.
2829
2830 Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
2831 lisp/gs.el.
2832
2833 *** Lisp interface.
2834
2835 The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
2836 which are supported in the current configuration.
2837
2838 Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
2839 they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
2840 The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
2841 manually. Images in the cache are compared with `equal', i.e. all
2842 images with `equal' specifications share the same image.
2843
2844 *** Simplified image API, image.el
2845
2846 The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
2847 creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
2848 can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
2849 define an image based on available image types. The functions
2850 `put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
2851 buffer.
2852
2853 +++
2854 ** Display margins.
2855
2856 Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
2857 and images.
2858
2859 To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
2860 `left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
2861 `set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
2862 obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
2863 `right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
2864 the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
2865 of the display margins.
2866
2867 You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
2868 containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
2869 one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
2870 string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
2871 in this file).
2872
2873 +++
2874 ** Help display
2875
2876 Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
2877 moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
2878 `help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
2879 that have a `help-echo' property.
2880
2881 If the value of the `help-echo' property is a function, that function
2882 is called with three arguments WINDOW, OBJECT and POSITION. WINDOW is
2883 the window in which the help was found.
2884
2885 If OBJECT is a buffer, POS is the position in the buffer where the
2886 `help-echo' text property was found.
2887
2888 If OBJECT is an overlay, that overlay has a `help-echo' property, and
2889 POS is the position in the overlay's buffer under the mouse.
2890
2891 If OBJECT is a string (an overlay string or a string displayed with
2892 the `display' property). POS is the position in that string under the
2893 mouse.
2894
2895 If the value of the `help-echo' property is neither a function nor a
2896 string, it is evaluated to obtain a help string.
2897
2898 For tool-bar and menu-bar items, their key definition is used to
2899 determine the help to display. If their definition contains a
2900 property `:help FORM', FORM is evaluated to determine the help string.
2901 For tool-bar items without a help form, the caption of the item is
2902 used as help string.
2903
2904 The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
2905 the help string differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window
2906 causes the help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
2907
2908 +++
2909 ** Vertical fractional scrolling.
2910
2911 The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
2912 This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
2913
2914 The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
2915 scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
2916 The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
2917 scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
2918 used.
2919
2920 (global-set-key [A-down]
2921 #'(lambda ()
2922 (interactive)
2923 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2924 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
2925 (global-set-key [A-up]
2926 #'(lambda ()
2927 (interactive)
2928 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
2929 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
2930
2931 +++
2932 ** New hook `fontification-functions'.
2933
2934 Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
2935 when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
2936 variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
2937 is called with one argument, POS.
2938
2939 At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
2940 characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
2941 as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
2942 property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
2943 `fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
2944
2945 +++
2946 ** Tool bar support.
2947
2948 Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
2949 parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
2950 controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
2951 suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
2952 `auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
2953 automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
2954
2955 *** Tool bar item definitions
2956
2957 Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
2958 `tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
2959 where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
2960
2961 CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
2962 evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
2963 the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
2964 property (see below).
2965
2966 BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
2967 binding are currently ignored.
2968
2969 The following properties are recognized:
2970
2971 `:enable FORM'.
2972
2973 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
2974 or disabled.
2975
2976 `:visible FORM'
2977
2978 FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
2979
2980 `:filter FUNCTION'
2981
2982 FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
2983 FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
2984 used instead of BINDING to display this item.
2985
2986 `:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
2987
2988 TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
2989 and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
2990
2991 `:image IMAGES'
2992
2993 IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
2994 image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
2995 meaning of each of the four elements:
2996
2997 Index Use when item is
2998 ----------------------------------------
2999 0 enabled and selected
3000 1 enabled and deselected
3001 2 disabled and selected
3002 3 disabled and deselected
3003
3004 If IMAGE is a single image specification, a Laplace edge-detection
3005 algorithm is used on that image to draw the image in disabled state.
3006
3007 `:help HELP-STRING'.
3008
3009 Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
3010 is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
3011
3012 *** Tool-bar-related variables.
3013
3014 If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
3015 resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
3016 than 1/4 of the frame's size.
3017
3018 If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
3019 raised when the mouse moves over them.
3020
3021 You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
3022 `tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
3023 pixels. Default is 1.
3024
3025 You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
3026 `tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
3027
3028 *** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
3029
3030 You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
3031 a tool bar item. If
3032
3033 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
3034 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
3035 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
3036
3037 is the original tool bar item definition, then
3038
3039 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
3040
3041 makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
3042 item.
3043
3044 ** Mode line changes.
3045
3046 +++
3047 *** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
3048
3049 The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
3050 that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
3051 a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
3052
3053 1. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
3054 a `local-map' text property.
3055
3056 2. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
3057 that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
3058
3059 3. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
3060 is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
3061 `local-map' property.
3062
3063 The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
3064 properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
3065 example.
3066
3067 *** If a mode line element has the form `(:eval FORM)', FORM is
3068 evaluated and the result is used as mode line element.
3069
3070 +++
3071 *** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
3072 variable mode-line-format to nil.
3073
3074 +++
3075 *** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
3076
3077 This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
3078 `header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
3079 completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
3080 `default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
3081 line.
3082
3083 The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
3084 `header-line'.
3085
3086 The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
3087 position in the header-line.
3088
3089 +++
3090 ** Text property `display'
3091
3092 The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
3093 also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
3094 `display' property should be a display specification, as described
3095 below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
3096
3097 *** Variable width and height spaces
3098
3099 To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
3100 specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
3101 `(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
3102 area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
3103 marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
3104 displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
3105 simpler form STRETCH as property value.
3106
3107 The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
3108 PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
3109 properties described below.
3110
3111 The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
3112 characters having the `display' property.
3113
3114 - :width WIDTH
3115
3116 Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
3117 character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
3118
3119 - :relative-width FACTOR
3120
3121 Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
3122 first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
3123 same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
3124 width of that character by FACTOR.
3125
3126 - :align-to HPOS
3127
3128 Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
3129 value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
3130
3131 Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
3132
3133 - :height HEIGHT
3134
3135 Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
3136 normal line height.
3137
3138 - :relative-height FACTOR
3139
3140 The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
3141 of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
3142
3143 - :ascent ASCENT
3144
3145 Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
3146 used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
3147 baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
3148 equal to 100.
3149
3150 You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
3151
3152 *** Images
3153
3154 A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
3155 . IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
3156 in the display, the characters having this display specification in
3157 their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
3158 the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
3159 `(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
3160 area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
3161 the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
3162 as display specification.
3163
3164 *** Other display properties
3165
3166 - :space-width FACTOR
3167
3168 Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
3169 should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
3170 integer or float.
3171
3172 - :height HEIGHT
3173
3174 Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
3175
3176 If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
3177 means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
3178 the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
3179 ``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
3180 a font is available counts as a step.
3181
3182 If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
3183 as tall as the frame's default font.
3184
3185 If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
3186 height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
3187
3188 Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
3189 `height' bound to the current specified font height.
3190
3191 - :raise FACTOR
3192
3193 FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
3194 font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
3195 raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
3196 amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
3197 `:height' subproperty.
3198
3199 *** Conditional display properties
3200
3201 All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
3202 has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
3203 applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
3204 During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
3205 the text having the `display' property.
3206
3207 The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
3208 `(:when t SPEC)'.
3209
3210 +++
3211 ** New menu separator types.
3212
3213 Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
3214 item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
3215 treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
3216 to specify other menu separator types.
3217
3218 - `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
3219
3220 No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
3221 separator occurs.
3222
3223 - `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
3224
3225 A single line in the menu's foreground color.
3226
3227 - `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
3228
3229 A double line in the menu's foreground color.
3230
3231 - `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
3232
3233 A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3234
3235 - `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
3236
3237 A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
3238
3239 - `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
3240
3241 A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
3242 displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
3243
3244 - `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
3245
3246 A single line with 3D raised appearance.
3247
3248 - `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
3249
3250 A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
3251
3252 - `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
3253
3254 A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
3255
3256 - `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
3257
3258 Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3259
3260 - `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
3261
3262 Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
3263
3264 - `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
3265
3266 Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
3267
3268 - `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
3269
3270 Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
3271
3272 Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
3273 the corresponding single-line separators.
3274
3275 +++
3276 ** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
3277
3278 The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
3279 `scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
3280 Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
3281 that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
3282 default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
3283 default background is the background color of the frame, and the
3284 default foreground is black.
3285
3286 The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
3287 (class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
3288 `ScrollBarBackground').
3289
3290 Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
3291 settings for scroll bar colors.
3292
3293 +++
3294 ** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
3295 display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
3296
3297 ---
3298 ** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
3299 starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
3300 on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
3301 line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
3302 the original window start.
3303
3304 ---
3305 ** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
3306 `hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
3307 now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
3308
3309 +++
3310 ** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
3311
3312 A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
3313 `window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
3314 windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
3315 other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
3316
3317 The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
3318 fixed-width and fixed-height.
3319
3320 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
3321
3322 A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
3323 fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
3324 window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
3325 change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
3326 temporarily to nil, for example
3327
3328 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
3329 (enlarge-window 10))
3330
3331 Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
3332 or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
3333
3334 ** The cursor-type frame parameter is now supported on MS-DOS
3335 terminals. When Emacs starts, it by default changes the cursor shape
3336 to a solid box, as it does on Unix. The `cursor-type' frame parameter
3337 overrides this as it does on Unix, except that the bar cursor is
3338 horizontal rather than vertical (since the MS-DOS display doesn't
3339 support a vertical-bar cursor).
3340 ^L
3341 * Emacs 20.7 is a bug-fix release with few user-visible changes
3342
3343 ** It is now possible to use CCL-based coding systems for keyboard
3344 input.
3345
3346 ** ange-ftp now handles FTP security extensions, like Kerberos.
3347
3348 ** Rmail has been extended to recognize more forms of digest messages.
3349
3350 ** Now, most coding systems set in keyboard coding system work not
3351 only for character input, but also in incremental search. The
3352 exceptions are such coding systems that handle 2-byte character sets
3353 (e.g euc-kr, euc-jp) and that use ISO's escape sequence
3354 (e.g. iso-2022-jp). They are ignored in incremental search.
3355
3356 ** Support for Macintosh PowerPC-based machines running GNU/Linux has
3357 been added.
3358
3359 ^L
3360 * Emacs 20.6 is a bug-fix release with one user-visible change
3361
3362 ** Support for ARM-based non-RISCiX machines has been added.
3363
3364 ^L
3365 * Emacs 20.5 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
3366
3367 ** Not new, but not mentioned before:
3368 M-w when Transient Mark mode is enabled disables the mark.
3369 \f
3370 * Changes in Emacs 20.4
3371
3372 ** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
3373
3374 You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
3375 Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
3376 `.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
3377
3378 If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
3379 is the one that is used.
3380
3381 ** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
3382 the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
3383 Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
3384 separate from the command's regular output.
3385 Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
3386 says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
3387 In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
3388 the buffer name.
3389
3390 When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
3391 output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
3392 it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
3393 cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
3394
3395 ** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
3396 the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
3397 is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
3398 created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
3399
3400 ** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
3401 example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
3402 match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
3403 quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
3404
3405 ** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
3406 now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
3407 if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
3408 they never ignore case.
3409
3410 ** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
3411 under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
3412 applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
3413 of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
3414 just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
3415 convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
3416 part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
3417
3418 If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
3419 the same format that was used in the file before.
3420
3421 You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
3422 `inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
3423
3424 ** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
3425 renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
3426 This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
3427
3428 ** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
3429 The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
3430 buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
3431 your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
3432 is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
3433 end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
3434 Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
3435
3436 The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
3437 eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
3438 control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
3439 format. You can now customize these variables.
3440
3441 ** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
3442 filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
3443 filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
3444 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
3445
3446 ** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
3447 in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
3448 windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
3449
3450 ** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
3451 dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
3452 doesn't have any effect.
3453
3454 ** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
3455 not one per buffer.
3456
3457 ** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
3458 use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
3459 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
3460
3461 ** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
3462 To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
3463 `auto-show-mode' command.
3464
3465 ** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
3466 avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
3467 versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
3468 choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
3469 occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
3470
3471 ** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
3472 cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
3473
3474 ** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
3475 character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
3476 feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
3477
3478 ** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
3479 the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
3480 interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
3481 and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
3482
3483 ** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
3484
3485 The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
3486 that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
3487 one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
3488 codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
3489 set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
3490
3491 Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
3492 from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
3493
3494 IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
3495 equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
3496 a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
3497 `?' on other systems.
3498
3499 IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
3500 feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
3501 Unix.
3502
3503 Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
3504 current codepage when it starts.
3505
3506 ** Mail changes
3507
3508 *** When mail is sent using compose-mail (C-x m), and if
3509 `mail-send-nonascii' is set to the new default value `mime',
3510 appropriate MIME headers are added. The headers are added only if
3511 non-ASCII characters are present in the body of the mail, and no other
3512 MIME headers are already present. For example, the following three
3513 headers are added if the coding system used in the *mail* buffer is
3514 latin-1:
3515
3516 MIME-version: 1.0
3517 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
3518 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
3519
3520 *** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
3521 default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
3522 default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
3523 sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
3524 buffer-file-coding-system.
3525
3526 You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
3527 sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
3528 mail.
3529
3530 *** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
3531 if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
3532 Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
3533 list of possible coding systems.
3534
3535 ** CC Mode changes
3536
3537 *** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
3538 modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
3539 longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
3540 docstring for details.
3541
3542 *** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
3543 symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
3544 found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
3545 prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
3546 lineup functions use this feature currently.
3547
3548 *** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
3549 "finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
3550
3551 *** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
3552 "catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
3553
3554 *** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
3555 from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
3556 symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
3557 c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
3558 anonymous classes.
3559
3560 *** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
3561 syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
3562
3563 *** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
3564 inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
3565 support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
3566 function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
3567
3568 *** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
3569 (i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
3570 brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
3571 c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
3572 (brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
3573
3574 *** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
3575
3576 *** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
3577
3578 *** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
3579 for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
3580
3581 *** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
3582
3583 *** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
3584 associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
3585 This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
3586 circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
3587 class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
3588
3589 ** Gnus changes.
3590
3591 *** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
3592 added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
3593 Gnus manual for the full story.
3594
3595 *** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
3596 before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
3597 group, which is created automatically.
3598
3599 *** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
3600 values.
3601
3602 *** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
3603
3604 *** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
3605 outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
3606
3607 *** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
3608 `C-u C-c C-c'.
3609
3610 *** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
3611
3612 *** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
3613 re-highlighting of the article buffer.
3614
3615 *** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
3616
3617 *** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
3618 Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
3619
3620 *** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
3621 `a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
3622
3623 *** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
3624 control over simplification.
3625
3626 *** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
3627
3628 *** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
3629 limit.
3630
3631 *** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
3632
3633 *** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
3634
3635 *** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
3636 If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
3637 rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
3638
3639 *** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
3640 `a' forces normal posting method.
3641
3642 *** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
3643 -- `W d'.
3644
3645 *** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
3646 to a non-nil value.
3647
3648 *** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
3649 where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
3650
3651 *** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
3652 has been added.
3653
3654 *** A history of where mails have been split is available.
3655
3656 *** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
3657
3658 *** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
3659 `gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
3660
3661 *** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
3662 `message-cite-original-without-signature'.
3663
3664 *** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
3665
3666 *** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
3667 been added.
3668
3669 *** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
3670 `gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
3671
3672 *** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
3673 updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
3674
3675 *** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
3676
3677 *** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
3678
3679 *** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
3680
3681 ** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
3682
3683 *** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
3684 options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
3685 nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
3686
3687 *** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
3688 TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
3689 of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
3690 TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
3691 can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
3692
3693 *** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
3694 All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
3695 but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
3696 the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
3697
3698 *** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
3699 the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
3700 buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
3701 mismatch.
3702
3703 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
3704
3705 *** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
3706 file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
3707
3708 *** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
3709 lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
3710 characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
3711 removed from the label.
3712
3713 *** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
3714 a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
3715
3716 *** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
3717 customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
3718
3719 *** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
3720 `reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
3721 expressions.
3722
3723 *** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
3724
3725 ** New/deleted modes and packages
3726
3727 *** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
3728 SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
3729
3730 *** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
3731 editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
3732 SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
3733
3734 *** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
3735 changes with a special face.
3736
3737 *** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
3738 this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
3739 Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
3740 \f
3741 * MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
3742
3743 ** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
3744 This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
3745 conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
3746 and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
3747 check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
3748
3749 The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
3750 Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
3751 distribution when the config.bat script is run.
3752
3753 ** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
3754 MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
3755 controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
3756 directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
3757 Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
3758 on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
3759 string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
3760 program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
3761 printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
3762
3763 ** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
3764 output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
3765 available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
3766 input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
3767 temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
3768 program.
3769
3770 An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
3771 and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
3772 programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
3773 automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
3774 as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
3775 ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
3776
3777 ** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
3778 a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
3779 MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
3780 was not documented clearly before.
3781
3782 ** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
3783 This includes Tetris and Snake.
3784 \f
3785 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
3786
3787 ** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
3788 return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
3789 They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
3790 meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
3791
3792 ** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
3793 WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
3794 and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
3795
3796 ** Changes in the file-attributes function.
3797
3798 *** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
3799 It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
3800
3801 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
3802 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
3803 integers.
3804
3805 ** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
3806 files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
3807 arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
3808 file names and attributes are returned.
3809
3810 ** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
3811 sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
3812 accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
3813 It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
3814 returns the result.
3815
3816 ** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
3817 to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
3818
3819 ** New functions for base64 conversion:
3820
3821 The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
3822 into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
3823 performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
3824 optionally.
3825
3826 Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
3827 job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
3828
3829 **
3830 The new function process-running-child-p
3831 will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
3832 terminal to its own child process.
3833
3834 ** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
3835 when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
3836 to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
3837 itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
3838
3839 ** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
3840 be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
3841
3842 ** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
3843 :included is an alias for :visible.
3844
3845 easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
3846 easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
3847 to move or copy menu entries.
3848
3849 ** Multibyte editing changes
3850
3851 *** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
3852 an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
3853 make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
3854 work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
3855 char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
3856 (setq char (sref str idx)
3857 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
3858 The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
3859
3860 If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
3861 (say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
3862 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
3863
3864 *** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
3865 region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
3866 deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
3867
3868 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
3869
3870 This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
3871 across the boundary.
3872
3873 *** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
3874 `unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
3875 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
3876 contains 8-bit characters.
3877 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
3878 contains invalid characters.
3879
3880 *** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
3881 text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
3882 preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
3883 text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
3884 way.
3885
3886 *** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
3887 If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
3888 end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
3889 prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
3890
3891 *** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
3892 compose Thai characters in a string.
3893
3894 ** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
3895 argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
3896 for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
3897 menus should always use the third argument.
3898
3899 ** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
3900 read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
3901 arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
3902 input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
3903
3904 ** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
3905 of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
3906 programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
3907 inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
3908
3909 ** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
3910 the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
3911 returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
3912 echo area contents.
3913
3914 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
3915
3916 ** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
3917 NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
3918 requested feature cannot be loaded.
3919
3920 ** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
3921 foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
3922 means to clear out that attribute.
3923
3924 ** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
3925 gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
3926
3927 ** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
3928 read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
3929 unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
3930 end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
3931
3932 ** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
3933 the gap of the current buffer.
3934
3935 ** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
3936 to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
3937 current buffer.
3938
3939 ** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
3940 facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
3941 These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
3942 it back in after any modifications have been made.
3943 \f
3944 * Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
3945
3946 ** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
3947 the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
3948 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
3949 directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
3950 subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
3951
3952 Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
3953 names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
3954 Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
3955 which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
3956 these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
3957
3958 Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
3959 starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
3960 time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
3961
3962 This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
3963 Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
3964 to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
3965 subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
3966 `.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
3967 results.
3968
3969 ** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
3970 GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
3971 that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
3972 fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
3973 \f
3974 * Changes in Emacs 20.3
3975
3976 ** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
3977 including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
3978 it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
3979 perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
3980
3981 ** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
3982 specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
3983 region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
3984 further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
3985 command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
3986 within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
3987 are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
3988 region.
3989
3990 In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
3991 selective undo.
3992
3993 ** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
3994 unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
3995 buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
3996 effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
3997 Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
3998
3999 The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
4000 though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
4001 -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
4002 load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
4003
4004 ** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
4005 no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
4006 enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
4007 something that most users not do.
4008
4009 ** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
4010 operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
4011 The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
4012 applications.
4013
4014 C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
4015 pasting operations.
4016
4017 ** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
4018 setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
4019 like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
4020 printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
4021 `ps-printer-name'.
4022
4023 ** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
4024 minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
4025 any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
4026 except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
4027 incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
4028 hits a new word.
4029
4030 Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
4031 Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
4032 to be confused by TeX commands.
4033
4034 You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
4035 correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
4036 clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
4037 of various alternative replacements and actions.
4038
4039 Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
4040 the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
4041 corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
4042 alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
4043 flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
4044
4045 Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
4046 flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
4047
4048 ** Changes in input method usage.
4049
4050 Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
4051 the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
4052 respectively.
4053
4054 You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
4055
4056 If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
4057 of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
4058
4059 The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
4060 that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
4061
4062 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
4063
4064 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
4065
4066 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
4067 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
4068
4069 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
4070 given in the following case:
4071 o When you are using a complex input method.
4072 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
4073
4074 If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
4075 input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
4076 and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
4077 setting it to t is helpful.
4078
4079 The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
4080
4081 In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
4082 keys:
4083 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
4084 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
4085 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
4086 These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
4087 environment.
4088
4089 ** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
4090 names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
4091 minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
4092 get
4093
4094 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
4095
4096 which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
4097
4098 Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
4099 Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
4100
4101 ** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
4102 at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
4103 its owner and group.
4104
4105 ** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
4106 Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
4107
4108 ** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
4109 contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
4110
4111 ** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
4112 which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
4113 in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
4114 by the left edge of the rectangle.
4115
4116 ** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
4117 increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
4118 C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
4119 for writing keyboard macros.
4120
4121 ** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
4122 files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
4123 frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
4124 the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
4125 additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
4126 info.
4127
4128 ** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
4129
4130 ** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
4131 query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
4132 contents only.
4133
4134 ** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
4135 confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
4136 the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
4137 says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
4138
4139 ** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
4140 non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
4141 literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
4142
4143 ** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
4144 now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
4145 Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
4146 inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
4147
4148 ** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
4149 failure if the command produces no output.
4150
4151 ** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
4152 manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
4153 the mouse.
4154
4155 ** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
4156 mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
4157 function and variable names.
4158
4159 ** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
4160 reading specific files. This has higher priority than
4161 file-coding-system-alist.
4162
4163 ** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
4164 t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
4165 converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
4166 the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
4167 according to the current fontset.
4168
4169 ** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
4170
4171 The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
4172 that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
4173 nonascii-insert-offset.
4174
4175 For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
4176 enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
4177 nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
4178 characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
4179
4180 ** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
4181 an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
4182
4183 ** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
4184 letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
4185
4186 ** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
4187 are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
4188 command keys.
4189
4190 ** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
4191 user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
4192
4193 Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
4194 user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
4195 all variables that have documentation.
4196
4197 ** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
4198 shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
4199 that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
4200 minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
4201 it should show; the default is 20.
4202
4203 Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
4204 the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
4205 of your input.
4206
4207 ** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
4208 all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
4209 recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
4210 argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
4211 the customizable options which were changed since that version.
4212 Newly added options are included as well.
4213
4214 If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
4215 then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
4216 for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
4217
4218 This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
4219 Customize menu.
4220
4221 ** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
4222 the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
4223
4224 ** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
4225 buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
4226 invoked.
4227
4228 ** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
4229 that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
4230 The default is 1.
4231
4232 ** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
4233 syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
4234 new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
4235 (C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
4236 sensibly.
4237
4238 ** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
4239
4240 ** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
4241 value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
4242 two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
4243
4244 ** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
4245 reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
4246 for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
4247 every night.
4248
4249 ** Desktop changes
4250
4251 *** All you need to do to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
4252 the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
4253
4254 *** Minor modes are now restored. Which minor modes are restored
4255 and how modes are restored is controlled by `desktop-minor-mode-table'.
4256
4257 ** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
4258 read and post multi-lingual articles.
4259
4260 ** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
4261 doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
4262 be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
4263 outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
4264 the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
4265 made invisible again.
4266
4267 ** Mail reading and sending changes
4268
4269 *** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
4270 the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
4271 changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
4272 toggle.
4273
4274 *** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
4275 now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
4276 summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
4277 the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
4278 rmail-default-body-file.
4279
4280 *** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
4281 longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
4282 handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
4283
4284 *** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
4285 it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
4286 is evaluated to insert the signature.
4287
4288 *** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
4289 outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
4290 handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
4291 putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
4292 transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
4293 especially interested in trying feedmail.
4294
4295 feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
4296 feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
4297 provided by feedmail are:
4298
4299 **** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
4300 stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
4301 there is also a queue for draft messages
4302
4303 **** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
4304 be prompted for confirmation
4305
4306 **** does smart filling of address headers
4307
4308 **** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
4309 the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
4310 can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
4311
4312 **** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
4313 the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
4314 /usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
4315 function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
4316
4317 ** Dired changes
4318
4319 *** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
4320 files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
4321
4322 *** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
4323 run Dired on the directory name at point.
4324
4325 *** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
4326 files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
4327 for a specified regexp.
4328
4329 ** VC Changes
4330
4331 *** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
4332 conveniently.
4333
4334 *** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
4335 faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
4336 Dired.
4337
4338 VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
4339 directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
4340 listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
4341 currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
4342
4343 You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
4344 then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
4345 vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
4346 control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
4347 on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
4348
4349 All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
4350 is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
4351 `v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
4352 the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
4353 `vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
4354
4355 The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
4356 toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
4357 VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
4358 `* l', to mark all files currently locked.
4359
4360 Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
4361 ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
4362 command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
4363
4364 *** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
4365 file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
4366 session to resolve them.
4367
4368 Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
4369 resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
4370 contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
4371 uses as well).
4372
4373 *** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
4374 command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
4375 you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
4376 either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
4377 branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
4378 If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
4379 using ediff.
4380
4381 ** Changes in Font Lock
4382
4383 *** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
4384 are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
4385 use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
4386 unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
4387 compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
4388
4389 ** Frame name display changes
4390
4391 *** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
4392 frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
4393 raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
4394 when many frames are invisible or iconified.
4395
4396 *** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
4397 frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
4398 menu.
4399
4400 ** Comint (subshell) changes
4401
4402 *** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
4403 subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
4404 with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
4405
4406 *** There are new commands in Comint mode.
4407
4408 C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
4409 that is, the line after the last line you got.
4410 You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
4411
4412 C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
4413 send the current line together with the following line, when you send
4414 the following line.
4415
4416 C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
4417 which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
4418 previously sent input.
4419
4420 C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
4421 it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
4422 as the search string.
4423
4424 *** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
4425 automatically in compilation-mode windows.
4426
4427 ** C mode changes
4428
4429 *** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
4430 and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
4431 assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
4432 definition.
4433
4434 *** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
4435 (i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
4436 Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
4437 style is still the default however.
4438
4439 *** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
4440
4441 *** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
4442 are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
4443 them. They do not have key bindings by default.
4444
4445 *** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
4446 and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
4447
4448 *** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
4449 namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
4450
4451 *** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
4452 makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
4453
4454 *** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
4455 c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
4456
4457 *** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
4458 should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
4459 package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
4460 variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
4461
4462 ** Changes to hippie-expand.
4463
4464 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
4465 non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
4466 which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
4467
4468 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
4469 non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
4470 expanding dynamically.
4471
4472 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
4473 non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
4474
4475 *** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
4476 non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
4477 this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
4478 expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
4479
4480 *** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
4481
4482 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4483
4484 *** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
4485 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
4486 automatic key generation. This replaces variable
4487 bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
4488 against the first word in the title.
4489
4490 *** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
4491 capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
4492 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
4493 lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
4494 lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
4495 bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
4496
4497 *** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
4498 generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
4499 replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
4500 bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
4501
4502 ** Changes in vcursor.el.
4503
4504 *** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
4505 and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
4506 variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
4507 entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
4508 `vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
4509 in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
4510
4511 *** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
4512 Editing group once the package is loaded.
4513
4514 *** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
4515 generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
4516 vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
4517
4518 *** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
4519 vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
4520
4521 ** Ispell changes.
4522
4523 *** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
4524 buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
4525 are identified by syntax tables in effect.
4526
4527 *** Generic region skipping implemented.
4528 A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
4529 and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
4530 defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
4531 include:
4532
4533 o URLs are automatically skipped
4534 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
4535
4536 *** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
4537
4538 ** Changes to RefTeX mode
4539
4540 RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
4541 large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
4542 re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
4543 section `Optimizations' in the manual.
4544
4545 *** New recursive parser.
4546
4547 The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
4548 entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
4549 recursive parser scans the individual files.
4550
4551 *** Parsing only part of a document.
4552
4553 Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
4554 partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
4555 the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
4556
4557 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
4558
4559 *** Storing parsing information in a file.
4560
4561 This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
4562
4563 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
4564
4565 *** Using multiple selection buffers
4566
4567 If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
4568 for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
4569
4570 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
4571
4572 *** References to external documents.
4573
4574 The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
4575 documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
4576 documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
4577 macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
4578 RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
4579 the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
4580 The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
4581
4582 *** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
4583
4584 The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
4585 and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
4586
4587 Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
4588 the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
4589
4590 *** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
4591
4592 The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
4593 buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
4594
4595 *** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
4596
4597 The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
4598 contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
4599 `reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
4600 have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
4601 enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
4602 at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
4603 more.
4604
4605 *** Support for the varioref package
4606
4607 The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
4608
4609 *** New hooks
4610
4611 Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
4612 and citations are created. These hooks are
4613 `reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
4614 `reftex-format-cite-function'.
4615
4616 *** Citations outside LaTeX
4617
4618 The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
4619 a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
4620
4621 *** Short context is no longer fontified.
4622
4623 The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
4624 fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
4625 fontified, use
4626
4627 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
4628
4629 ** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
4630 With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
4631 the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
4632 directories that contain the same file name.
4633
4634 Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
4635 Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
4636 file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
4637 Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
4638 have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
4639 names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
4640 directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
4641 directory.
4642
4643 ** New modes and packages
4644
4645 *** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
4646 It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
4647 it, but some do not.
4648
4649 *** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
4650 code.
4651
4652 *** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
4653 current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
4654 around in a buffer.
4655
4656 Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
4657
4658 *** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
4659 uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
4660 be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
4661 established system of notation similar to Chess.
4662
4663 *** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
4664 documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
4665 guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
4666
4667 *** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
4668 available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
4669 system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
4670 simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
4671 functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
4672 the like.
4673
4674 *** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
4675 identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
4676
4677 *** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
4678 within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
4679 used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
4680 the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
4681
4682 *** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
4683
4684 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
4685 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
4686 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
4687 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
4688 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
4689 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
4690 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
4691 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
4692 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
4693 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
4694 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
4695
4696 Platform-specific modes:
4697
4698 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
4699 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
4700 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
4701 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
4702 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
4703 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
4704 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
4705 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
4706 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
4707 \f
4708 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4709
4710 ** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
4711 use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
4712 That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
4713 Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
4714
4715 Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
4716 you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
4717 consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
4718
4719 ** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
4720 and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
4721 specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
4722 searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
4723
4724 ** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
4725 multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
4726 character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
4727 environment.
4728
4729 ** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
4730 take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
4731 string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
4732 current input method for reading this one event.
4733
4734 ** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
4735 now control whether to output certain characters as
4736 backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
4737 non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
4738 characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
4739 in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
4740 \f
4741 * Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
4742
4743 ** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
4744 of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
4745
4746 ** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
4747 in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
4748 always increases point by 1.
4749
4750 The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
4751 considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
4752
4753 See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
4754
4755 ** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
4756 Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
4757 default value changed. For example,
4758
4759 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
4760 :type 'integer
4761 :group 'foo
4762 :version "20.3")
4763
4764 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
4765 :version "20.3")
4766
4767 If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
4768 default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
4769 is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
4770 `:version' in the top level group.
4771
4772 This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
4773
4774 ** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
4775 starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
4776
4777 However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
4778 symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
4779 support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
4780 to themselves.
4781
4782 If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
4783 this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
4784 values whatever.
4785
4786 ** There is a new debugger command, R.
4787 It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
4788 in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
4789
4790 ** Frame-local variables.
4791
4792 You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
4793 the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
4794 local bindings for that variable.
4795
4796 These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
4797 frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
4798 modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
4799 parameter name.
4800
4801 Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
4802 Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
4803 active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
4804 that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
4805
4806 It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
4807 clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
4808 very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
4809 through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
4810
4811 ** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
4812 "symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
4813 evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
4814 makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
4815 See the documentation in sregex.el.
4816
4817 ** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
4818 is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
4819 parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
4820 The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
4821
4822 ** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
4823 If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
4824
4825 ** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
4826 known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
4827 define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
4828
4829 ** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
4830 when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
4831 it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
4832 history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
4833
4834 The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
4835 return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
4836 empty input.
4837
4838 ** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
4839 for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
4840 `iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
4841 Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
4842 `read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
4843
4844 ** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
4845 echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
4846 a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
4847 default password to use if the user enters nothing.
4848
4849 ** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
4850 specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
4851 function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
4852 place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
4853 non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
4854
4855 ** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
4856 If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
4857 up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
4858 end of the window, even if this requires computation.
4859
4860 ** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
4861 which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
4862 If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
4863
4864 ** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
4865 holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
4866 was directed to display this buffer.
4867
4868 ** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
4869 with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
4870 describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
4871 other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
4872 set-window-configuration.
4873
4874 ** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
4875 window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
4876 positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
4877 windows and the choice of buffers to display.
4878
4879 ** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
4880 override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
4881 look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
4882
4883 If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
4884 non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
4885 map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
4886
4887 minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
4888 and it is meant to be set by major modes.
4889
4890 ** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
4891 except that it discards all text properties from the result.
4892
4893 ** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
4894 USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
4895 floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
4896
4897 ** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
4898 to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
4899 in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
4900 it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
4901
4902 ** Menu changes
4903
4904 *** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
4905 keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
4906 better supported.
4907
4908 The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
4909 a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
4910 you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
4911 can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
4912 then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
4913
4914 *** A new format for menu items is supported.
4915
4916 In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
4917 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
4918 defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
4919 starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
4920
4921 The format is:
4922 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
4923 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
4924 where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
4925 string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
4926 The supported properties include
4927
4928 :enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4929 item is enabled.
4930 :visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
4931 item should appear in the menu.
4932 :filter FILTER-FN
4933 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
4934 which will be REAL-BINDING.
4935 It should return a binding to use instead.
4936 :keys DESCRIPTION
4937 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
4938 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
4939 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
4940 :key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
4941 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
4942 keyboard binding.
4943 :key-sequence nil
4944 This means that the command normally has no
4945 keyboard equivalent.
4946 :help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
4947 :button (TYPE . SELECTED)
4948 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
4949 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
4950 value says whether this button is currently selected.
4951
4952 Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
4953 Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
4954
4955 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
4956
4957 ** New event types
4958
4959 *** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
4960 mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
4961 corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
4962 which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
4963
4964 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
4965
4966 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4967 same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
4968 indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
4969 negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
4970 the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
4971 forward, away from the user.
4972
4973 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4974
4975 *** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
4976 files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
4977 and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
4978 filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
4979 loaded into Emacs. The format is:
4980
4981 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
4982
4983 where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
4984 same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
4985 that were dragged and dropped.
4986
4987 As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
4988
4989 ** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
4990
4991 *** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
4992 any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
4993 to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
4994
4995 *** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
4996 can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
4997 that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
4998
4999 *** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
5000 in Emacs 19 and before.
5001
5002 The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
5003 The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
5004
5005 *** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
5006 buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
5007 unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
5008 representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
5009
5010 This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
5011 as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
5012 viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
5013 one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
5014 will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
5015
5016 This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
5017 representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
5018 (including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
5019 consistent with the new representation.
5020
5021 *** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
5022 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
5023 about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
5024 however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5025
5026 The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
5027 nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
5028 using the table nonascii-translation-table.
5029
5030 *** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
5031 representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
5032 representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
5033
5034 The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
5035 loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
5036 is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
5037
5038 *** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5039 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
5040
5041 *** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
5042 which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
5043
5044 *** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
5045 portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
5046 so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
5047 You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
5048
5049 *** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
5050 it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
5051
5052 *** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
5053 convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
5054 buffer or string being searched.
5055
5056 One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
5057 [...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
5058 searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
5059 searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
5060 obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
5061 you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
5062 expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
5063
5064 *** Structure of coding system changed.
5065
5066 All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
5067 by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
5068 which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
5069 as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
5070 vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
5071 your own alias name of a coding system by the function
5072 define-coding-system-alias.
5073
5074 The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
5075 the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
5076 access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
5077 pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
5078 character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
5079 safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
5080 'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
5081 `iso-8859-1'.
5082
5083 Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
5084 The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
5085 coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
5086 (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
5087
5088 Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
5089 also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
5090 are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
5091 the other character sets and read it back correctly.
5092
5093 *** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
5094 proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
5095 This function requires a user interaction.
5096
5097 *** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
5098 find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
5099 select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
5100 systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
5101 a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
5102 select-safe-coding-system.
5103
5104 *** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
5105 decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
5106 last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
5107 was done.
5108
5109 *** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
5110 used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
5111 coding systems used by some specific language environment.
5112
5113 *** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
5114 return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
5115 characters are found, they now return a list of single element
5116 `undecided' or its subsidiaries.
5117
5118 *** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
5119 coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
5120 coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
5121 converted.
5122
5123 *** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
5124 coding system for communicating with other X clients.
5125
5126 *** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
5127 character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
5128 character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
5129 each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
5130 either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
5131 range of characters.
5132
5133 *** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
5134 Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
5135
5136 *** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
5137 in the current buffer at position POS.
5138
5139 *** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
5140 input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
5141 function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
5142 character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
5143 event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
5144 binding input-method-function to nil.
5145
5146 The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
5147 method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
5148 input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
5149 the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
5150 not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
5151
5152 The input method function is not called when reading the second and
5153 subsequent events of a key sequence.
5154
5155 *** You can customize any language environment by using
5156 set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
5157
5158 The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
5159 customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
5160 instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
5161 environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
5162 exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
5163 \f
5164 * Changes in Emacs 20.1
5165
5166 ** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
5167 options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
5168 at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
5169 tree structure.
5170
5171 M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
5172 user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
5173
5174 With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
5175 session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
5176 in your .emacs file.)
5177
5178 ** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
5179 You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
5180
5181 ** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
5182 This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
5183
5184 ** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
5185 immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
5186 kills the region.
5187
5188 The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
5189 delete the character before point, as usual.
5190
5191 ** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
5192 on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
5193 by setting search-highlight to nil.)
5194
5195 ** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
5196 insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
5197 the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
5198 onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
5199 history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
5200 past.)
5201
5202 ** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
5203 This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
5204 in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
5205 TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
5206 makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
5207
5208 As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
5209 and is an alias for it.
5210
5211 If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
5212 use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
5213
5214 ** Scrolling changes
5215
5216 *** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
5217 position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
5218
5219 In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
5220 on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
5221 where it started.
5222
5223 *** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
5224 move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
5225 screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
5226 does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
5227
5228 *** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
5229 top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
5230 comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
5231 recenters the window.
5232
5233 ** International character set support (MULE)
5234
5235 Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
5236 including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
5237 Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
5238 Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
5239 features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
5240 MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
5241
5242 Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
5243 coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
5244 character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
5245 variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
5246 into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
5247
5248 Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
5249 generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
5250 supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
5251 language, to make it possible to type them.
5252
5253 The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
5254 character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
5255
5256 The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
5257 to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
5258
5259 You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
5260
5261 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
5262
5263 Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
5264 characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
5265 argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
5266 already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
5267 characters for their work until they want to change.
5268
5269 *** Input methods
5270
5271 An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
5272 specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
5273 has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
5274 the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
5275 support several input methods.
5276
5277 The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
5278 another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
5279 work.
5280
5281 A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
5282 characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
5283 composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
5284 consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
5285 sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
5286 letter.
5287
5288 The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
5289 by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
5290 First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
5291 marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
5292 mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
5293
5294 None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
5295 they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
5296 phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
5297 converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
5298
5299 Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
5300 word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
5301 typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
5302 the first guess is wrong.
5303
5304 *** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
5305 turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
5306
5307 If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
5308 byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
5309 they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
5310 the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
5311
5312 However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
5313 use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
5314 includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
5315 translate automatically to and from either one.
5316
5317 *** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
5318
5319 Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
5320 file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
5321 sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
5322 what you want.
5323
5324 If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
5325 example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
5326 system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
5327 multibyte characters in that buffer.
5328
5329 If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
5330 character conversion as well.
5331
5332 *** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
5333
5334 A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
5335 Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
5336 requires using many fonts.
5337
5338 Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
5339 collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
5340
5341 A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
5342 the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
5343 have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
5344 you would use a font.
5345
5346 If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
5347 specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
5348 display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
5349
5350 The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
5351 (that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
5352 characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
5353 or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
5354 and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
5355
5356 *** Defining fontsets.
5357
5358 Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
5359 chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
5360 with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
5361
5362 Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
5363 of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
5364 `fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
5365 standard fontset are created automatically.
5366
5367 If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
5368 argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
5369 FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
5370 with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
5371 name is `fontset-startup'.
5372
5373 Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
5374 The resource value should have this form:
5375 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
5376 FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
5377 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
5378 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
5379 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
5380 The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
5381 of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
5382 CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
5383 FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
5384
5385 Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
5386 last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
5387 You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
5388
5389 For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
5390 font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
5391 following resource,
5392 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
5393 the font for ASCII is generated as below:
5394 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
5395 Here is the substitution rule:
5396 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
5397 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
5398 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
5399 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
5400 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
5401
5402 The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
5403 fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
5404 that function explicitly to create a fontset.
5405
5406 With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
5407 like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
5408 name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
5409 fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
5410 fontsets.
5411
5412 *** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
5413 defaults for a particular choice of language.
5414
5415 Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
5416 method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
5417 visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
5418 already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
5419 language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
5420 system for new files that you create.
5421
5422 It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
5423 set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
5424 whole Emacs session.
5425
5426 For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
5427 chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
5428 with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
5429
5430 *** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
5431 specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
5432 specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
5433 the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
5434 coding systems that Emacs supports.
5435
5436 *** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
5437 lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
5438 This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
5439 After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
5440 is used for *the immediately following command*.
5441
5442 So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
5443 write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
5444
5445 If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
5446 then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
5447
5448 For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
5449 visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
5450
5451 *** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
5452 construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
5453 to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
5454 specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
5455 of the file.
5456
5457 *** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
5458 the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
5459 code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
5460 translated into that character code.
5461
5462 This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
5463 various countries to support the languages of those countries.
5464
5465 By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
5466
5467 *** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
5468 the coding system for keyboard input.
5469
5470 Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
5471 with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
5472 some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
5473
5474 By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
5475
5476 Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
5477 input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
5478 translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
5479 to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
5480 designed to work with terminals.
5481
5482 *** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
5483 specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
5484 This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
5485 has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
5486 translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
5487 in the corresponding buffer.
5488
5489 By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
5490
5491 *** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
5492 to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
5493 It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
5494
5495 *** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
5496 an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
5497 command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
5498 want to use.
5499
5500 C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
5501 method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
5502
5503 *** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
5504 layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
5505 remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
5506 which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
5507
5508 *** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
5509 the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
5510 related information.
5511
5512 *** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
5513 HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
5514 scripts.
5515
5516 *** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
5517 information about the support for a particular language.
5518 You specify the language as an argument.
5519
5520 *** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
5521 the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
5522 first dash.
5523
5524 A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
5525 (except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
5526 whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
5527 1 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
5528
5529 A alternativnyj (Russian)
5530 B big5 (Chinese)
5531 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
5532 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
5533 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
5534 E euc-japan (Japanese)
5535 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5536 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
5537 K euc-korea (Korean)
5538 R koi8 (Russian)
5539 Q tibetan
5540 S shift_jis (Japanese)
5541 T lao
5542 T tis620 (Thai)
5543 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
5544 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
5545 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
5546 v viqr (Vietnamese)
5547 z hz (Chinese)
5548
5549 When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
5550 two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
5551 coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
5552 keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
5553
5554 *** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
5555 conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
5556
5557 When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
5558 into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
5559 rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
5560 Rmail files themselves.
5561
5562 *** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
5563 conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
5564
5565 Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
5566 for sending mail:
5567
5568 - If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
5569 - Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
5570 - Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
5571 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
5572 - Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
5573
5574 *** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
5575 to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
5576 Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
5577 translations.
5578
5579 ** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
5580 of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
5581 insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
5582 without any conversion.
5583
5584 ** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
5585 You can now specify any number of octal digits.
5586 RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
5587 any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
5588
5589 ** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
5590 functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
5591
5592 Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
5593 Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
5594
5595 Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
5596 mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
5597
5598 ** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
5599 complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
5600 in the buffer before point.
5601
5602 With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
5603 symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
5604 you are using.
5605
5606 With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
5607 just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
5608
5609 ** File locking works with NFS now.
5610
5611 The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
5612 in the same directory as FILENAME.
5613
5614 This means that collision detection between two different machines now
5615 works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
5616 can become a bottleneck.
5617
5618 The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
5619 does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
5620 create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
5621 file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
5622 rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
5623 so useful that the change is worth while.
5624
5625 When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
5626 are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
5627 collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
5628 tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
5629
5630 ** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
5631 it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
5632 show-paren-mode.
5633
5634 ** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
5635 selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
5636 delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
5637
5638 ** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
5639 within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
5640 complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
5641
5642 ** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
5643 it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
5644 set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
5645
5646 ** Changes in View mode.
5647
5648 *** Several new commands are available in View mode.
5649 Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
5650
5651 *** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
5652 view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
5653
5654 *** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
5655 previous state.
5656
5657 *** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
5658 scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
5659
5660 *** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
5661 non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
5662 not just the selected window.
5663
5664 *** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
5665 read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
5666 turns View mode on or off.
5667
5668 *** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
5669 how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
5670 delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
5671
5672 ** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
5673 now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
5674
5675 ** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
5676 has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
5677 presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
5678 which version to compare with.
5679
5680 ** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
5681 blocks if a match is inside the block.
5682
5683 The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
5684 is outside the block. By customizing the variable
5685 isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
5686 shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
5687
5688 By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
5689 of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
5690 blocks, all of them or none.
5691
5692 ** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
5693 current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
5694 confirmation first.
5695
5696 ** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
5697 now changes the major mode according to that file name.
5698 However, the mode will not be changed if
5699 (1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
5700 (2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
5701 not suitable for ordinary files, or
5702 (3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
5703
5704 This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
5705
5706 However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
5707 these commands do not change the major mode.
5708
5709 ** M-x occur changes.
5710
5711 *** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
5712 it performs a case-sensitive search.
5713
5714 *** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
5715 if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
5716 using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
5717
5718 ** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
5719 in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
5720 window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
5721 that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
5722 buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
5723
5724 ** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
5725 after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
5726 appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
5727 come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
5728
5729 ** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5730 selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
5731 buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
5732
5733 ** Outline mode changes.
5734
5735 *** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
5736
5737 *** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
5738
5739 ** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
5740 you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
5741 Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
5742 was already active.
5743
5744 The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
5745 unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
5746 get confused by it.
5747
5748 If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
5749 set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
5750
5751 ** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
5752
5753 *** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
5754 conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
5755 character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
5756 including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
5757
5758 The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
5759 mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
5760 copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
5761
5762 *** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
5763 are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
5764 values.
5765
5766 `dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
5767 case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
5768 `dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
5769 case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
5770
5771 ** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
5772 certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
5773 can be. The default value is 30.
5774
5775 ** Changes in Mail mode.
5776
5777 *** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
5778 Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
5779 composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
5780 `mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
5781 `sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
5782 behavior.
5783
5784 C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
5785 compose-mail-other-frame.
5786
5787 *** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
5788 the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
5789 replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
5790 buffer that shows the original message.
5791
5792 *** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
5793 with separator lines around the contents.
5794
5795 *** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
5796 in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
5797 definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
5798 need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
5799
5800 *** New features in the mail-complete command.
5801
5802 **** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
5803 for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
5804 controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
5805 Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
5806
5807 **** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
5808 to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
5809 /etc/passwd.
5810
5811 **** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
5812 to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
5813 /etc/passwd.
5814
5815 ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
5816 special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
5817 directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
5818 reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
5819
5820 Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
5821 when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
5822 be taken to be magic.
5823
5824 ** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
5825 files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
5826 available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
5827
5828 M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
5829 (-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
5830
5831 ** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
5832 suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
5833
5834 In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
5835
5836 new key dired.el binding old key
5837 ------- ---------------- -------
5838 * c dired-change-marks c
5839 * m dired-mark m
5840 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
5841 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
5842 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
5843 * u dired-unmark u
5844 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
5845 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
5846 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
5847 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
5848 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
5849 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
5850
5851 ** Rmail changes.
5852
5853 *** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
5854 saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
5855 chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
5856 each time you run it.
5857
5858 *** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
5859 whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
5860
5861 *** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
5862 messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
5863 means to move in the opposite direction.
5864
5865 *** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
5866 you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
5867
5868 *** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
5869 just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
5870 It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
5871 can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
5872 for output.
5873
5874 ** Gnus changes.
5875
5876 *** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
5877
5878 *** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
5879 Gnus.
5880
5881 *** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
5882 `and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
5883
5884 *** Article washing status can be displayed in the
5885 article mode line.
5886
5887 *** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
5888
5889 *** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
5890
5891 (setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
5892
5893 *** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
5894 are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
5895 `gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
5896
5897 *** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
5898
5899 *** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
5900
5901 *** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
5902 See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
5903
5904 *** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
5905 Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
5906 used to pick articles.
5907
5908 *** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
5909 another have been added.
5910
5911 `M-x gnus-change-server'
5912
5913 *** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
5914 generating lines in buffers.
5915
5916 *** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
5917 `M-C-_'.
5918
5919 *** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
5920
5921 *** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
5922
5923 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
5924
5925 *** Scores can be decayed.
5926
5927 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
5928
5929 *** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
5930 Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
5931
5932 *** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
5933 the native server.
5934
5935 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
5936
5937 *** A new command for reading collections of documents
5938 (nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
5939
5940 *** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
5941
5942 *** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
5943 even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
5944
5945 *** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
5946 (DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
5947
5948 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
5949 a group.
5950
5951 *** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
5952 sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
5953
5954 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
5955
5956 *** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
5957
5958 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
5959
5960 *** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
5961
5962 Use the `Y c' command.
5963
5964 *** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
5965
5966 *** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
5967
5968 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
5969
5970 *** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
5971 from incoming mail before saving the mail.
5972
5973 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
5974
5975 *** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
5976
5977 *** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
5978 the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
5979
5980 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
5981
5982 Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
5983 and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
5984 from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
5985 hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
5986 this issue.)
5987
5988 Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
5989 automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
5990 particular news group. This can be done by:
5991
5992 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
5993
5994 Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
5995 of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
5996 "XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
5997 system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
5998 for reading and posting).
5999
6000 CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
6001 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
6002 Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
6003 newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
6004 there.
6005
6006 Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
6007 default. Here are some of these default settings:
6008
6009 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
6010 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
6011 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
6012 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
6013 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
6014
6015 When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
6016 the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
6017
6018 ** CC mode changes.
6019
6020 *** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
6021 code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
6022 values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
6023 this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
6024 Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
6025 loaded.
6026
6027 If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
6028 Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
6029 style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
6030 share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
6031 c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
6032 must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
6033
6034 *** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
6035 of the current buffer.
6036
6037 *** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
6038 it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
6039 of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
6040
6041 *** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
6042 style that the Python developers like.
6043
6044 *** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
6045 This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
6046 just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
6047
6048 ** VC Changes [new]
6049
6050 ** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
6051 name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
6052 directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
6053
6054 This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
6055 master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
6056 developers.
6057
6058 You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
6059 RET in a buffer visiting that file.
6060
6061 *** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
6062 other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
6063 writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
6064 calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
6065
6066 *** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
6067 version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
6068
6069 ** Calendar changes.
6070
6071 A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
6072 of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
6073 for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
6074
6075 ** ps-print changes
6076
6077 There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
6078
6079 *** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
6080
6081 The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
6082 formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
6083 `a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
6084 `ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
6085 It defaults to `letter'.
6086 If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
6087
6088 The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
6089 of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
6090 non-nil means "landscape" mode.
6091
6092 The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
6093 It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
6094 It defaults to 1.
6095
6096 *** Horizontal layout
6097
6098 The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
6099 `ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
6100 All are measured in points.
6101
6102 *** Vertical layout
6103
6104 The vertical layout is determined by the variables
6105 `ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
6106 All are measured in points.
6107
6108 *** Headers
6109
6110 If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
6111 `ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
6112 margin above the text.
6113
6114 If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
6115 framing box is printed around the header.
6116
6117 The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
6118 `ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
6119
6120 The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
6121 `ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
6122 `ps-header-font-size'.
6123
6124 *** Font managing
6125
6126 The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
6127 used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
6128 `ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
6129 elements to this alist.
6130
6131 The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
6132 for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
6133
6134 ** hideshow changes.
6135
6136 *** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
6137 C++, ; for lisp).
6138
6139 *** Support for java-mode added.
6140
6141 *** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
6142 in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
6143
6144 *** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
6145 the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
6146 way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
6147
6148 *** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
6149 robust and a lot faster.
6150
6151 *** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
6152
6153 *** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
6154 to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
6155 documentation for more details.
6156
6157 ** Changes in Enriched mode.
6158
6159 *** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
6160 filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
6161 of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
6162 use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
6163 the next time unless the fill-column is different.
6164
6165 *** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
6166 distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
6167 as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
6168 as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
6169
6170 ** Font Lock mode
6171
6172 *** Custom support
6173
6174 The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
6175 font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
6176 faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
6177 group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
6178 your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
6179 consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
6180
6181 You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
6182
6183 *** Maximum decoration
6184
6185 Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
6186 default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
6187 of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
6188 supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
6189 to get the old behavior.
6190
6191 *** New support
6192
6193 Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
6194
6195 Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
6196 support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
6197
6198 *** Configurable support
6199
6200 Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
6201 additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
6202 c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
6203 java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
6204 list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
6205 of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
6206 convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
6207
6208 Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
6209 way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
6210 it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
6211
6212 *** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
6213
6214 You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
6215 highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
6216 for any mode.
6217
6218 For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
6219
6220 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
6221
6222 in your ~/.emacs.
6223
6224 *** New faces
6225
6226 Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
6227 font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
6228 distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
6229 to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
6230
6231 *** Changes to fast-lock support mode
6232
6233 The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
6234 cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
6235 same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
6236
6237 *** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
6238
6239 The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
6240 according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
6241 the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
6242 non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
6243 refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
6244 the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
6245 Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
6246
6247 This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
6248 For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
6249 this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
6250 refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
6251 containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
6252 the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
6253
6254 As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
6255
6256 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
6257 Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
6258 Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
6259 new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
6260
6261 If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
6262 settings.
6263
6264 ** Ada mode changes.
6265
6266 *** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
6267 If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
6268 procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
6269 you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
6270 stubs.
6271
6272 *** There are two new commands:
6273 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
6274 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
6275
6276 The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
6277 `ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
6278 `ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
6279
6280 *** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
6281 is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
6282 Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
6283
6284 *** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
6285 formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
6286 places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
6287 space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
6288
6289 ** Scheme mode changes.
6290
6291 *** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
6292 mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
6293 for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
6294 with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
6295 have any effect.
6296
6297 If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
6298 still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
6299 scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
6300 variables as buffer-local variables.
6301
6302 *** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
6303 Use M-x dsssl-mode.
6304
6305 ** Changes to the emacsclient program
6306
6307 *** If a socket can't be found, and environment variables LOGNAME or
6308 USER are set, emacsclient now looks for a socket based on the UID
6309 associated with the name. That is an emacsclient running as root
6310 can connect to an Emacs server started by a non-root user.
6311
6312 *** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
6313 it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
6314 buffer in Emacs.
6315
6316 *** The new option --alternate-editor allows to specify an editor to
6317 use if Emacs is not running. The environment variable
6318 ALTERNATE_EDITOR can be used for the same effect; the command line
6319 option takes precedence.
6320
6321 ** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
6322 constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
6323 (in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
6324
6325 ** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
6326 which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
6327 the current defun.
6328
6329 ** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
6330 following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
6331
6332 ** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
6333 and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
6334 necessary).
6335
6336 ** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
6337 if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
6338 these register values no longer become completely useless.
6339 If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
6340 asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
6341 it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
6342
6343 ** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
6344 example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
6345 be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
6346 you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
6347
6348 You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
6349 variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
6350 file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
6351 revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
6352 only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
6353
6354 ** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
6355 since it applies only to the current frame.
6356
6357 ** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
6358 file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
6359 and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
6360
6361 This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
6362 multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
6363 variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
6364 tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
6365 instead of just the file you are editing.
6366
6367 ** RefTeX mode
6368
6369 RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
6370 and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
6371 different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
6372 multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
6373 turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
6374
6375 C-c ( reftex-label
6376 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
6377 knows which kind of label is needed.
6378
6379 C-c ) reftex-reference
6380 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
6381 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
6382
6383 C-c [ reftex-citation
6384 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
6385 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
6386
6387 C-c & reftex-view-crossref
6388 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
6389
6390 C-c = reftex-toc
6391 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
6392 can quickly jump to every section.
6393
6394 Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
6395 commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
6396 Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
6397 reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
6398 C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
6399
6400 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6401
6402 *** Info documentation is now available.
6403
6404 *** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
6405 both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
6406
6407 *** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
6408 bibtex-user-optional-fields.
6409
6410 *** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
6411 (use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
6412
6413 *** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
6414 entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
6415 appropriate functions.
6416
6417 *** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
6418 entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
6419
6420 *** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
6421 been cleaned.
6422
6423 *** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
6424 bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
6425
6426 *** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
6427 shall be delimited.
6428
6429 *** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
6430 bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
6431 bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
6432
6433 *** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
6434 field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
6435 prefixed with `ALT'.
6436
6437 *** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
6438 bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
6439 formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
6440 documentation).
6441
6442 *** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
6443 documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
6444 for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
6445
6446 *** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
6447 comma should be inserted at end of last field.
6448
6449 *** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
6450 alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
6451 signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
6452
6453 *** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
6454
6455 *** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
6456
6457 *** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
6458 from alien sources.
6459
6460 *** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
6461 to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
6462 crossref entries.
6463
6464 *** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
6465 region.
6466
6467 *** Added support for imenu.
6468
6469 *** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
6470 of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
6471 `compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
6472 `next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
6473
6474 *** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
6475 from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
6476
6477 ** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
6478
6479 ** The command next-error now opens blocks hidden by hideshow.
6480
6481 ** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
6482 functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
6483 Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
6484 as an argument.
6485
6486 When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
6487 and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
6488
6489 ** browse-url changes
6490
6491 *** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
6492 Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
6493 (browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
6494 non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
6495 customization variables.
6496
6497 *** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
6498
6499 *** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
6500 lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
6501 (e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
6502
6503 ** Changes in Ediff
6504
6505 *** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
6506 pops up the Info file for this command.
6507
6508 *** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
6509 the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
6510 merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
6511 directories).
6512
6513 *** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
6514 and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
6515 files in the same directory.
6516
6517 *** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
6518 The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
6519 related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
6520
6521 ** Changes in Viper
6522
6523 *** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
6524 *** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
6525 instead of vip-.
6526 *** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
6527 *** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
6528 Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
6529 *** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
6530 *** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
6531 *** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
6532 color when Viper is in insert state.
6533 *** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
6534 Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
6535 viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
6536
6537 ** Etags changes.
6538
6539 *** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
6540 default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
6541 Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
6542 variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
6543 not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
6544
6545 *** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
6546
6547 *** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
6548 constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
6549
6550 *** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
6551 recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
6552 In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
6553
6554 *** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
6555 C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
6556 recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
6557 methods and protocols.
6558
6559 *** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
6560 .cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
6561 column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
6562 paragraph name.
6563
6564 *** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
6565 an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
6566 at least M times and as many as N times.
6567
6568 ** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
6569 in files has changed slightly.
6570
6571 With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
6572 time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
6573 This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
6574 with old time-stamp-format values.
6575
6576 In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
6577 (`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
6578 This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
6579 reasons.
6580
6581 In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
6582 natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
6583 fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
6584 (`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
6585 time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
6586 specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
6587
6588 Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
6589 case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
6590 truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
6591
6592 The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
6593 being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
6594 future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
6595 recommended now will continue to work then.
6596
6597 See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
6598 details.
6599
6600 ** There are some additional major modes:
6601
6602 dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
6603 m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
6604 meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
6605
6606 ** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
6607 copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
6608 into Emacs.
6609
6610 ** New Lisp packages include:
6611
6612 *** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
6613
6614 *** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
6615 be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
6616
6617 *** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
6618
6619 *** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
6620 in shell buffers.
6621
6622 *** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
6623 See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
6624 and `elint-defun'.
6625
6626 *** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
6627 meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
6628 ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
6629 strings or comments.
6630
6631 These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
6632 abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
6633 you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
6634 insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
6635 at these points.
6636
6637 *** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
6638 can visit them by short forms of their names.
6639
6640 *** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
6641 Emacs Lisp function at point.
6642
6643 *** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
6644
6645 *** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
6646 switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
6647
6648 *** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
6649
6650 *** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
6651
6652 *** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
6653
6654 *** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
6655 from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
6656
6657 *** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
6658 You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
6659 inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
6660 original place after inserting the copy.
6661
6662 *** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
6663 on the buffer.
6664
6665 You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
6666 velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
6667 (with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
6668
6669 Enable mouse-drag with:
6670 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
6671 -or-
6672 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
6673
6674 *** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
6675 mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
6676
6677 *** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
6678 It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
6679
6680 *** ogonek
6681
6682 The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
6683 Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
6684 platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
6685 TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
6686 ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
6687 prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
6688 instance) and vice versa.
6689
6690 To use this package load it using
6691 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
6692 Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
6693 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
6694 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
6695 The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
6696 ways of customization in `.emacs'.
6697
6698 *** Interface to ph.
6699
6700 Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
6701
6702 The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
6703 services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
6704 these servers.
6705
6706 *** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
6707
6708 *** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
6709 You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
6710 while the real cursor does not move.
6711
6712 *** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
6713 for visiting your favorite web sites.
6714
6715 *** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
6716 so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
6717
6718 ** movemail change
6719
6720 Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
6721 mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
6722 supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
6723 user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
6724
6725 This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
6726 \f
6727 * Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
6728
6729 ** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
6730
6731 Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
6732 end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
6733 Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
6734 file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
6735 file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
6736
6737 To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
6738 C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
6739 coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
6740 specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
6741 LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
6742 save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
6743 \f
6744 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
6745
6746 ** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
6747 Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
6748 vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
6749 Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
6750
6751 ** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
6752 to start with w32- instead of win32-.
6753
6754 In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
6755 don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
6756 "win".
6757
6758 ** Basic Lisp changes
6759
6760 *** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
6761 evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
6762
6763 *** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
6764 be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
6765 or by the user.
6766
6767 The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
6768
6769 *** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
6770
6771 (when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
6772 (unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
6773
6774 *** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
6775 usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
6776 its argument.
6777
6778 *** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
6779
6780 *** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
6781
6782 *** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
6783
6784 *** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
6785 error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
6786 include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
6787 `format' function.
6788
6789 *** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
6790 or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
6791 whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
6792
6793 *** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
6794 either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
6795 adding one of these suffixes.
6796
6797 *** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
6798 which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
6799 If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
6800
6801 We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
6802 because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
6803
6804 *** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
6805
6806 *** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
6807 You must load the `cl' library to define it.
6808
6809 *** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
6810 conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
6811
6812 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
6813
6814 BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
6815 BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
6816
6817 *** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
6818 choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
6819 restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
6820 works using `save-current-buffer'.
6821
6822 *** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
6823 write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
6824 of the last form.
6825
6826 *** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
6827 which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
6828 last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
6829 as the last form.
6830
6831 *** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
6832 characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
6833 matches.
6834
6835 For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
6836
6837 *** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
6838 with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
6839 Then it returns that string.
6840
6841 For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
6842
6843 (with-output-to-string
6844 (princ "The buffer is ")
6845 (princ (buffer-name)))
6846
6847 returns "The buffer is foo".
6848
6849 ** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
6850 is non-nil.
6851
6852 These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
6853 buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
6854 characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
6855
6856 *** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
6857 a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
6858
6859 Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
6860 character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
6861 Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
6862 position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
6863 characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
6864 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
6865
6866 ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
6867 Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
6868 non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
6869 characters".
6870
6871 The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
6872 through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
6873 "leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
6874 range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
6875 leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
6876
6877 *** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
6878 (forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
6879 multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
6880 character, which may be more than one buffer position.
6881
6882 This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
6883 always one buffer position, need to be changed.
6884
6885 However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
6886
6887 *** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
6888 because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
6889 have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
6890 the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
6891 guaranteed.
6892
6893 *** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
6894 between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
6895 character).
6896
6897 When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
6898
6899 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
6900 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
6901 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
6902 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
6903 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
6904
6905 *** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
6906
6907 *** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
6908 `length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
6909 more than the number of characters.
6910
6911 You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
6912 it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
6913 \xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
6914 is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
6915 follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
6916 newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
6917
6918 *** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
6919 and returns a string containing those characters.
6920
6921 *** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
6922 (sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
6923 counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
6924 character, sref signals an error.
6925
6926 *** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
6927 in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
6928 string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6929
6930 *** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
6931 in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
6932 region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
6933
6934 *** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
6935 the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
6936 to a vector of the characters in it.
6937
6938 *** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
6939 of a string. You call it as follows:
6940
6941 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
6942
6943 This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
6944 STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
6945 This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
6946 Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
6947 it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
6948
6949 *** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
6950 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6951
6952 *** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
6953 if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
6954
6955 *** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
6956 to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
6957 not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
6958 which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
6959
6960 (truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
6961
6962 This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
6963
6964 The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
6965 If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
6966 are not included in the resulting value.
6967
6968 The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
6969 at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
6970 WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
6971 is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
6972
6973 If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
6974 place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
6975 character extends across that column), then the padding character
6976 PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
6977 string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
6978 column START-COLUMN.
6979
6980 *** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
6981 the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
6982 necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
6983 difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
6984 changed text, before the change.
6985
6986 *** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
6987 sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
6988 one character set for each script, not for each language.
6989
6990 **** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
6991
6992 **** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
6993
6994 **** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
6995 set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
6996
6997 **** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
6998 name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
6999 which identify the character within that character set.
7000
7001 **** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
7002 byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
7003 opposite of split-char.
7004
7005 **** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
7006 of all the characters between BEG and END.
7007
7008 **** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
7009 of all the characters in a string.
7010
7011 *** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
7012 and specifying coding systems.
7013
7014 **** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
7015 system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
7016 of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
7017 (Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
7018 and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
7019 as what to do about code conversion.)
7020
7021 **** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
7022 name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
7023
7024 **** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7025 for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7026 except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
7027
7028 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7029 which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
7030 to match against a file name.
7031
7032 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7033 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7034 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7035 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7036 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7037 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7038
7039 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7040 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7041
7042 **** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
7043 the coding system to use for network sockets.
7044
7045 Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
7046 which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
7047 either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
7048 service names.
7049
7050 VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
7051 a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
7052 decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
7053 to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
7054 systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
7055 specifies the coding system for encoding.
7056
7057 If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
7058 or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
7059
7060 **** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
7061 for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
7062 except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
7063 start the subprocess.
7064
7065 **** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
7066 systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
7067 when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
7068 (OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
7069 to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
7070
7071 **** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
7072 coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
7073 subprocess.
7074
7075 It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
7076 but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
7077 start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
7078 connection permanently or until overridden.
7079
7080 The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
7081 file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
7082 network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
7083 coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
7084 It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
7085 system for one operation at a time.
7086
7087 **** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
7088 files, subprocesses or network connections.
7089
7090 **** The function process-coding-system tells you what
7091 coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
7092 The value is a cons cell,
7093 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
7094 where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
7095 the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
7096 input to the subprocess.
7097
7098 **** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
7099 change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
7100
7101 ** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
7102 customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
7103 you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
7104
7105 You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
7106 variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
7107 information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
7108 legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
7109 customization.
7110
7111 Thus, instead of writing
7112
7113 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
7114 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
7115
7116 you would now write this:
7117
7118 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
7119 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
7120 :type 'boolean
7121 :group foo)
7122
7123 The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
7124 two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
7125 describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
7126 for a description of them.
7127
7128 The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
7129 should belong to. You define a new group like this:
7130
7131 (defgroup ispell nil
7132 "Spell checking using Ispell."
7133 :group 'processes)
7134
7135 The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
7136 group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
7137 but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
7138 to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
7139 second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
7140
7141 Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
7142 package should have just one group; a more complex package should
7143 have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
7144 package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
7145 first-level subgroups.
7146
7147 ** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
7148
7149 This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
7150 separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
7151
7152 ** easy-mmode
7153
7154 The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
7155 developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
7156 only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
7157 predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
7158 `easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
7159 `easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
7160
7161 ** Text property changes
7162
7163 *** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
7164 text property.
7165
7166 *** The new functions next-char-property-change and
7167 previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
7168 place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
7169 functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
7170 starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
7171
7172 If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
7173 LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
7174 of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
7175 position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
7176
7177 *** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
7178 value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
7179 is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
7180
7181 ** Changes in invisibility features
7182
7183 *** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
7184 hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
7185 is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
7186 should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
7187 would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
7188 make the overlay visible.
7189
7190 During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
7191 invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
7192 needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
7193 which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
7194 the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
7195 t when it should hide it.
7196
7197 *** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
7198
7199 Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
7200 invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
7201 and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
7202 Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
7203 manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
7204 Here is an example of how to do this:
7205
7206 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
7207 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7208 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
7209 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7210
7211 ...
7212 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
7213
7214 ...
7215 ;; When done with the overlays:
7216 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
7217 ;; Or respectively:
7218 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
7219
7220 ** Changes in syntax parsing.
7221
7222 *** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
7223 `parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
7224 obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
7225 `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
7226
7227 If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
7228 is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
7229 used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
7230
7231 When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
7232 character in the buffer is calculated thus:
7233
7234 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
7235 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
7236
7237 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
7238 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
7239 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
7240
7241 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
7242 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
7243 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
7244 determine the syntax type of the character.
7245
7246 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
7247 of the current buffer.
7248
7249 *** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
7250 value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
7251 for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
7252
7253 *** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
7254 and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
7255 only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
7256 character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
7257 another character with the same code (unless quoted).
7258
7259 These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
7260 text property.
7261
7262 *** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
7263 arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
7264 of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
7265
7266 *** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
7267 (and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
7268 element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
7269 nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
7270 string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
7271
7272 *** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
7273 syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
7274 `font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
7275
7276 ** Changes in face features
7277
7278 *** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
7279 if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
7280
7281 *** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
7282 of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
7283
7284 *** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
7285 set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
7286
7287 *** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
7288 set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
7289
7290 *** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
7291 by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
7292 and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
7293 the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
7294 overlay property).
7295
7296 This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
7297 arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
7298
7299 ** Changes in file-handling functions
7300
7301 *** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
7302 directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
7303 they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
7304 is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
7305
7306 This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
7307 begins with ~.
7308
7309 *** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
7310 it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
7311
7312 *** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
7313 the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
7314
7315 *** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
7316 as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
7317
7318 *** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
7319 character code conversion as well as other things.
7320
7321 Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
7322 (formerly it did not).
7323
7324 *** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
7325 environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
7326
7327 *** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
7328 instead of constant strings.
7329
7330 *** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
7331 to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
7332 any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
7333
7334 substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
7335 in the same way as before.
7336
7337 *** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
7338 The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
7339 which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
7340
7341 *** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
7342 error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
7343 else, and returns nil.
7344
7345 *** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
7346 directory cannot be listed.
7347
7348 ** Changes in minibuffer input
7349
7350 *** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
7351 read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
7352 additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
7353 argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
7354 ways:
7355
7356 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
7357 It is available through the history command M-n.
7358
7359 *** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
7360 read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
7361 argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
7362 minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
7363 enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
7364
7365 In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
7366 argument in this way.
7367
7368 *** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
7369 from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
7370 minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
7371
7372 ** Echo area features
7373
7374 *** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
7375 echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
7376 minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
7377 after the echo area is cleared.
7378
7379 *** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
7380 in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
7381
7382 ** Keyboard input features
7383
7384 *** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
7385 set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
7386
7387 *** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
7388 received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
7389 by keyboard macros.
7390
7391 ** Frame-related changes
7392
7393 *** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
7394 creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
7395 hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
7396
7397 *** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
7398 the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
7399 has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
7400
7401 *** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
7402 selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
7403 value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
7404 in the selected frame.
7405
7406 *** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
7407 is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
7408 which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
7409
7410 ** X Windows features
7411
7412 *** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
7413 x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
7414 x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
7415
7416 *** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
7417 The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
7418
7419 *** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
7420 MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
7421 A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
7422
7423 If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
7424 it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
7425
7426 ** Subprocess features
7427
7428 *** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
7429 functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
7430 automatically.
7431
7432 *** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
7433 and returns the output from the command as a string.
7434
7435 *** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
7436 and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
7437
7438 ** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
7439 does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
7440
7441 ** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
7442 at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
7443 goes after the other menu items.
7444
7445 ** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
7446 of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
7447 around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
7448 are in use.
7449
7450 The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
7451 series of several changes--if that seems safe.
7452
7453 Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
7454 after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
7455 form.
7456
7457 ** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
7458 is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
7459 but its hook is still run.
7460
7461 ** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
7462 for errors that are handled by condition-case.
7463
7464 If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
7465 regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
7466 useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
7467
7468 This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
7469 are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
7470 filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
7471 warned.
7472
7473 ** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
7474 way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
7475
7476 ** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
7477 integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
7478 functions like display-time.
7479
7480 ** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
7481 name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
7482
7483 ** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
7484 can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
7485 is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
7486
7487 ** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
7488 if there is an error in compilation.
7489
7490 ** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
7491 switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
7492 argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
7493 they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
7494
7495 ** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
7496 Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
7497 the *scratch* buffer.
7498
7499 ** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
7500 The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
7501 where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
7502 e.g., in Font Lock mode.
7503
7504 ** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
7505 and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
7506 It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
7507
7508 ** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
7509 using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
7510 variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
7511 and compose-mail-other-frame.
7512
7513 ** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
7514 can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
7515 full name of the specified user will be returned.
7516
7517 ** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
7518 of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
7519 where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
7520 in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
7521 option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
7522 files at all.
7523
7524 ** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
7525 and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
7526 width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
7527 the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
7528
7529 For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
7530 minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
7531 with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
7532 is how %S normally pads to two positions.
7533
7534 ** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
7535
7536 ** imenu.el changes.
7537
7538 You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
7539 item from menu created by imenu.
7540
7541 An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
7542 #include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
7543 select one of those items.
7544 \f
7545 * Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
7546 \f
7547 * Changes in Emacs 19.33.
7548
7549 ** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
7550 mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
7551
7552 ** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
7553 use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
7554 Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
7555 \f
7556 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
7557
7558 ** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
7559 To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
7560
7561 ** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
7562 conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
7563 matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
7564 expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
7565 word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
7566 all caps.
7567
7568 ** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
7569 at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
7570
7571 When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
7572 does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
7573 as in previous Emacs versions.
7574
7575 ** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
7576 non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
7577 time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
7578 frames.
7579
7580 ** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
7581 if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
7582 This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
7583 Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
7584 accident.
7585
7586 ** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
7587 keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
7588 It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
7589 line and then executing the macro.
7590
7591 This command is not new, but was never documented before.
7592
7593 ** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
7594 (something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
7595 characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
7596 characters.
7597
7598 ** Font Lock mode
7599
7600 *** Font Lock support modes
7601
7602 Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
7603 below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
7604 hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
7605 to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
7606 Font Lock mode is enabled.
7607
7608 For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
7609
7610 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
7611
7612 in your ~/.emacs.
7613
7614 *** lazy-lock
7615
7616 The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
7617 only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
7618 becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
7619 Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
7620 occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
7621 buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
7622 Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
7623
7624 To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
7625
7626 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
7627
7628 To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
7629
7630 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
7631
7632 *** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
7633 paren and key.
7634
7635 *** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
7636 supported.
7637
7638 ** Gnus changes.
7639
7640 Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
7641 commands and variables have been added. There should be no
7642 significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
7643 previously released version, except in the message composition area.
7644
7645 Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
7646 between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
7647
7648 *** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
7649 variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
7650 obsolete.
7651
7652 *** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
7653 missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
7654
7655 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
7656
7657 *** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
7658
7659 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
7660
7661 *** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
7662 referred.
7663
7664 *** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
7665
7666 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
7667
7668 *** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
7669
7670 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
7671
7672 *** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
7673 buffers.
7674
7675 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
7676
7677 *** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
7678
7679 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
7680
7681 *** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
7682
7683 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
7684
7685 *** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
7686
7687 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
7688
7689 *** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
7690 is possible.
7691
7692 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
7693
7694 *** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
7695 groups of groups.
7696
7697 *** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
7698
7699 *** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
7700 batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
7701
7702 *** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
7703
7704 *** The Gnus cache is much faster.
7705
7706 *** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
7707
7708 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
7709
7710 *** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
7711 expiration times.
7712
7713 *** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
7714
7715 *** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
7716 process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
7717
7718 *** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
7719 articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
7720 bound to keys on the `/' submap.
7721
7722 *** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
7723 articles with the `*' command.
7724
7725 *** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
7726
7727 *** Article headers can be buttonized.
7728
7729 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
7730
7731 *** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
7732
7733 *** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
7734 `nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
7735
7736 *** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
7737 buffer.
7738
7739 *** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
7740
7741 *** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
7742
7743 *** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
7744
7745 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
7746
7747 *** Groups can be made permanently visible.
7748
7749 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
7750
7751 *** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
7752
7753 *** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
7754
7755 *** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
7756
7757 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
7758 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
7759
7760 *** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
7761 refetching.
7762
7763 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
7764
7765 *** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
7766 buffer to allow easier treatment.
7767
7768 *** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
7769
7770 *** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
7771
7772 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
7773
7774 *** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
7775 articles.
7776
7777 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
7778
7779 *** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
7780
7781 *** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
7782 cited text to hide is now customizable.
7783
7784 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
7785
7786 *** Boring headers can be hidden.
7787
7788 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
7789
7790 *** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
7791
7792 *** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
7793
7794 The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
7795 in greater detail.
7796 \f
7797 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
7798
7799 ** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
7800 second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
7801 asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
7802 exists.
7803
7804 ** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
7805 as well as lists.
7806
7807 ** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
7808 of a given keymap.
7809
7810 ** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
7811 given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
7812 keymap or nil.
7813
7814 ** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
7815 an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
7816 name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
7817 menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
7818 equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
7819 alias.
7820 \f
7821 * Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
7822
7823 ** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
7824
7825 Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
7826 This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
7827 was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
7828 far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
7829 pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
7830
7831 For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
7832 you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
7833 `http://www.vtw.org/'.
7834
7835 ** A note about C mode indentation customization.
7836
7837 The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
7838 do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
7839 It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
7840 much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
7841 chapter of the manual for details.
7842
7843 However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
7844 customization variables take effect.
7845
7846 ** Marking with the mouse.
7847
7848 When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
7849 highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
7850 using M-x transient-mark-mode.
7851
7852 ** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
7853
7854 *** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
7855
7856 *** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
7857 to work on NT only and not on 95.)
7858
7859 *** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
7860 in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
7861 you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
7862 application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
7863 applications, these problems are significant.
7864
7865 If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
7866 likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
7867 However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
7868 will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
7869 other DOS application as a subprocess.
7870
7871 Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
7872 You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
7873
7874 If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
7875 subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
7876 have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
7877 Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
7878 separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
7879 Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
7880
7881 ** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
7882
7883 This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
7884 which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
7885 minibuffer contains.
7886
7887 ** `title' frame parameter and resource.
7888
7889 The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
7890 It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
7891 It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
7892 affects just the displayed title of the frame.
7893
7894 The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
7895 it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
7896 and also serves as the default for the displayed title
7897 when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
7898
7899 ** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
7900 enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
7901
7902 ** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
7903 F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
7904 Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
7905
7906 If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
7907 menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
7908 something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
7909 the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
7910
7911 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
7912
7913 ** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
7914 to replace the characters it "deletes".
7915
7916 ** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
7917
7918 ** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
7919 a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
7920 select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
7921 It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
7922 immediately after the selected one.
7923
7924 This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
7925 made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
7926
7927 ** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
7928
7929 Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
7930 directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
7931 If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
7932 Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
7933 recover-session.
7934
7935 You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
7936 auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
7937 will not work.
7938
7939 Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
7940 normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
7941 this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
7942 bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
7943 now that the bug is fixed.
7944
7945 ** Changes to Version Control (VC)
7946
7947 There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
7948 when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
7949 Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
7950 which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
7951
7952 If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
7953 telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
7954 VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
7955 the link is visited and a warning displayed.
7956
7957 ** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
7958 Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
7959 is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
7960
7961 There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
7962 Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
7963 enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
7964 The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
7965 remain normal.
7966
7967 ** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
7968 header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
7969
7970 Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
7971 known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
7972 offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
7973 Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
7974
7975 Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
7976 of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
7977 a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
7978 name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
7979 documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
7980 `mail-directory-stream'.)
7981
7982 ** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
7983 skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
7984 characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
7985 with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
7986
7987 Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
7988 - to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
7989 wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
7990
7991 The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
7992 less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
7993 headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
7994 Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
7995 Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
7996 fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
7997 to a limitation in font-lock).
7998
7999 External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
8000
8001 ** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
8002 buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
8003 buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
8004 this example:
8005
8006 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
8007 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
8008
8009 ** Changes in BibTeX mode.
8010
8011 *** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
8012
8013 *** Font Lock mode is now supported.
8014
8015 *** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
8016
8017 *** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
8018 entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
8019 will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
8020 isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
8021 (bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
8022 The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
8023
8024 *** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
8025 does the same job.
8026
8027 *** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
8028 "Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
8029
8030 *** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
8031 text.
8032
8033 ** Font Lock mode
8034
8035 *** Global Font Lock mode
8036
8037 Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
8038 new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
8039 font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
8040 turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
8041 on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
8042
8043 For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
8044
8045 (global-font-lock-mode t)
8046
8047 in your ~/.emacs.
8048
8049 *** Local Refontification
8050
8051 In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
8052 However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
8053 those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
8054 command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
8055
8056 In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
8057 (The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
8058 current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
8059 above and below point.
8060
8061 With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
8062
8063 ** Follow mode
8064
8065 Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
8066 buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
8067 side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
8068 they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
8069 split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
8070 follow-mode.
8071
8072 M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
8073
8074 To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
8075 command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
8076
8077 ** hide-show changes.
8078
8079 The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
8080 to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
8081 normal hooks.
8082
8083 ** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
8084 The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
8085
8086 ** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
8087 recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
8088 those that begin a function, record, or macro.
8089
8090 ** MSDOS Changes
8091
8092 *** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
8093 Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
8094
8095 *** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
8096 and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
8097
8098 *** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
8099
8100 *** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
8101 pressing both mouse buttons.
8102
8103 *** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
8104 restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
8105 are:
8106
8107 **** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
8108 now works.
8109
8110 **** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
8111
8112 **** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
8113 implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
8114
8115 **** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
8116
8117 **** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
8118
8119 **** `M-x recover-session' works.
8120
8121 **** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
8122
8123 **** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
8124 \f
8125 * Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
8126
8127 ** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
8128 tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
8129 remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
8130 this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
8131 behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
8132
8133 ** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
8134
8135 The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
8136 not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
8137 need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
8138 be different.
8139
8140 It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
8141 than `system-type'.
8142
8143 See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
8144
8145 ** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
8146 now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
8147
8148 ** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
8149 that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
8150
8151 ** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
8152 no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
8153 reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
8154
8155 The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
8156 to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
8157 like this:
8158
8159 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8160
8161 SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
8162 It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
8163 becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
8164
8165 REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
8166 seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
8167 means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
8168
8169 *** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
8170 up if too much time passes.
8171
8172 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
8173
8174 This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
8175 If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
8176 of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
8177 form in BODY.
8178
8179 *** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
8180 a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
8181 call looks like this:
8182
8183 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
8184
8185 SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
8186 runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
8187 timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
8188 ARGS.
8189
8190 Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
8191 command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
8192 command.
8193
8194 REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
8195 time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
8196 does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
8197 each time Emacs becomes idle.
8198
8199 If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
8200 idle for SECS seconds.
8201
8202 *** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
8203 all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
8204 programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
8205 instead.
8206
8207 *** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
8208 there is no answer within a certain time.
8209
8210 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
8211
8212 asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
8213 within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
8214 Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
8215
8216 ** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
8217 arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
8218 meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
8219 arguments in between are ignored.
8220
8221 This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
8222 the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
8223
8224 ** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
8225 /usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
8226 /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
8227 site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
8228 version.
8229
8230 It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
8231 version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
8232 for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
8233 has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
8234 and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
8235 problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
8236
8237 ** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
8238 .abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
8239 systems with limited file name syntax.
8240
8241 Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
8242 convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
8243 for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
8244 completions.el:
8245
8246 (defvar save-completions-file-name
8247 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
8248 "*The filename to save completions to.")
8249
8250 This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
8251 depends on the operating system, because the definition of
8252 convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
8253 Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
8254 MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
8255
8256 ** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
8257 rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
8258 minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
8259
8260 ** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
8261 marker from its buffer position.
8262
8263 ** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
8264 Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
8265 The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
8266
8267 ** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
8268 that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
8269 condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
8270 of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
8271 matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
8272 regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
8273
8274 This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
8275 errors that happen often during editing.
8276
8277 ** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
8278 into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
8279 puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
8280
8281 ** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
8282 now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
8283
8284 ** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
8285 a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
8286 name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
8287 to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
8288 and not get-buffer-window.
8289
8290 ** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
8291 calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
8292 being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
8293
8294 If you use this feature, you should set the variable
8295 buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
8296 property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
8297 non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
8298 are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
8299 property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
8300 over and over for the same text.
8301
8302 ** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
8303
8304 *** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
8305 in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
8306
8307 ;; @(#) HEADER: text
8308 ;; $HEADER: text $
8309
8310 in addition to the normal
8311
8312 ;; HEADER: text
8313
8314 *** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
8315 checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
8316 lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
8317 \f
8318 * For older news, see the file ONEWS.
8319
8320 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
8321 Copyright information:
8322
8323 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
8324
8325 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
8326 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
8327 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
8328 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
8329
8330 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
8331 of this document, or of portions of it,
8332 under the above conditions, provided also that they
8333 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
8334 \f
8335 Local variables:
8336 mode: outline
8337 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
8338 end: