etc/NEXTSTEP

   1 Copyright (C) 2008-2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   2 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   3
   4 This file contains information about GNU Emacs on "Nextstep" platforms.
   5 The Nextstep support code works on many POSIX systems (and possibly
   6 W32) using the GNUstep libraries, and on MacOS X systems using the
   7 Cocoa libraries.
   8
   9 Background
  10 ----------
  11 Within Emacs, the port and its code are referred to using the term
  12 "Nextstep", despite the fact that no system or API has been released
  13 under this name in more than 10 years.  Here's some background on why:
  14
  15 NeXT, Inc. introduced the NeXTstep API with its computer and operating
  16 system in the late 1980's.  Later on, in collaboration with Sun, this
  17 API was published as a specification called OpenStep.  The GNUstep
  18 project started in the early 1990's to provide a free implementation
  19 of this API.  Later on, Apple bought NeXT (some would say "NeXT bought
  20 Apple") and made OpenStep the basis of OS X, calling the API "Cocoa".
  21 Since then, Cocoa has evolved beyond the OpenStep specification, and
  22 GNUstep has followed it.
  23
  24 Thus, calling this port "OpenStep" is not technically accurate, and in
  25 the absence of any other determinant, we are using the term
  26 "Nextstep", both because it signifies the original inspiration that
  27 created these APIs, and because all of the classes and functions still
  28 begin with the letters "NS".
  29
  30 (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextstep)
  31
  32 This Emacs port was first released in the early 1990's on the NeXT
  33 computer, and was successively updated to OpenStep, Rhapsody, OS X,
  34 and then finally GNUstep, tracking GNU emacs core releases in the
  35 meantime.
  36
  37
  38 Release History
  39 ---------------
  40
  41 1990-1992       1.0-3.0 (?)     Michael Brouwer's socket/terminal communication
  42                                 based version (GUI ran as a separate process.)
  43
  44 1993/10/25      3.0.1           Last (?) release of Brouwer version.  Supports
  45                                 NeXTstep 3.x and below.
  46
  47 1994/04/24      4.0             Carl Edman's version using direct API following
  48                                 the X-Windows port.  NeXTstep 3.x only.
  49
  50 1995/06/15      4.1             Second (and last) Carl Edman release, based on
  51                                 Emacs 19.28.
  52
  53 1996/07/28      4.2             First Christian Limpach release, based on
  54                                 Emacs 19.29.
  55
  56 ??              5.0             ??
  57
  58 1997/12/??      6.0b1           Ported to OpenStep by Scott Bender.  Updated
  59                                 to Emacs 20.2.
  60
  61 ??              6.0b2           (?) Scott Bender: ported to Rhapsody.
  62
  63 1999/05/??      6.0b3           Scott Bender: "OS X Server", Emacs 20.3.
  64
  65 2001/06/25      7.0             Ported to MacOS X (10.1) by Christophe de
  66                                 Dinechin. Release based on Emacs 20.7. Hosting
  67                                 moved to SourceForge.
  68
  69 2002/01/03      7.0.1           Bug fixes.
  70
  71 2002/08/27      7.0.2           Jaguar (OS X 10.2) support. Added an autoconf
  72                                 option for sys_nerr being in stdio. Added
  73                                 libncurses to the build libraries. Fixed a
  74                                 problem with ns-alternate-is-meta. Changed the
  75                                 icon color to blue, since Jaguar is yellow.
  76
  77 2004/10/07      8.0-pre1        Ported to GNUstep by Adrian Robert.
  78
  79 2004/11/04      8.0-pre2        Restored functionality on OS X (menu code
  80                                 cleanup).  Improved scrollbar handling and
  81                                 paste from other applications.  File icons
  82                                 obtained properly from NSWorkspace.  Dropped
  83                                 Gorm and Nib files.  Background refresh bug
  84                                 fixed (in GNUstep).  Various small fixes and
  85                                 code cleanups.  Now starts up under Art.
  86
  87 2005/01/27      8.0-pre3        Bold and italic faces supported.  Cursor and
  88                                 mouse highlighting rendering bugs
  89                                 fixed. Drag/drop and cut/paste interaction
  90                                 w/external apps fixed.  File load/save panels
  91                                 available.  Stability and rendering speed
  92                                 improvements. Some ObjC and VC mode bugs fixed.
  93
  94 2005/02/27      8.0-rc1         Dynamic path detection at startup so Emacs.app
  95                                 can be moved anywhere.  Added binary packages
  96                                 and simplified source installation to running
  97                                 two scripts.  Thorough cleanup of menu code;
  98                                 now fully functional.  Fixed all detected
  99                                 memory leaks.  Minor frame focus and title
 100                                 bugs fixed.
 101
 102 2005/03/30      8.0-rc2         "Configure" info directory now uses dynamic
 103                                 path setting, so info files can go under .app.
 104                                 Improved select() handling and PTY fixes so
 105                                 shell mode and tramp run smoothly.
 106                                 Significant rendering optimizations under
 107                                 GNUstep, and now works under Art backend.
 108                                 Non-Latin text rendering works (but not
 109                                 fontsets), and LEIM is bundled.  UTF8 is used
 110                                 for clipboard interaction.
 111                                 Arrow cursor now used on scrollbar.
 112                                 objc-mode and tramp now bundled in site-lisp.
 113
 114 2005/05/30      8.0-rc3         Fixed bug with parsing of "easymenu" menus.
 115                                 Many problems with modes such as SLIME, MatLab,
 116                                 and Planner go away.  Improved scrollbar
 117                                 handling and rendering speed.  Color panel
 118                                 and other bug fixes. mac-fix-env utility.
 119                                 Font handling improvements (OS X 10.3, 10.4):
 120                                 - heed 'GSFontAntiAlias' default
 121                                 - heed system antialiasing threshold
 122                                 - added 'UseQuickdrawSmoothing' default to
 123                                   invoke less heavy antialiasing
 124
 125 2005/07/05      8.0-rc4         Added a Preferences panel.  Cleaned up
 126                                 rendering for synthetic italic fonts.  Further
 127                                 improved menu parsing.  Use system highlight
 128                                 color.  Added previous- and next-mark history
 129                                 navigation commands bound to M-p,M-n.
 130                                 Miscellaneous bug fixes.
 131
 132 2005/08/04      8.0-rc5         All internal string handling changed to UTF-8.
 133                                 This means menu items, color and color list
 134                                 names, and a few other things will now display
 135                                 properly.  It does NOT mean UTF-8 filenames
 136                                 are displayed correctly in the minibuffer.
 137                                 Also relating to UTF-8, contents of files
 138                                 using this coding can now be displayed (though
 139                                 not auto-recognized; add extensions to your
 140                                 default coding alist).  Limited mac-roman
 141                                 support was also added (also sans recognition).
 142                                 Certain characters are not displayed properly
 143                                 due to a translation problem.  (UTF-8 based on
 144                                 work by Otfried Cheong; mac-roman from
 145                                 emacs-21.)  Partial support for "dead-key"
 146                                 handling now added.  Transparency (e.g., M-x
 147                                 set-background-color ARGB88FFFFFF) improved:
 148                                 only the background is made transparent.
 149                                 Cursor drawing glitches fixed.  Preferences
 150                                 handling improved.  Fixed some portability
 151                                 problems on Tiger and Puma.
 152
 153 2005/09/12      8.0             Bundled ispell on OS X.  Minor bug fixes and
 154                                 stability improvements.  Compiles under gcc-4.
 155
 156 2005/09/26      8.0.1           Correct clipped rendering for synthetic
 157                                 italics. Include the info directory.
 158                                 Fix grabenv. Bundle whitespace package.
 159
 160 2005/10/27      8.0.2           Correct rendering for wide characters during
 161                                 cursor movement.  Fix bungled hack in ispell
 162                                 bundling.
 163
 164 2005/11/05      9.0-pre1        Updated to latest Emacs CVS code on unicode-2
 165                                 branch (proposed to be released 2006/2007 as
 166                                 Emacs 23).
 167
 168 2005/11/11      9.0-pre2        Fix crashes for deiconifying and loading
 169                                 certain images.  Improve vertical font metrics
 170                                 (fixes inaccurate page up/down, window size,
 171                                 and partial lines).  Support better remapping
 172                                 of Alt/Opt and remapping of Command.  More
 173                                 insistent defaulting of scrollbar to right.
 174                                 Modest improvements to build process.
 175
 176 2006/04/22      9.0-pre2a       Stopgap interim release to sync w/latest
 177                                 unicode-2 CVS.  Includes XPM and partial
 178                                 toolbar support.
 179
 180 2006/06/08      9.0-pre3        Major upgrade to keyboard handling:
 181                                 system-selected compositional input methods
 182                                 should now work, as well as more keys /
 183                                 keyboards.  XPM, toolbar, and tooltip support.
 184                                 Some improvements to scrollbars, zoom, italic
 185                                 rendering, pasting, Color panel.  Added function
 186                                 ns-set-background-alpha to work around
 187                                 inability to customize with numeric colors.
 188
 189 2006/12/24      9.0-rc1         Reworked font handling and text rendering to
 190                                 use Kenichi Handa's new font back-end system.
 191                                 Font sets are now supported and automatically
 192                                 created when a font is selected.  Added recent
 193                                 X11 colors to Emacs.clr (remove
 194                                 ~/Library/Colors/Emacs.clr to pick up).  Added
 195                                 ns-option-modifier, ns-control-modifier,
 196                                 ns-function-modifier customization variables.
 197                                 Update menus to Emacs 21+ conventions.  Right
 198                                 mouse button now generates mouse-3 events.
 199                                 Various bug fixes and rendering improvements.
 200
 201 2007/09/10      9.0-rc2         Improve menubar, popup menu, and scrollbar
 202                                 behavior, let accented char entry work in
 203                                 isearch, follow system keymap for shortcut
 204                                 keys, fix border and box drawing, remove
 205                                 glitches in modeline drawing, support
 206                                 overstrike for unavailable bold fonts, fix XPM
 207                                 related crasher bugs.  Incremental font
 208                                 metrics caching and other performance
 209                                 improvements.  Shared-lisp builds now possible.
 210
 211 2007/09/20      9.0-rc2a        Interim release.  New features: composed
 212                                 character display, colored fringe bitmaps,
 213                                 colored relief drawing, dynamic resizing,
 214                                 Bug fixes: popup menu position and selection,
 215                                 font width calculation, face color adaptation
 216                                 to background, submenu keyboard navigation.
 217                                 NOT TESTED ON GNUSTEP.
 218
 219 2007/11/19      9.0-rc3         Integrated the multi-TTY functionality from
 220                                 emacs core (however, mixed TTY and GUI
 221                                 sessions are not working yet).  Support 10.5.
 222                                 Give site-lisp load precedence over lisp and
 223                                 add a compile option to prefer an additional
 224                                 directory, use miniaturized miniwindow images
 225                                 in some cases, rename cursor types for
 226                                 consistency w/other emacs terms, improved font
 227                                 selection for symbol scripts.
 228                                 Bug fixes: fringe and bitmap, frame deletion,
 229                                 resizing, cursor blink, workspace open-file,
 230                                 image backgrounds, toolbar item enablement,
 231                                 context menu positioning.
 232
 233 2008/07/15      (none)          Merge to GNU Emacs CVS trunk.
 234
 235
 236 Contributors
 237 ------------
 238 In addition to the folks listed in etc/AUTHORS responsible for GNU Emacs
 239 itself, the NeXTstep port owes to the following people:
 240
 241 Carl Edman
 242     original author and maintainer, mainly UI
 243 Michael Brouwer
 244     heavy contributor, input handling and other areas
 245 Christian Limpach
 246     help / maintenance on NeXTstep
 247 Scott Bender
 248     OpenStep, Rhapsody ports
 249 Christophe de Dinechin
 250     MacOS X port
 251 Adrian Robert
 252     GNUstep port, update Emacs 20 -> 21+
 253
 254 Joe Reiss
 255     popup menu, dialog boxes; icons
 256 Andrew Athan
 257     font panel integration
 258 Scott Byer
 259     improved rendering code
 260 Scott Hess
 261     keyboard handling suggestions
 262
 263 Rahul Abrol
 264     "hide others" patch
 265 Adam Ratcliffe
 266     preferences panel documentation
 267 Peter Dyballa
 268     assistance with non-ASCII rendering and keyboard handling
 269 David M. Cooke
 270     fix to XPM crash bug
 271 Carsten Bormann
 272     initial patch and assistance getting dired working for non-ASCII filenames
 273 Andrew Moore
 274     assistance on ns-mark-nav extension
 275
 276 The GNUstep port was made possible through the assistance of Adam
 277 Fedor, Fred Kiefer, M. Uli Klusterer, Alexander Malmberg, Jonas
 278 Matton, and Riccardo Mottola.  Leigh Smith maintained the SourceForge
 279 project for a period.
 280
 281 Suggestions from Darcy Brockbank, Timothy Bissell, Scott Byer, David
 282 Griffiths, Scott Hess, Eberhard Mandler, John C. Randolph, and Bradley
 283 Taylor all helped things along at one point or another.  Axel Seibert
 284 and Paul J. Sanchez offered their time and machines to make a
 285 binary release possible.
 286
 287 We would also like to thank a number of people who kept up the
 288 constant supply of bug reports, suggested features and praise: Hardy
 289 Mayer, Gisli Ottarsson, Anthony Heading, David Bau, Jamie Zawinski,
 290 Martin Moncrieffe, Simson L. Garfinkel, Richard Stallman, Stephen
 291 Anderson, Ivo Welch, Magnus Nordborg, Tom Epperly, Andreas Koenig,
 292 Yves Arrouye, Anil Somayaji, Gregor Hoffleit; and the few hundred
 293 other people on the mailing list from whom we didn't hear much, but
 294 the presence of which assured us that maybe this project was actually
 295 worth doing.
 296
 297 \f
 298 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 299
 300 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 301 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 302 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 303 (at your option) any later version.
 304
 305 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 306 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 307 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 308 GNU General Public License for more details.
 309
 310 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 311 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.