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1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17 \f
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
19
20 ** Emacs can be compiled with Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
21 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
22 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
23 --without-gconf.
24
25 ** Emacs can be compiled with GnuTLS support.
26 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
27 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
28 `--without-gnutls'. See below for GnuTLS features.
29
30 ** Emacs can be compiled with SELinux support.
31 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
32 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
33 `--without-selinux'. See below for SELinux features.
34
35 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
36 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
37 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
38 `--without-imagemagick'. See below for ImageMagick features.
39 This feature is not available for the Nextstep or MS ports.
40
41 ** Emacs can be compiled with libxml2 support.
42 This happens by default if a suitably recent version of the library is
43 found at build time. To prevent this, use the configure option
44 `--without-xml2'. See below for libxml2 features.
45
46 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
47 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
48
49 ** New configure option --with-wide-int.
50 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
51 On 32-bit hosts, this raises the limit on buffer sizes from about 512 MiB
52 to about 2 GiB.
53
54 ** New configure options: --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
55 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
56 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
57
58 ** New configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
59 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
60 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
61
62 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
63 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
64
65 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
66 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
67
68 \f
69 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
70
71 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
72 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
73 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
74
75 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
76 from load-path. -Q now implies this. This option does not affect the
77 EMACSLOADPATH environment variable (and hence has no effect for
78 Nextstep builds).
79
80 \f
81 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
82
83 ** Completion
84
85 *** Many packages now use the `completion-at-point' command,
86 rather than implementing separate completion commands.
87
88 *** `completion-at-point' now handles tags and semantic completion.
89
90 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
91 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
92
93 *** New option `completion-cycle-threshold' allows completion cycling.
94
95 *** New option `completion-category-overrides' for overriding the
96 default completion style in certain circumstances.
97
98 *** New completion style `substring'.
99
100 *** Completion of buffer names uses `substring' completion by default.
101
102 *** The option `widget-complete-field' has been removed.
103
104 ** Mail changes
105
106 *** The first time you try sending mail, Emacs asks for a mail method.
107 This is implemented by a new default for `send-mail-function', which
108 is `sendmail-query-once'. This offers to use the smtpmail package, or
109 to use the old defaults relying on external mail facilities
110 (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems, and
111 `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
112
113 *** Typing C-c m in the buffer made by M-x report-emacs-bug transfers
114 the report to your desktop's preferred mail client, if there is one.
115 This uses either the "xdg-email" utility, or Mac OS's "open" command.
116
117 *** See Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages for SMTPmail changes
118 and Mail mode changes
119
120 ** Emacs server and client changes
121
122 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port for TCP Emacs servers.
123
124 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
125
126 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters specifies the frame
127 parameters of any newly-created graphical frame.
128
129 *** If emacsclient shuts down due to Emacs signaling an error,
130 its exit status is 1.
131
132 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
133 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
134 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
135
136 ** Internationalization changes
137
138 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
139 Right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew, are
140 displayed in the correct visual order as expected by users of those
141 scripts. The display reordering is a "full bidirectionality" class
142 implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm (UBA). Buffers
143 with no RTL text should look exactly the same as before.
144
145 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
146 To disable display reordering in a buffer, change this to nil.
147
148 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
149 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
150 paragraph from its text, as specified by the UBA. Setting the value
151 to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a base direction on each
152 paragraph.
153
154 Paragraphs with right-to-left base direction are displayed starting at
155 the right window edge.
156
157 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts,
158 or, on text terminals, characters that cannot be encoded by the
159 terminal coding system. The new option `glyphless-char-display-control'
160 specifies how to display them: as a hexadecimal code in a box, a thin
161 1-pixel space, an empty box, etc.
162
163 *** New input methods: farsi, farsi-translit, bulgarian-alt-phonetic.
164
165 *** `nobreak-char-display' now also highlights Unicode hyphen chars
166 (U+2010 and U+2011).
167
168 *** New Hebrew translation of the Emacs Tutorial.
169 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
170 automatically select it.
171
172 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
173 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
174 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
175
176 *** M-x list-packages shows a list of packages, which can be
177 selected for installation.
178
179 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
180
181 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded automatically when
182 Emacs starts up. To disable this, set `package-enable-at-startup' to
183 nil. To specify the packages to load, customize `package-load-list'.
184
185 ** Custom theme changes
186
187 *** New command `M-x customize-themes', which provides a convenient
188 interface for enabling and disabling Custom themes.
189
190 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
191 Emacs no longer looks for Custom themes in `load-path'. The default
192 value of `custom-theme-load-path' says to look for themes in
193 `custom-theme-directory', followed by a subdirectory of
194 `data-directory' named "themes/", which contains a small selection of
195 built-in Custom themes.
196
197 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
198 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
199 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
200 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
201
202 ** Improved GTK integration
203
204 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
205 The function `set-scroll-bar-mode' can change this.
206
207 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
208 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose the style. On a Gnome desktop,
209 the default is taken from desktop settings.
210
211 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on any edge of the frame.
212 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the
213 values top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has
214 entries for this.
215
216 *** The default colors for selected text (the `region' face) are taken
217 from the GTK theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
218
219 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.
220 You can disable this by changing `x-gtk-use-system-tooltips' to nil.
221
222 ** Graphical interface changes
223
224 *** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
225 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
226 displayed as a space.
227
228 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
229 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
230
231 *** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is
232 built with Xft. These fonts can be set via X resources, for example:
233 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
234
235 ** Exiting changes
236
237 *** Emacs now calls `kill-emacs' if it receives SIGTERM or SIGHUP,
238 or if it receives a SIGINT signal in batch mode.
239
240 *** `kill-emacs-hook' is now also run in batch mode.
241 Third-party code which adds to `kill-emacs-hook' should check if they
242 do the right thing in batch mode.
243
244 ** Scrolling changes
245
246 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
247 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
248 of buffer at first key-press (instead they move to top/bottom of buffer)
249 when `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
250
251 *** New option `scroll-error-top-bottom' (see above).
252
253 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
254 scroll a line instead of full screen.
255
256 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
257 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
258
259 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
260 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
261 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
262 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
263 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
264
265 *** "Aggressive" scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
266 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
267 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
268 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
269 margin.
270
271 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
272 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
273
274 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up.
275 Also, the function `copy-file' has an extra optional argument for
276 preserving SELinux context, and the return value of `backup-buffer'
277 now includes the SELinux context.
278
279 *** New functions `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
280 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
281
282 ** Trash changes
283
284 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
285 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
286
287 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
288 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
289
290 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
291
292 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
293 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
294 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
295 subdirectories.
296
297 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
298 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
299 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
300 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
301 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
302
303 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
304 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
305
306 *** The variable `inhibit-first-line-modes-regexps' has been renamed
307 to `inhibit-local-variables-regexps'. As the name suggests, it now
308 applies to ALL file local variables, not just -*- lines. The
309 associated `inhibit-first-line-modes-suffixes' has been renamed in the
310 corresponding way.
311
312 ** Window changes
313
314 *** The `quit-window' command now restores the last buffer displayed
315 in the quitted window.
316
317 *** Resizing an Emacs frame now preserves proportional window sizes,
318 modulo restrictions like window minimum sizes and fixed-size windows.
319
320 *** The behavior of `display-buffer' is now customizable in detail.
321
322 **** New option `display-buffer-base-action' specifies a list of
323 user-determined display "actions" (functions and optional arguments
324 for choosing the displaying window).
325
326 This takes precedence over the default display action, which is
327 specified by `display-buffer-fallback-action'.
328
329 **** New option `display-buffer-alist' maps buffer name regexps to
330 display actions, taking precedence over `display-buffer-base-action'.
331
332 *** New option `window-combination-limit'.
333 The new option `window-combination-limit' allows to return the space
334 obtained for resizing or creating a window more reliably to the window
335 from which such space was obtained.
336
337 *** New option `window-combination-resize'.
338 The new option `window-combination-resize' allows to split a window that
339 otherwise cannot be split because it's too small by stealing space from
340 other windows in the same combination. Subsequent resizing or deletion
341 of the window will resize all windows in the same combination as well.
342
343 *** New option `frame-auto-hide-function' lets you choose between
344 iconifying or deleting a frame when burying a buffer in a dedicated
345 frame, or quitting a window showing a buffer in a frame of its own.
346
347 *** New commands `maximize-window' and `minimize-window'.
348 These maximize and minimize the size of a window within its frame.
349
350 *** New commands `switch-to-prev-buffer' and `switch-to-next-buffer'.
351 These functions allow to navigate through the live buffers that have
352 been shown in a specific window.
353
354 ** Minibuffer changes
355
356 *** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
357 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the feature
358 where mouse-1 pops up *Messages*"', which can now easily be changed.
359
360 *** Minibuffers set `truncate-lines' to nil.
361 If you want to change the value to something else, you could use
362 for example `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
363
364 ** `auto-mode-case-fold' is now enabled by default.
365
366 ** `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' now defaults to t.
367
368 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success'.
369 These are used to highlight text indicating failure, caution or
370 successful operation.
371
372 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
373 for `list-colors-display'.
374
375 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
376
377 \f
378 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
379
380 ** Search changes
381
382 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-kill', instead of
383 `isearch-yank-line'.
384
385 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-pop', instead of
386 `isearch-yank-kill'.
387
388 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to `isearch-yank-line'.
389
390 ** New commands `count-words-region' and `count-words'.
391
392 *** M-= is bound to `count-words-region', not `count-lines-region'.
393 The `count-words-region' command, when called interactively, reports
394 the number of lines, words, and characters in the region. It is a
395 superset of the old `count-lines-region', which is now an obsolete
396 alias for it.
397
398 ** The command `just-one-space' (M-SPC), if given a negative argument,
399 also deletes newlines around point.
400
401 ** Deletion changes
402
403 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
404 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
405 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', those commands kill
406 instead.
407
408 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
409 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
410 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
411
412 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
413 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
414 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; Lisp
415 callers should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
416
417 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
418
419 ** Selection changes.
420
421 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
422 changed to conform with modern X applications. In short, most
423 commands for killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while
424 mouse commands use the primary selection.
425
426 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
427 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
428
429 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
430 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
431 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
432 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
433
434 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
435 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
436 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
437 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
438 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
439
440 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
441
442 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
443 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
444 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
445
446 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
447
448 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
449 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
450 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
451
452 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
453 exactly equivalent to M-w, C-w, and C-y respectively.
454
455 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
456 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
457 between applications.
458
459 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
460
461 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
462 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
463 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
464 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
465 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
466
467 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
468
469 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
470 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
471
472 ** New command `C-x r N' (`rectangle-number-lines') numbers the lines
473 in the current rectangle. With a prefix argument, this prompts for a
474 number to count from and for a format string.
475
476 ** `redisplay-dont-pause' now defaults to t.
477 This makes Emacs feel more responsive to editing commands that arrive
478 at high rate, e.g. if you lean on some key, because stopping redisplay
479 in the middle (when this variable is nil) forces more expensive
480 updates later on, and Emacs appears to be unable to keep up.
481
482 ** The behavior of <TAB> for active regions in Text mode has changed.
483 In Text and related modes, typing <TAB> (`indent-for-tab-command')
484 when the region is active causes Emacs to indent all the lines in the
485 region, aligning them with the line previous to the first line in the
486 region (or with the left margin if there is no previous line).
487
488 ** When `occur' is called with a prefix argument, matching strings are
489 collected into the `*Occur*' buffer without line numbers. If there
490 are parenthesized subexpressions in the specified regexp, `occur'
491 reads replacement text that may contain \\& and \\N whose convention
492 follows `replace-match'.
493
494 \f
495 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
496
497 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
498
499 ** BibTeX mode
500
501 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
502 Use the variable `bibtex-dialect' to select different BibTeX dialects.
503 `bibtex-entry-field-alist' is now an obsolete alias for
504 `bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist'.
505
506 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries', bound to C-c C-a.
507
508 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
509
510 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
511
512 ** Browse-url
513
514 *** New option `browse-url-mailto-function' specifies how to handle "mailto:"s.
515
516 *** The default browser used by the package is now the "xdg-open" program,
517 on platforms that support it. This calls your desktop's preferred browser.
518
519 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
520
521 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing "comments".
522 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
523
524 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
525 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
526
527 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
528 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
529 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
530
531 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
532
533 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
534 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
535
536 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt
537 package by adding `appt-make-list' to `diary-hook' has been removed.
538 Use `appt-activate' instead.
539
540 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
541 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
542 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
543
544 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
545 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
546
547 ** CC Mode
548
549 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
550 The main entry point is M-x c-guess.
551
552 *** Java Mode now supports Java 5.0 (Tiger) and 6 (Mustang).
553
554 *** `c-beginning-of-defun' and `c-end-of-defun' now respect nested scopes.
555 Thus C-M-a will, by default, go to the beginning of the immediate function,
556 not the top level.
557
558 *** "Macros with semicolons" can be registered for correct indentation.
559 Where such a macro ends a line (no semicolon) the next statement is no longer
560 parsed as a statement continuation.
561
562 ** Comint and modes derived from it use the standard completion code.
563
564 ** Compilation mode
565
566 *** Compilation mode can be used without Font Lock mode.
567 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
568
569 *** New variable `compilation-filter-start', which is bound while
570 `compilation-filter-hook' runs. It records the start position of the
571 text inserted by `compilation-filter'.
572
573 *** `compilation-error-screen-columns' and `compilation-first-column'
574 are obeyed in the editing buffer. So programming language modes can
575 set them, whereas previously only the value in the *Compilation*
576 buffer was used.
577
578 ** Customize
579
580 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
581 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
582 To turn off the search field, set `custom-search-field' to nil.
583
584 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
585 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
586
587 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
588
589 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
590 choose a color via `list-colors-display'.
591
592 ** D-Bus
593
594 *** It is now possible to access buses other than the default system
595 or session bus.
596
597 *** The `dbus-register-method' and `dbus-register-property' functions
598 optionally do not register names.
599
600 *** The new function `dbus-register-service' registers a known service
601 name on a D-Bus without also registering a property or a method.
602
603 ** Dired-x
604
605 *** C-x C-j (`dired-jump') and C-x 4 C-j (`dired-jump-other-window'),
606 if called with a prefix argument, read a file name from the minibuffer
607 instead of using the current buffer.
608
609 *** The "dired local variables" feature of Dired-x is obsolete.
610 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
611
612 ** ERC changes
613
614 *** New options `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay',
615 controlling attempts to autojoin a channel.
616
617 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
618 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
619 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
620 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
621
622 ** Eshell changes
623
624 *** The default value of `eshell-directory-name' has changed
625 to be an "eshell" directory in `user-emacs-directory'.
626 The old "~/.eshell/" directory is still used if it exists, though.
627
628 ** gdb-mi
629
630 *** The M-x gdb command now uses the GDB Machine Interface protocol.
631 It now supports multithread non-stop debugging and simultaneous
632 debugging of several threads.
633
634 ** Image mode
635
636 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if applicable.
637 Animation plays once, unless the option `image-animate-loop' is non-nil.
638
639 ** Info
640
641 *** New command M-x info-display-manual displays a named Info manual.
642 If that manual is already visited in some Info buffer, it displays
643 that buffer. (This is handy if you have many manuals in many *info*
644 buffers, and don't remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual
645 you want to consult.) Otherwise, it loads and displays the manual.
646
647 *** `e' is now bound to `end-of-buffer' rather than to `Info-edit'.
648 This is for compatibility with the stand-alone Info reader program,
649 and also because `Info-edit' is a rarely used command that is disabled
650 by default.
651
652 ** Mail mode changes (not Message mode)
653
654 *** New command M-x mail-add-attachment for adding MIME attachments
655
656 *** The command M-x mail-attach-file was renamed to M-x mail-insert-file.
657 (Its name is misleading, since it has nothing to do with MIME
658 attachments.) The old name is now an obsolete alias to the new name.
659
660 ** MH-E has been updated to MH-E version 8.3.1.
661 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
662
663 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
664
665 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
666
667 ** nXML mode no longer binds C-RET to `nxml-complete'.
668 Completion is now performed via `completion-at-point', bound to C-M-i
669 or M-TAB. If `nxml-bind-meta-tab-to-complete-flag' is non-nil (the
670 default), this performs tag completion.
671
672 ** Org mode has been updated to version 7.8.09.
673 See ORG-NEWS for details.
674
675 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
676 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity,
677 support for more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
678
679 ** Rmail
680
681 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
682 in the Rmail incoming message.
683
684 *** The variable `rmail-message-filter' no longer has any effect.
685 This change was made in Emacs 23.1 but was not advertised at the time.
686 Try using `rmail-show-message-hook' instead.
687
688 ** Shell mode
689
690 *** M-x shell prompts for the shell path name if the default directory
691 is a remote file name and neither the environment variable $ESHELL nor
692 the variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
693
694 *** TAB is now bound to the standard `completion-at-point' command,
695 which now implements the pcomplete rules for shell command completion.
696
697 ** SMTPmail
698
699 *** SMTPmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) by default
700 if the mail server supports them. This uses either built-in GnuTLS
701 support, or the starttls.el library. Customize `smtpmail-stream-type'
702 to change this.
703
704 *** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
705 By default, the information is now stored in the file ~/.authinfo.
706 This was the default value of smtpmail-auth-credentials. If you had
707 customized smtpmail-auth-credentials to a list of user names and
708 passwords, those settings are not used. During your first connection
709 to the smtp server, Emacs will prompt for the user name and password,
710 and offer to save them to ~/.authinfo. Or you can manually copy the
711 credentials to ~/.authinfo. For example, if you had
712
713 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
714 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
715
716 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
717
718 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
719
720 See the auth-source manual for more information, e.g. on encrypting
721 the credentials file.
722
723 *** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
724 If you had that set, you need to put
725
726 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
727
728 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
729
730 ** SQL mode
731
732 *** New options `sql-port', `sql-connection-alist', `sql-send-terminator',
733 and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
734
735 *** New options controlling prompting for login parameters.
736 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
737 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
738 connection is established.
739
740 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
741 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product.
742
743 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix arguments.
744 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
745 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
746 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
747
748 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
749 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
750 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
751 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
752 second prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from listing
753 object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*' functions.
754
755 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
756 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
757
758 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
759 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
760 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
761
762 *** New commands for listing database objects and details:
763 sql-list-all and sql-list-table.
764
765 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
766
767 ** TeX modes
768
769 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
770
771 ** Tramp
772
773 *** New inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
774
775 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
776 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
777
778 *** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
779 remote file attributes are cached for better performance.
780
781 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
782 default value to "".
783
784 *** Handlers for `file-selinux-context' and `set-file-selinux-context'
785 for remote machines which support SELinux.
786
787 ** New function `url-queue-retrieve', which behaves like url-retrieve,
788 but with limits (`url-queue-parallel-processes', `url-queue-timeout') on
789 the degree of parallelism.
790
791 ** VC and related modes
792
793 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
794 The command C-x v + (`vc-pull') runs a "pull" operation, if it is
795 supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to update the
796 current branch and working tree. A prefix argument means to prompt
797 the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
798
799 *** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
800
801 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
802 The command C-x v m (`vc-merge') now runs a "merge" operation, if it
803 is supported (currently with Bzr, Git, and Mercurial), to merge
804 changes from another branch into the current one. It prompts for
805 specifics, e.g. a merge source.
806
807 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
808 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
809
810 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
811 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
812 This is currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial (to support
813 another backend, define a `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function').
814 In the Log View buffers made by C-x v L (`vc-print-root-log'), you can
815 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
816
817 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
818 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
819
820 *** The option `vc-initial-comment' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but
821 this was not advertised at the time.
822
823 *** `vc-toggle-read-only' is an obsolete alias for `toggle-read-only'.
824 Since Emacs 23, it has done the same thing as `toggle-read-only', but
825 this was not advertised at the time.
826
827 ** Obsolete modes
828
829 *** abbrevlist.el
830
831 *** erc-hecomplete.el (use erc-pcomplete.el instead)
832
833 *** partial-completion-mode (complete.el) is obsolete.
834 You can get a comparable behavior with:
835 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
836 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
837
838 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete (CUA mode is much more comprehensive).
839
840 *** pgg is obsolete (use EasyPG instead).
841
842 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
843
844 *** s-region.el and pc-select.el are obsolete.
845 They are superseded by shift-select-mode, enabled by default since 23.1.
846
847 *** vc-mcvs.el is obsolete (for lack of a maintainer).
848
849 ** Miscellaneous
850
851 *** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
852 Its functions and variables have been similarly renamed.
853
854 *** In `ido-file-completion-map', C-v is no longer bound to `ido-toggle-vc'.
855 (This interfered with cua-mode.)
856
857 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
858
859 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
860
861 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
862
863 \f
864 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
865
866 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
867 original buffers. It is bound to "e" in Occur mode.
868
869 ** New global minor mode electric-pair-mode.
870 When enabled, typing an open parenthesis automatically inserts the
871 matching closing one.
872
873 ** New global minor mode electric-indent-mode.
874 When enabled, typing certain characters triggers reindentation.
875 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-indent-chars or
876 electric-indent-functions.
877
878 ** New global minor mode electric-layout-mode.
879 When enabled, typing certain characters automatically inserts newlines.
880 Major modes wishing to use this can set electric-layout-rules.
881
882 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
883 from which other modes can be derived.
884
885 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
886
887 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
888 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
889 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
890 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
891 secrets.
892
893 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
894 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
895
896 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
897 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
898
899 ** New generic mode, xmodmap-generic-mode, for xmodmap files.
900
901 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
902 The previous version has been moved to obsolete/old-emacs-lock.el.
903 Now, there is a proper minor mode `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection
904 against exiting Emacs and killing the buffer can be set separately.
905 The mechanism for automatically turning off protection for buffers
906 with dead inferior processes has been generalized.
907
908 \f
909 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
910
911 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function call now ENABLES
912 the minor mode unconditionally. This is so that you can write e.g.
913
914 (add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'foo-mode)
915
916 to enable foo-mode in Text mode buffers, removing the need for
917 `turn-on-foo-mode' style functions. This affects all mode commands
918 defined by `define-minor-mode'. If called interactively, the mode
919 command still toggles the minor mode.
920
921 ** The return value of `backup-buffer' has changed.
922 It is now a list of three elements, where the second element is a list
923 describing the original file's SELinux context. If Emacs or the
924 system lacks SELinux support, the context list is (nil nil nil nil).
925 See "Basic SELinux support" above, under "Changes in Emacs 24.1".
926
927 ** `char-direction-table' and the `char-direction' function were deleted.
928 They were buggy and inferior to the new support of bidirectional
929 editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the bidirectional
930 properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property' with the last
931 argument `bidi-class'.
932
933 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
934 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
935 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
936 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
937
938 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
939 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
940 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
941 of the header line.
942
943 ** Support for "old-style" backquotes, obsolete for 10+ years, has
944 been further reduced. Now a backquote not followed by a space is
945 always treated as a "new-style" backquote. Please remove all
946 "old-style" backquotes from your code. If your code uses backquotes
947 as documented in the Elisp manual, and compiles without warning, then
948 you have nothing to do in this regard. Code not following the
949 appropriate conventions may fail to compile.
950
951 The most common cause of trouble seems to be an old-style backquote
952 followed by a newline. Another cause of trouble is vector notation
953 for key sequence notation: instead of [(control ,)] and [(control ')],
954 you should write [(control ?,)] and [(control ?')], which will work in
955 older Emacsen too.
956
957 ** The macro `eval-at-startup' was removed in Emacs 23.2, but this
958 was not advertised at the time. The function `custom-initialize-delay'
959 replaced all known uses.
960
961 ** `view-buffer' now treats special mode-class in the same way that
962 `view-file' has since Emacs 22 (i.e. it won't enable View mode if the
963 major mode is special).
964
965 ** Menu and tool bar changes
966
967 *** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
968 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
969 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
970 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
971 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
972 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
973
974 *** The menu bar bindings's caches are not used any more.
975 Use (where-is-internal <def> nil t) instead.
976
977 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
978 similar to those created by shift-selection (see Selection changes
979 above). In previous Emacs versions, these regions were delineated by
980 `mouse-drag-overlay'; that variable has been removed.
981
982 ** The fourth argument of `filter-buffer-substring' has been removed.
983 If you want to remove text properties from the final result, simply
984 pass the result through substring-no-properties.
985
986 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
987
988 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases have been removed
989 (the appropriate new function is given in parentheses; "not needed"
990 means you can just remove all calls to the function in question):
991
992 *** `comint-kill-output' (`comint-delete-output')
993 *** `decompose-composite-char' (`char-to-string')
994 *** `outline-visible' (`outline-invisible-p')
995 *** `internal-find-face' (`facep')
996 *** `internal-get-face' (`facep and check-face')
997 *** `frame-update-faces' (not needed)
998 *** `frame-update-face-colors' (`frame-set-background-mode')
999 *** `x-frob-font-weight' and `x-frob-font-slant' (`make-face-*' functions)
1000 *** `x-make-font-bold and x-make-font-demibold (`make-face-bold')
1001 *** `x-make-font-italic' and `x-make-font-oblique' (`make-face-italic')
1002 *** `x-make-font-bold-italic' (`make-face-bold-italic')
1003 *** `x-make-font-unbold' (`make-face-unbold')
1004 *** `x-make-font-unitalic' (`make-face-unitalic')
1005 *** `mldrag-drag-mode-line' (`mouse-drag-mode-line')
1006 *** `mldrag-drag-vertical-line' (`mouse-drag-vertical-line')
1007 *** `iswitchb-default-keybindings' (`iswitchb-mode')
1008 *** `char-bytes' (== 1)
1009 *** `isearch-return-char' (`isearch-printing-char')
1010 *** `make-local-hook' (not needed)
1011 *** `set-screen-height' (`set-frame-height')
1012 *** `set-screen-width' (`set-frame-width')
1013
1014 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases have been removed
1015 (the appropriate new variable is given in parentheses):
1016
1017 *** `checkdoc-minor-keymap' (`checkdoc-minor-mode-map')
1018 *** `vc-header-alist' (`vc-BACKEND-header')
1019 *** `directory-sep-char' (== ?/)
1020 *** `font-lock-defaults-alist' (`font-lock-defaults')
1021 *** `e' (`float-e').
1022
1023 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
1024 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
1025
1026 ** The format of the finder-inf.el file has changed, since the Finder
1027 mechanism is now based on the package system. The variable
1028 `finder-package-info' is replaced by `package--builtins' and
1029 `finder-keywords-hash'.
1030
1031 ** When generating autoloads, `update-directory-autoloads' no longer
1032 assumes every inspected file is in your `load-path'. It instead
1033 generates relative names according to the current `load-path'.
1034
1035 \f
1036 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
1037
1038 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
1039 The `lexical-binding' variable enables lexical scoping for local
1040 variables. It is typically set via a file-local variable in the first
1041 line of the file, in which case it applies to all the code in that
1042 file.
1043
1044 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
1045 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
1046
1047 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
1048 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
1049
1050 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
1051
1052 *** `defvar' and `defconst' now mark the variable as special (dynamic).
1053 So do `defcustom' and other forms that call `defvar' as a subroutine.
1054
1055 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
1056 declared as dynamically bound.
1057
1058 *** The form ((lambda ...) ...) is deprecated.
1059
1060 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
1061 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
1062 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
1063
1064 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
1065
1066 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
1067 This returns the base direction of the paragraph at point.
1068
1069 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
1070 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left scripts, this
1071 function returns another string which can be safely inserted into a
1072 buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
1073 right of that string. (This works by appending an invisible Unicode
1074 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character if the argument string might need it.)
1075
1076 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right paragraph
1077 direction and you need to insert a string whose contents are not known
1078 in advance, without disrupting the layout of the line.
1079
1080 ** Window changes
1081
1082 *** Window tree functions are accessible in Elisp.
1083 Functions are provided to return the parent, siblings or child windows
1084 of any window including internal windows (windows not associated with a
1085 buffer) in the window tree.
1086
1087 **** New function `window-valid-p' gives non-nil for live and internal
1088 windows.
1089
1090 **** Window manipulation can deal with internal windows.
1091 Many window handling functions like `split-window', `delete-window', or
1092 `delete-other-windows' as well as the window resizing functions can now
1093 act on any window including internal ones.
1094
1095 *** window-total-height/-width vs window-body-height/-width.
1096 The function `window-height' has been renamed to `window-total-height'
1097 and `window-width' has been renamed to `window-body-width'. The old
1098 names are provided as aliases. Two new functions `window-total-width'
1099 and `window-body-height' are provided.
1100
1101 *** Window parameters specific to window handling functions.
1102 For each window you can specify a parameter to override the default
1103 behavior of a number of functions like `split-window', `delete-window'
1104 and `delete-other-windows'. The variable `ignore-window-parameters'
1105 allows to ignore processing such parameters.
1106
1107 *** New semantics of third argument of `split-window'.
1108 The third argument of `split-window' has been renamed to SIDE and can be
1109 set to any of the values 'below, 'right, 'above, or 'left to make the
1110 new window appear on the corresponding side of the window that shall be
1111 split. Any other value of SIDE will cause `split-window' to split the
1112 window into two side-by-side windows as before.
1113
1114 *** Window resizing functions.
1115 A new standard function for resizing windows called `window-resize' has
1116 been introduced. This and all other functions for resizing windows no
1117 longer delete any windows when they become too small.
1118
1119 *** Deleting the selected window now selects the most recently selected
1120 live window on that frame instead.
1121
1122 *** `adjust-window-trailing-edge' adjustments.
1123 `adjust-window-trailing-edge' can now deal with fixed-size windows and
1124 is able to resize other windows if a window adjacent to the trailing
1125 edge cannot be shrunk any more. This makes its behavior more similar to
1126 that of Emacs 21 without compromising, however, its inability to delete
1127 windows which was introduced in Emacs 22.
1128
1129 *** Window-local buffer lists.
1130 Windows now have local buffer lists. This means that removing a buffer
1131 from display in a window will preferably show the buffer previously
1132 shown in that window with its previous window-start and window-point
1133 positions. This also means that the same buffer may be automatically
1134 shown twice even if it already appears in another window.
1135
1136 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
1137 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
1138 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
1139 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
1140
1141 *** `split-window-vertically' and `split-window-horizontally' renamed
1142 to `split-window-below' and `split-window-right' respectively.
1143 The old names are kept as aliases.
1144
1145 *** Display actions
1146
1147 **** The second arg to `display-buffer' and `pop-to-buffer' is now
1148 named ACTION, and takes a display action of the same form as
1149 `display-buffer-base-action' (see Changes, above). A non-nil,
1150 non-list value is treated specially, as the old meaning.
1151
1152 **** New variable `display-buffer-overriding-action'.
1153
1154 **** The procedure of `display-buffer' etc. to choose a window is
1155 determined by combining `display-buffer-overriding-action',
1156 `display-buffer-alist', the ACTION arg, `display-buffer-base-action',
1157 and `display-buffer-fallback-action'. The second and fourth of these
1158 are user-customizable variables.
1159
1160 See the docstring of `display-buffer' for details.
1161
1162 *** New functions `window-state-get' and `window-state-put'.
1163 These functions allow to save and restore the state of an arbitrary
1164 frame or window as an Elisp object.
1165
1166 ** Completion
1167
1168 *** New variable `completion-extra-properties' used to specify extra
1169 properties of the current completion:
1170 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
1171 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
1172
1173 *** Functions on `completion-at-point-functions' can return any of the
1174 properties valid for `completion-extra-properties'.
1175
1176 *** `completion-annotate-function' is obsolete.
1177
1178 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
1179 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
1180 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
1181 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
1182 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
1183 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
1184 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
1185
1186 *** `minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map' is not used any more.
1187 Instead, the bindings in `minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map'
1188 are combined with `minibuffer-local-must-match-map'.
1189
1190 *** New variable `completing-read-function' allows overriding the
1191 behavior of `completing-read'.
1192
1193 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
1194 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
1195
1196 ** `pre-command-hook'/`post-command-hook' are not reset to nil on error.
1197 Instead, the offending function is removed.
1198
1199 ** New hook types
1200
1201 *** New function `run-hook-wrapped' for running an abnormal hook by
1202 passing the hook functions as arguments to a "wrapping" function.
1203 Like `run-hook-with-args-until-success', it stops at the first
1204 non-nil return value.
1205
1206 *** New macro `with-wrapper-hook' for running an abnormal hook as a
1207 set of "wrapping" filters, similar to around advice.
1208 (A version of this macro was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not
1209 advertised at the time.)
1210
1211 ** Debugger changes
1212
1213 *** New macro `condition-case-unless-debug' (this was actually added in
1214 Emacs 23.1 as condition-case-no-debug, but not advertised)
1215
1216 *** The macro `with-demoted-errors' was added in Emacs 23.1, but not advertised.
1217
1218 *** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
1219
1220 *** The debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will
1221 jump to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked
1222 instead of jumping all the way to the top-level.
1223
1224 *** Set `debug-on-event' to enter the debugger on events like SIGUSR1.
1225 This can be useful when `inhibit-quit' is set.
1226
1227 ** The new function `server-eval-at' allows evaluation of Lisp forms on
1228 named Emacs server instances.
1229
1230 ** `call-process' and `call-process-region' allow a `(:file "file")' spec
1231 to redirect STDOUT to a file.
1232
1233 ** The function `format-time-string' now supports the %N directive,
1234 for higher-resolution time stamps.
1235
1236 ** New input reading functions
1237
1238 *** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of
1239 characters, discarding any inputs not inside the set.
1240
1241 *** The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name
1242 or RGB triplet, instead of signaling an error if the user provides
1243 invalid input.
1244
1245 **** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
1246
1247 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
1248 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
1249 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
1250 obsolete alias.
1251
1252 ** Syntax parsing changes
1253
1254 *** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
1255 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
1256 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
1257 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
1258 Together with this new variable come a new hook
1259 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
1260 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
1261 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
1262 syntactic rules.
1263
1264 *** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
1265
1266 ** New hook `post-self-insert-hook', run after `self-insert-command'.
1267
1268 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
1269
1270 ** Major and minor mode changes
1271
1272 *** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
1273 as well as those in the -*- line.
1274
1275 *** `prog-mode' is a new major mode from which programming modes
1276 should be derived.
1277
1278 **** `prog-mode-hook' can be used to enable features for programming
1279 modes, e.g. (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode) to enable
1280 on-the-fly spell checking for comments and strings.
1281
1282 *** New hook `change-major-mode-after-body-hook', run by
1283 `run-mode-hooks' just before any other mode hooks.
1284
1285 *** Enabled globalized minor modes can be disabled in specific major modes.
1286 If the global mode is global-FOO-mode, then run (FOO-mode -1) in the
1287 major mode's hook, where FOO-mode toggles the mode on a per-buffer basis.
1288
1289 *** `define-minor-mode' accepts new keywords :variable, :after-hook.
1290
1291 ** File-handling changes
1292
1293 *** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
1294 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
1295 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
1296 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
1297
1298 *** New file predicates: `file-equal-p', `file-in-directory-p'.
1299
1300 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
1301 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
1302 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
1303
1304 ** Image API
1305
1306 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
1307
1308 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
1309
1310 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
1311
1312 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
1313 is being animated.
1314
1315 *** `image-extension-data' has been renamed to `image-metadata'.
1316 The old name is an obsolete alias to the new one.
1317
1318 *** Image mode can view any image type that ImageMagick supports.
1319 This requires Emacs to be built with ImageMagick support.
1320
1321 **** New function `imagemagick-types', defined if ImageMagick support
1322 is enabled, returns a list of image file extensions that your
1323 ImageMagick installation supports.
1324
1325 **** New function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick
1326 image types in Image mode and in `create-image' and other helper
1327 functions.
1328
1329 **** New option `imagemagick-types-inhibit' excludes certain
1330 ImageMagick image types from `imagemagick-register-types'.
1331
1332 **** With ImageMagick support, there are extra Image mode commands to
1333 resize and rotate images: `image-transform-fit-to-height',
1334 `image-transform-fit-to-width', `image-transform-set-rotation', and
1335 `image-transform-set-scale'.
1336
1337 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
1338 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
1339 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail. For
1340 example, this is used by Rmail to optionally delete a mail window.
1341
1342 ** XML and HTML parsing
1343 If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support, there are two new
1344 functions: `libxml-parse-html-region' (which parses "real world" HTML)
1345 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
1346 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
1347
1348 ** Networking and encryption changes
1349
1350 *** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
1351 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
1352 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
1353 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
1354 must also be supplied.
1355
1356 *** New library gnutls.el.
1357 The new function `gnutls-available-p' returns non-nil if Emacs is
1358 built with GnuTLS support. The main entry points are
1359 `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'. It's easiest to use
1360 these functions through `open-network-stream', because that can
1361 upgrade connections through STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain
1362 SSL, depending on your needs. For debugging, set `gnutls-log-level'
1363 greater than 0.
1364
1365 *** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms:
1366 md5, sha1, sha2, sha224, sha256, sha384, and sha512. The lisp library
1367 sha1.el has been removed. The `sha1' feature is provided by default.
1368
1369 ** Isearch
1370
1371 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
1372
1373 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
1374 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
1375 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
1376 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
1377 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
1378 displayed with a "spinning bar".
1379
1380 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
1381 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
1382
1383 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook'.
1384 If delayed-warnings-list is non-nil, the command loop calls
1385 `delayed-warnings-hook' after `post-command-hook'. At present, this
1386 is only used by Emacs on some platforms to display warnings during
1387 startup, which might otherwise not be noticed. This uses the
1388 functions `display-delayed-warnings' and `collapse-delayed-warnings'.
1389
1390 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
1391
1392 ** New function `make-composed-keymap' that constructs a new keymap
1393 from multiple input maps. You can use this to make a keymap that
1394 inherits from multiple maps, eg:
1395 (set-keymap-parent newmap (make-composed-keymap othermap parent))
1396
1397 ** New function `string-prefix-p'.
1398 (This was actually added in Emacs 23.2 but was not advertised at the time.)
1399
1400 ** New reader macro ## that stands for the empty symbol.
1401 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
1402 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
1403 an empty uninterned symbol.
1404
1405 ** New math functions `isnan', `copysign', `frexp', `ldexp'.
1406
1407 ** The following functions and variables are obsolete:
1408
1409 *** `tooltip-use-echo-area' is obsolete.
1410 Rather than setting this to t, disable Tooltip mode instead.
1411
1412 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
1413 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
1414
1415 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
1416
1417 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
1418 Use `post-command-hook' instead.
1419
1420 *** `font-lock-maximum-size' is obsolete.
1421
1422 \f
1423 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
1424
1425 ** On MS Windows, Emacs warns when using the obsolete init file _emacs,
1426 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
1427
1428 ** New configure.bat options
1429
1430 *** --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra runtime checks.
1431
1432 *** --distfiles specifies files to be included in binary distribution.
1433
1434 *** --without-gnutls disables automatic GnuTLS detection.
1435
1436 *** --lib for general library linkage, works with the USER_LIBS build variable.
1437
1438 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
1439
1440 ** The Lisp function `w32-default-color-map' is now obsolete.
1441 (It is only used internally in the Emacs C code.)
1442
1443 ** Customize ns-auto-hide-menu-bar to have the menu-bar hidden, but
1444 reappear on mouse-over. (Requires OS X 10.6 or later.)
1445
1446 ** On Mac OS X, dragging a file into Emacs visits the file, like on
1447 other platforms, rather than inserting its contents into the buffer.
1448
1449 \f
1450 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1451 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1452
1453 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1454 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1455 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1456 (at your option) any later version.
1457
1458 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1459 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1460 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1461 GNU General Public License for more details.
1462
1463 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1464 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1465
1466 \f
1467 Local variables:
1468 mode: outline
1469 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
1470 end: