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1GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes. 23 Jan 1999
2Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3See the end for copying conditions.
4
5Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
6For older news, see the file ONEWS.
7
8\f
9* Changes in Emacs 21.1
10
11** Faces and frame parameters.
12
13There are four new faces `scroll-bar', `border', `cursor' and `mouse'.
14Setting the frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
15`scroll-bar-background' sets foreground and background color of face
16`scroll-bar' and vice versa. Setting frame parameter `border-color'
17sets the background color of face `border' and vice versa. Likewise
18for frame parameters `cursor-color' and face `cursor', and frame
19parameter `mouse-color' and face `mouse'.
20
21Changing frame parameter `font' sets font-related attributes of the
22`default' face and vice versa. Setting frame parameters
23`foreground-color' or `background-color' sets the colors of the
24`default' face and vice versa.
25
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26** New face `menu'.
27
28The face `menu' can be used to change colors and font of Emacs' menus.
29Setting the font of LessTif/Motif menus is currently not supported;
30attempts to set the font are ignored in this case.
31
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32** New frame parameter `screen-gamma' for gamma correction.
33
34The new frame parameter `screen-gamma' specifies gamma-correction for
35colors. Its value may be nil, the default, in which case no gamma
36correction occurs, or a number > 0, usually a float, that specifies
37the screen gamma of a frame's display.
38
39PC monitors usually have a screen gamma of 2.2. smaller values result
40in darker colors. You might want to try a screen gamma of 1.5 for LCD
41color displays. The viewing gamma Emacs uses is 0.4545. (1/2.2).
42
43The X resource name of this parameter is `screenGamma', class
44`ScreenGamma'.
45
46** Emacs has a new redisplay engine.
47
48The new redisplay handles characters of variable width and height.
49Italic text can be used without redisplay problems. Fonts containing
50oversized characters, i.e. characters larger than the logical height
51of a font can be used. Images of various formats can be displayed in
52the text.
53
54** Emacs has a new face implementation.
55
56The new faces no longer fundamentally use X font names to specify the
57font. Instead, each face has several independent attributes--family,
58height, width, weight and slant--that it may or may not specify.
59These attributes can be merged from various faces, and then together
60specify a font.
61
62Faces are supported on terminals that can display color or fonts.
63These terminal capabilities are auto-detected. Details can be found
64under Lisp changes, below.
65
66** New default font is Courier 12pt.
67
68** When using a windowing terminal, Emacs window now has a cursor of
69its own. When the window is selected, the cursor is solid; otherwise,
70it is hollow.
71
72** Bitmap areas to the left and right of windows are used to display
73truncation marks, continuation marks, overlay arrows and alike. The
74foreground, background, and stipple of these areas can be changed by
75customizing face `fringe'.
76
77** The mode line under X is now drawn with shadows by default. You
78can change its appearance by modifying the face `modeline'.
79
80** LessTif support.
81
82Emacs now runs with LessTif (see <http://www.lesstif.org>). You will
83need a version 0.88.1 or later.
84
85** Toolkit scroll bars.
86
87Emacs now uses toolkit scrollbars if available. When configured for
88LessTif/Motif, it will use that toolkit's scrollbar. Otherwise, when
89configured for Lucid and Athena widgets, it will use the Xaw3d scroll
90bar if Xaw3d is available. You can turn off the use of toolkit scroll
91bars by specifying `--with-toolkit-scroll-bars=no' when configuring
92Emacs.
93
94When you encounter problems with the Xaw3d scroll bar, watch out how
95Xaw3d is compiled on your system. If the Makefile generated from
96Xaw3d's Imakefile contains a `-DNARROWPROTO' compiler option, and your
97Emacs system configuration file `s/your-system.h' does not contain a
98define for NARROWPROTO, you might consider adding it. Take
99`s/freebsd.h' as an example.
100
101Alternatively, if you don't have access to the Xaw3d source code, take
102a look at your system's imake configuration file, for example in the
103directory `/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config' (paths are different on
104different systems). You will find files `*.cf' there. If your
105system's cf-file contains a line like `#define NeedWidePrototypes NO',
106add a `#define NARROWPROTO' to your Emacs system configuration file.
107
108The reason for this is that one Xaw3d function uses `double' or
109`float' function parameters depending on the setting of NARROWPROTO.
110This is not a problem when Imakefiles are used because each system's
111image configuration file contains the necessary information. Since
112Emacs doesn't use imake, this has do be done manually.
113
114** Toggle buttons and radio buttons in menus.
115
116When compiled with LessTif (or Motif) support, Emacs uses toolkit
117widgets for radio and toggle buttons in menus. When configured for
118Lucid, Emacs draws radio buttons and toggle buttons similar to Motif.
119
120** Highlighting of trailing whitespace.
121
122When `show-trailing-whitespace' is non-nil, Emacs displays trailing
123whitespace in the face `trailing-whitespace'. Trailing whitespace is
124defined as spaces or tabs at the end of a line. To avoid busy
125highlighting when entering new text, trailing whitespace is not
126displayed if point is at the end of the line containing the
127whitespace.
128
129** Busy-cursor.
130
131Emacs can optionally display a busy-cursor under X. You can turn the
132display on or off by customizing group `cursor'.
133
134** Blinking cursor
135
136M-x blink-cursor-mode toggles a blinking cursor under X and on
137terminals having terminal capabilities `vi', `vs', and `ve'. Blinking
138and related parameters like frequency and delay can be customized in
139the group `cursor'.
140
141** New font-lock support mode `jit-lock-mode'.
142
143This support mode is roughly equivalent to `lazy-lock' but is
144generally faster. It supports stealth and deferred fontification.
145See the documentation of the function `jit-lock-mode' for more
146details.
147
148Font-lock uses jit-lock-mode as default support mode, so you don't
149have to do anything to activate it.
150
151** Tabs and variable-width text.
152
153Tabs are now displayed with stretch properties; the width of a tab is
154defined as a multiple of the normal character width of a frame, and is
155independent of the fonts used in the text where the tab appears.
156Thus, tabs can be used to line up text in different fonts.
157
158** Enhancements of the Lucid menu bar
159
160*** The Lucid menu bar now supports the resource "margin".
161
162 emacs.pane.menubar.margin: 5
163
164The default margin is 4 which makes the menu bar appear like the Motif
165one.
166
167*** Arrows that indicate sub-menus are now drawn with shadows, like in
168Motif.
169
170** Hscrolling in C code.
171
172Horizontal scrolling now happens automatically.
173
174** Tool bar support.
175
176Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. For details
177how to define a tool bar, see the page describing Lisp-level changes.
178
179** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
180
181Different parts of the mode line under X have been made
182mouse-sensitive. Moving the mouse to a mouse-sensitive part in the mode
183line changes the appearance of the mouse pointer to an arrow, and help
184about available mouse actions is displayed either in the echo area, or
185in the tooltip window if you have enabled one.
186
187Currently, the following actions have been defined:
188
189- Mouse-1 on the buffer name in the mode line switches between two
190buffers.
191
192- Mouse-2 on the buffer-name switches to the next buffer, and
193M-mouse-2 switches to the previous buffer in the buffer list.
194
195- Mouse-3 on the buffer-name displays a buffer menu.
196
197- Mouse-1 on the read-only status in the mode line (`%' or `*')
198toggles the read-only status.
199
200- Mouse-3 on the mode name display a minor-mode menu.
201
202** LessTif/Motif file selection dialog.
203
204When Emacs is configured to use LessTif or Motif, reading a file name
205from a menu will pop up a file selection dialog if `use-dialogs' is
206non-nil.
207
208** Emacs can display faces on TTY frames.
209
210Emacs automatically detects terminals that are able to display colors.
211Faces with a weight greater than normal are displayed extra-bright, if
212the terminal supports it. Faces with a weight less than normal and
213italic faces are displayed dimmed, if the terminal supports it.
214Underlined faces are displayed underlined if possible. Other face
215attributes like overlines, strike-throught, box are ignored.
216
217** Sound support
218
219Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
220(Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
221Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
222(*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
223to enable sound support.
224
225** A new variable, backup-by-copying-when-privileged-mismatch, gives
226the highest file uid for which backup-by-copying-when-mismatch will be
227forced on. The assumption is that uids less than or equal to this
228value are special uids (root, bin, daemon, etc.--not real system
229users) and that files owned by these users should not change ownership,
230even if your system policy allows users other than root to edit them.
231
232The default is 200; set the variable to nil to disable the feature.
233
234** A block cursor can be drawn as wide as the glyph under it under X.
235
236As an example: if a block cursor is over a tab character, it will be
237drawn as wide as that tab on the display. To do this, set
238`x-stretch-cursor' to a non-nil value.
239
240** Empty display lines at the end of a buffer may be marked with a
241bitmap (this is similar to the tilde displayed by vi).
242
243This behavior is activated by setting the buffer-local variable
244`indicate-empty-lines' to a non-nil value. The default value of this
245variable is found in `default-indicate-empty-lines'.
246
247** There is a new "aggressive" scrolling method.
248
249When scrolling up because point is above the window start, if the
250value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-up-aggessively' is a
251number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
252fraction of the window's height from the bottom of the window.
253
254When scrolling down because point is below the window end, if the
255value of the buffer-local variable `scroll-down-aggessively' is a
256number, Emacs chooses a new window start so that point ends up that
257fraction of the window's height from the top of the window.
258
259** The rectangle commands now avoid inserting undesirable spaces,
260notably at the end of lines.
261
262All these functions have been rewritten to avoid inserting unwanted
263spaces, and an optional prefix now allows them to behave the old way.
264
265** The new command M-x query-replace-regexp-eval acts like
266query-replace-regexp, but takes a Lisp expression which is evaluated
267after each match to get the replacement text.
268
269** Emacs now resizes mini-windows if appropriate.
270
271If a message is longer than one line, or mini-buffer contents are
272longer than one line, Emacs now resizes the mini-window unless it is
273on a frame of its own. You can control the maximum mini-window size
274by setting the following variable:
275
276- User option: max-mini-window-height
277
278Maximum height for resizing mini-windows. If a float, it specifies a
279fraction of the mini-window frame's height. If an integer, it
280specifies a number of lines. If nil, don't resize.
281
282Default is 0.25.
283
284** Changes to RefTeX mode
285
286*** RefTeX has new support for index generation. Index entries can be
287 created with `C-c <', with completion available on index keys.
288 Pressing `C-c /' indexes the word at the cursor with a default
289 macro. `C-c >' compiles all index entries into an alphabetically
290 sorted *Index* buffer which looks like the final index. Entries
291 can be edited from that buffer.
292
293*** Label and citation key selection now allow to select several
294 items and reference them together (use `m' to mark items, `a' or
295 `A' to use all marked entries).
296
297*** reftex.el has been split into a number of smaller files to reduce
298 memory use when only a part of RefTeX is being used.
299
300*** a new command `reftex-view-crossref-from-bibtex' (bound to `C-c &'
301 in BibTeX-mode) can be called in a BibTeX database buffer in order
302 to show locations in LaTeX documents where a particular entry has
303 been cited.
304
305** The M-x time-stamp command (most commonly used on write-file-hooks)
306has the following new features:
307
308*** The patterns for finding the time stamp and for updating a pattern
309may match text spanning multiple lines. For example, some people like
310to have the filename and date on separate lines. The new variable
311time-stamp-inserts-lines controls the matching for multi-line patterns.
312
313*** More than one time stamp can be updated in the same file. This
314feature is useful if you need separate time stamps in a program source
315file to both include in formatted documentation and insert in the
316compiled binary. The same time-stamp will be written at each matching
317pattern. The variable time-stamp-count enables this new feature; it
318defaults to 1.
319
320** Tooltips.
321
322Tooltips are small X windows displaying a help string at the current
323mouse position. To use them, use the Lisp package `tooltip' which you
324can access via the user option `tooltip-mode'.
325
326Tooltips also provides support for GUD debugging. If activated,
327variable values can be displayed in tooltips by pointing at them with
328the mouse in source buffers. You can customize various aspects of the
329tooltip display in the group `tooltip'.
330
331** Customize changes
332
333*** Customize now supports comments about customized items. Use the
334`State' menu to add comments.
335
336*** The new option `custom-buffer-done-function' says whether to kill
337Custom buffers when you've done with them or just bury them (the
338default).
339
340** New features in evaluation commands
341
342The commands to evaluate Lisp expressions, such as C-M-x in Lisp
343modes, C-j in Lisp Interaction mode, and M-:, now bind the variables
344print-level, print-length, and debug-on-error based on the
345customizable variables eval-expression-print-level,
346eval-expression-print-length, and eval-expression-debug-on-error.
347
348** syntax tables now understand nested comments.
349To declare a comment syntax as allowing nesting, just add an `n'
350modifier to either of the characters of the comment end and the comment
351start sequences.
352
353** Dired changes
354
355*** New variable `dired-recursive-deletes' determines if the delete
356command will delete non-empty directories recursively. The default
357is, delete only empty directories.
358
359*** New variable `dired-recursive-copies' determines if the copy
360command will copy directories recursively. The default is, do not
361copy directories recursively.
362
363** The variable mail-specify-envelope-from controls whether to
364use the -f option when sending mail.
365
366** In Isearch mode, mouse-2 in the echo area now yanks the current
367selection into the search string rather than giving an error.
368
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369** Ange-ftp allows you to specify of a port number in remote file
370names cleanly. It is appended to the host name, separated by a hash
371sign, e.g. `/foo@bar.org#666:mumble'. (This syntax comes from EFS.)
372
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373** Shell script mode changes.
374
375Shell script mode (sh-script) can now indent scripts for shells
376derived from sh and rc. The indentation style is customizeable, and
377sh-script can attempt to "learn" the current buffer's style.
378
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379** New modes and packages
380
381*** 5x5.el is a simple puzzle game.
382
383*** hl-line.el provides a minor mode to highlight the current line.
384
385*** ansi-color.el translates ANSI terminal escapes into text-properties.
386
387*** delphi.el provides a major mode for editing the Delphi (Object
388Pascal) language.
389
390*** quickurl.el provides a simple method of inserting a URL based on
391the text at point.
392
393*** sql.el provides an interface to SQL data bases.
394
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395*** fortune.el uses the fortune program to create mail/news signatures.
396
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397*** whitespace.el ???
398
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399*** PostScript mode (ps-mode) is a new major mode for editing PostScript
400files. It offers: interaction with a PostScript interpreter, including
401(very basic) error handling; fontification, easily customizable for
402interpreter messages; auto-indentation; insertion of EPSF templates and
403often used code snippets; viewing of BoundingBox; commenting out /
404uncommenting regions; conversion of 8bit characters to PostScript octal
405codes. All functionality is accessible through a menu.
406
407*** delim-col helps to prettify columns in a text region or rectangle.
408
409Here is an example of columns:
410
411horse apple bus
412dog pineapple car EXTRA
413porcupine strawberry airplane
414
415Doing the following settings:
416
417 (setq delimit-columns-str-before "[ ")
418 (setq delimit-columns-str-after " ]")
419 (setq delimit-columns-str-separator ", ")
420 (setq delimit-columns-separator "\t")
421
422
423Selecting the lines above and typing:
424
425 M-x delimit-columns-region
426
427It results:
428
429[ horse , apple , bus , ]
430[ dog , pineapple , car , EXTRA ]
431[ porcupine, strawberry, airplane, ]
432
433delim-col has the following options:
434
435 delimit-columns-str-before Specify a string to be inserted
436 before all columns.
437
438 delimit-columns-str-separator Specify a string to be inserted
439 between each column.
440
441 delimit-columns-str-after Specify a string to be inserted
442 after all columns.
443
444 delimit-columns-separator Specify a regexp which separates
445 each column.
446
447delim-col has the following commands:
448
449 delimit-columns-region Prettify all columns in a text region.
450 delimit-columns-rectangle Prettify all columns in a text rectangle.
451
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452** Withdrawn packages
453
454*** mldrag.el has been removed. mouse.el provides the same
455functionality with aliases for the mldrag functions.
456\f
457* Lisp changes in Emacs 21.1 (see following page for display-related features)
458
459Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
460--- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
461When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
462so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
463
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464** The function `pixmap-spec-p' has been renamed `bitmap-spec-p'
465because `bitmap' is more in line with the usual X terminology.
466
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467** New function `propertize'
468
469The new function `propertize' can be used to conveniently construct
470strings with text properties.
471
472- Function: propertize STRING &rest PROPERTIES
473
474Value is a copy of STRING with text properties assigned as specified
475by PROPERTIES. PROPERTIES is a sequence of pairs PROPERTY VALUE, with
476PROPERTY being the name of a text property and VALUE being the
477specified value of that property. Example:
478
479 (propertize "foo" 'face 'bold 'read-only t)
480
481+++
482** push and pop macros.
483
484A simple version of the push and pop macros of Common Lisp
485is now defined in Emacs Lisp. These macros allow only symbols
486as the place that holds the list to be changed.
487
488(push NEWELT LISTNAME) add NEWELT to the front of LISTNAME's value.
489(pop LISTNAME) return first elt of LISTNAME, and remove it
490 (thus altering the value of LISTNAME).
491
492+++
493** Regular expressions now support Posix character classes such
494as [:alpha:], [:space:] and so on.
495
496[:digit:] matches 0 through 9
497[:cntrl:] matches ASCII control characters
498[:xdigit:] matches 0 through 9, a through f and A through F.
499[:blank:] matches space and tab only
500[:graph:] matches graphic characters--everything except ASCII control chars,
501 space, and DEL.
502[:print:] matches printing characters--everything except ASCII control chars
503 and DEL.
504[:alnum:] matches letters and digits.
505 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
506 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
507[:alpha:] matches letters.
508 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
509 it matches anything that has word syntax.)
510[:ascii:] matches ASCII (unibyte) characters.
511[:nonascii:] matches non-ASCII (multibyte) characters.
512[:lower:] matches anything lower-case.
513[:punct:] matches punctuation.
514 (But at present, for multibyte characters,
515 it matches anything that has non-word syntax.)
516[:space:] matches anything that has whitespace syntax.
517[:upper:] matches anything upper-case.
518[:word:] matches anything that has word syntax.
519
520+++
521** Emacs now has built-in hash tables.
522
523The following functions are defined for hash tables:
524
525- Function: make-hash-table ARGS
526
527The argument list ARGS consists of keyword/argument pairs. All arguments
528are optional. The following arguments are defined:
529
530:test TEST
531
532TEST must be a symbol specifying how to compare keys. Default is `eql'.
533Predefined are `eq', `eql' and `equal'. If TEST is not predefined,
534it must have been defined with `define-hash-table-test'.
535
536:size SIZE
537
538SIZE must be an integer > 0 giving a hint to the implementation how
539many elements will be put in the hash table. Default size is 65.
540
541:rehash-size REHASH-SIZE
542
543REHASH-SIZE specifies by how much to grow a hash table once it becomes
544full. If REHASH-SIZE is an integer, add that to the hash table's old
545size to get the new size. Otherwise, REHASH-SIZE must be a float >
5461.0, and the new size is computed by multiplying REHASH-SIZE with the
547old size. Default rehash size is 1.5.
548
549:rehash-threshold THRESHOLD
550
551THRESHOLD must be a float > 0 and <= 1.0 specifying when to resize the
552hash table. It is resized when the ratio of (number of entries) /
553(size of hash table) is >= THRESHOLD. Default threshold is 0.8.
554
555:weakness WEAK
556
557WEAK must be either nil, one of the symbols `key, `value', or t.
558Entries are removed from weak tables during garbage collection if
559their key and/or value are not referenced elsewhere outside of the
560hash table. Default are non-weak hash tables.
561
562- Function: makehash &optional TEST
563
564Similar to make-hash-table, but only TEST can be specified.
565
566- Function: hash-table-p TABLE
567
568Returns non-nil if TABLE is a hash table object.
569
570- Function: copy-hash-table TABLE
571
572Returns a copy of TABLE. Only the table itself is copied, keys and
573values are shared.
574
575- Function: hash-table-count TABLE
576
577Returns the number of entries in TABLE.
578
579- Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
580
581Returns the rehash size of TABLE.
582
583- Function: hash-table-rehash-threshold TABLE
584
585Returns the rehash threshold of TABLE.
586
587- Function: hash-table-rehash-size TABLE
588
589Returns the size of TABLE.
590
591- Function: hash-table-rehash-test TABLE
592
593Returns the test TABLE uses to compare keys.
594
595- Function: hash-table-weakness TABLE
596
597Returns the weakness specified for TABLE.
598
599- Function: clrhash TABLE
600
601Clear TABLE.
602
603- Function: gethash KEY TABLE &optional DEFAULT
604
605Look up KEY in TABLE and return its associated VALUE or DEFAULT if
606not found.
607
608- Function: puthash KEY VALUE TABLE
609
610Associate KEY with VALUE in TABLE. If KEY is already associated with
611another value, replace the old value with VALUE.
612
613- Function: remhash KEY TABLE
614
615Remove KEY from TABLE if it is there.
616
617- Function: maphash FUNCTION TABLE
618
619Call FUNCTION for all elements in TABLE. FUNCTION must take two
620arguments KEY and VALUE.
621
622- Function: sxhash OBJ
623
624Return a hash code for Lisp object OBJ.
625
626- Function: define-hash-table-test NAME TEST-FN HASH-FN
627
628Define a new hash table test named NAME. If NAME is specified as
629a test in `make-hash-table', the table created will use TEST-FN for
630comparing keys, and HASH-FN to compute hash codes for keys. Test
631and hash function are stored as symbol property `hash-table-test'
632of NAME with a value of (TEST-FN HASH-FN).
633
634TEST-FN must take two arguments and return non-nil if they are the same.
635
636HASH-FN must take one argument and return an integer that is the hash
637code of the argument. The function should use the whole range of
638integer values for hash code computation, including negative integers.
639
640Example: The following creates a hash table whose keys are supposed to
641be strings that are compared case-insensitively.
642
643 (defun case-fold-string= (a b)
644 (compare-strings a nil nil b nil nil t))
645
646 (defun case-fold-string-hash (a)
647 (sxhash (upcase a)))
648
649 (define-hash-table-test 'case-fold 'case-fold-string=
650 'case-fold-string-hash))
651
652 (make-hash-table :test 'case-fold)
653
654+++
655** The Lisp reader handles circular structure.
656
657It now works to use the #N= and #N# constructs to represent
658circular structures. For example, #1=(a . #1#) represents
659a cons cell which is its own cdr.
660
661+++
662** The Lisp printer handles circular structure.
663
664If you bind print-circle to a non-nil value, the Lisp printer outputs
665#N= and #N# constructs to represent circular and shared structure.
666
667You can also do several calls to print functions using a common
668set of #N= constructs; here is how.
669
670 (let ((print-circle t)
671 (print-continuous-numbering t)
672 print-number-table)
673 (print1 ...)
674 (print1 ...)
675 ...)
676
677+++
678** If the second argument to `move-to-column' is anything but nil or
679t, that means replace a tab with spaces if necessary to reach the
680specified column, but do not add spaces at the end of the line if it
681is too short to reach that column.
682
683+++
684** perform-replace has a new feature: the REPLACEMENTS argument may
685now be a cons cell (FUNCTION . DATA). This means to call FUNCTION
686after each match to get the replacement text. FUNCTION is called with
687two arguments: DATA, and the number of replacements already made.
688
689If the FROM-STRING contains any upper-case letters,
690perform-replace also turns off `case-fold-search' temporarily
691and inserts the replacement text without altering case in it.
692
693+++
694** The function buffer-size now accepts an optional argument
695to specify which buffer to return the size of.
696
697+++
698** The calendar motion commands now run the normal hook
699calendar-move-hook after moving point.
700
701+++
702** The new variable small-temporary-file-directory specifies a
703directory to use for creating temporary files that are likely to be
704small. (Certain Emacs features use this directory.) If
705small-temporary-file-directory is nil, they use
706temporary-file-directory instead.
707
708+++
709** The variable `inhibit-modification-hooks', if non-nil, inhibits all
710the hooks that track changes in the buffer. This affects
711`before-change-functions' and `after-change-functions', as well as
712hooks attached to text properties and overlay properties.
713
714+++
715** assoc-delete-all is a new function that deletes all the
716elements of an alist which have a particular value as the car.
717
718+++
719** make-temp-file provides a more reliable way to create a temporary file.
720
721make-temp-file is used like make-temp-name, except that it actually
722creates the file before it returns. This prevents a timing error,
723ensuring that no other job can use the same name for a temporary file.
724
725+++
726** New exclusive-open feature in `write-region'
727
728The optional seventh arg is now called MUSTBENEW. If non-nil, it insists
729on a check for an existing file with the same name. If MUSTBENEW
730is `excl', that means to get an error if the file already exists;
731never overwrite. If MUSTBENEW is neither nil nor `excl', that means
732ask for confirmation before overwriting, but do go ahead and
733overwrite the file if the user gives confirmation.
734
735If the MUSTBENEW argument in `write-region' is `excl',
736that means to use a special feature in the `open' system call
737to get an error if the file exists at that time.
738The error reported is `file-already-exists'.
739
740+++
741** Function `format' now handles text properties.
742
743Text properties of the format string are applied to the result string.
744If the result string is longer than the format string, text properties
745ending at the end of the format string are extended to the end of the
746result string.
747
748Text properties from string arguments are applied to the result
749string where arguments appear in the result string.
750
751Example:
752
753 (let ((s1 "hello, %s")
754 (s2 "world"))
755 (put-text-property 0 (length s1) 'face 'bold s1)
756 (put-text-property 0 (length s2) 'face 'italic s2)
757 (format s1 s2)
758
759results in a bold-face string with an italic `world' at the end.
760
761+++
762** Messages can now be displayed with text properties.
763
764Text properties are handled as described above for function `format'.
765The following example displays a bold-face message with an italic
766argument in it.
767
768 (let ((msg "hello, %s!")
769 (arg "world"))
770 (put-text-property 0 (length msg) 'face 'bold msg)
771 (put-text-property 0 (length arg) 'face 'italic arg)
772 (message msg arg))
773
774+++
775** Sound support
776
777Emacs supports playing sound files on GNU/Linux and the free BSDs
778(Voxware driver and native BSD driver, aka as Luigi's driver).
779
780Currently supported file formats are RIFF-WAVE (*.wav) and Sun Audio
781(*.au). You must configure Emacs with the option `--with-sound=yes'
782to enable sound support.
783
784Sound files can be played by calling (play-sound SOUND). SOUND is a
785list of the form `(sound PROPERTY...)'. The function is only defined
786when sound support is present for the system on which Emacs runs. The
787functions runs `play-sound-functions' with one argument which is the
788sound to play, before playing the sound.
789
790The following sound properties are supported:
791
792- `:file FILE'
793
794FILE is a file name. If FILE isn't an absolute name, it will be
795searched relative to `data-directory'.
796
797- `:volume VOLUME'
798
799VOLUME must be an integer in the range 0..100 or a float in the range
8000..1. This property is optional.
801
802Other properties are ignored.
803
804** `multimedia' is a new Finder keyword and Custom group.
805\f
806* New Lisp-level Display features in Emacs 21.1
807
808Note that +++ before an item means the Lisp manual has been updated.
809--- means that I have decided it does not need to be in the Lisp manual.
810When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
811so I will know I still need to look at it -- rms.
812
813** New face implementation.
814
815Emacs faces have been reimplemented from scratch. They don't use XLFD
816font names anymore and face merging now works as expected.
817
818+++
819*** New faces.
820
821Each face can specify the following display attributes:
822
823 1. Font family or fontset alias name.
824
825 2. Relative proportionate width, aka character set width or set
826 width (swidth), e.g. `semi-compressed'.
827
828 3. Font height in 1/10pt
829
830 4. Font weight, e.g. `bold'.
831
832 5. Font slant, e.g. `italic'.
833
834 6. Foreground color.
835
836 7. Background color.
837
838 8. Whether or not characters should be underlined, and in what color.
839
840 9. Whether or not characters should be displayed in inverse video.
841
842 10. A background stipple, a bitmap.
843
844 11. Whether or not characters should be overlined, and in what color.
845
846 12. Whether or not characters should be strike-through, and in what
847 color.
848
849 13. Whether or not a box should be drawn around characters, its
850 color, the width of the box lines, and 3D appearance.
851
852Faces are frame-local by nature because Emacs allows to define the
853same named face (face names are symbols) differently for different
854frames. Each frame has an alist of face definitions for all named
855faces. The value of a named face in such an alist is a Lisp vector
856with the symbol `face' in slot 0, and a slot for each each of the face
857attributes mentioned above.
858
859There is also a global face alist `face-new-frame-defaults'. Face
860definitions from this list are used to initialize faces of newly
861created frames.
862
863A face doesn't have to specify all attributes. Those not specified
864have a nil value. Faces specifying all attributes are called
865`fully-specified'.
866
867+++
868*** Face merging.
869
870The display style of a given character in the text is determined by
871combining several faces. This process is called `face merging'. Any
872aspect of the display style that isn't specified by overlays or text
873properties is taken from the `default' face. Since it is made sure
874that the default face is always fully-specified, face merging always
875results in a fully-specified face.
876
877+++
878*** Face realization.
879
880After all face attributes for a character have been determined by
881merging faces of that character, that face is `realized'. The
882realization process maps face attributes to what is physically
883available on the system where Emacs runs. The result is a `realized
884face' in form of an internal structure which is stored in the face
885cache of the frame on which it was realized.
886
887Face realization is done in the context of the charset of the
888character to display because different fonts and encodings are used
889for different charsets. In other words, for characters of different
890charsets, different realized faces are needed to display them.
891
892Except for composite characters, faces are always realized for a
893specific character set and contain a specific font, even if the face
894being realized specifies a fontset. The reason is that the result of
895the new font selection stage is better than what can be done with
896statically defined font name patterns in fontsets.
897
898In unibyte text, Emacs' charsets aren't applicable; function
899`char-charset' reports ASCII for all characters, including those >
9000x7f. The X registry and encoding of fonts to use is determined from
901the variable `face-default-registry' in this case. The variable is
902initialized at Emacs startup time from the font the user specified for
903Emacs.
904
905Currently all unibyte text, i.e. all buffers with
906`enable-multibyte-characters' nil are displayed with fonts of the same
907registry and encoding `face-default-registry'. This is consistent
908with the fact that languages can also be set globally, only.
909
910++++
911**** Clearing face caches.
912
913The Lisp function `clear-face-cache' can be called to clear face caches
914on all frames. If called with a non-nil argument, it will also unload
915unused fonts.
916
917+++
918*** Font selection.
919
920Font selection tries to find the best available matching font for a
921given (charset, face) combination. This is done slightly differently
922for faces specifying a fontset, or a font family name.
923
924If the face specifies a fontset name, that fontset determines a
925pattern for fonts of the given charset. If the face specifies a font
926family, a font pattern is constructed. Charset symbols have a
927property `x-charset-registry' for that purpose that maps a charset to
928an XLFD registry and encoding in the font pattern constructed.
929
930Available fonts on the system on which Emacs runs are then matched
931against the font pattern. The result of font selection is the best
932match for the given face attributes in this font list.
933
934Font selection can be influenced by the user.
935
936The user can specify the relative importance he gives the face
937attributes width, height, weight, and slant by setting
938face-font-selection-order (faces.el) to a list of face attribute
939names. The default is (:width :height :weight :slant), and means
940that font selection first tries to find a good match for the font
941width specified by a face, then---within fonts with that width---tries
942to find a best match for the specified font height, etc.
943
944Setting `face-alternative-font-family-alist' allows the user to
945specify alternative font families to try if a family specified by a
946face doesn't exist.
947
948+++
949**** Scalable fonts
950
951Emacs can make use of scalable fonts but doesn't do so by default,
952since the use of too many or too big scalable fonts may crash XFree86
953servers.
954
955To enable scalable font use, set the variable
956`scalable-fonts-allowed'. A value of nil, the default, means nver use
957scalable fonts. A value of t means any scalable font may be used.
958Otherwise, the value must be a list of regular expressions. A
959scalable font may then be used if it matches a regular expression from
960that list. Example:
961
962 (setq scalable-fonts-allowed '("muleindian-2$"))
963
964allows the use of scalable fonts with registry `muleindian-2'.
965
966+++
967*** Functions and variables related to font selection.
968
969- Function: x-family-fonts &optional FAMILY FRAME
970
971Return a list of available fonts of family FAMILY on FRAME. If FAMILY
972is omitted or nil, list all families. Otherwise, FAMILY must be a
973string, possibly containing wildcards `?' and `*'.
974
975If FRAME is omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Each element of
976the result is a vector [FAMILY WIDTH POINT-SIZE WEIGHT SLANT FIXED-P
977FULL REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING]. FAMILY is the font family name.
978POINT-SIZE is the size of the font in 1/10 pt. WIDTH, WEIGHT, and
979SLANT are symbols describing the width, weight and slant of the font.
980These symbols are the same as for face attributes. FIXED-P is non-nil
981if the font is fixed-pitch. FULL is the full name of the font, and
982REGISTRY-AND-ENCODING is a string giving the registry and encoding of
983the font. The result list is sorted according to the current setting
984of the face font sort order.
985
986- Function: x-font-family-list
987
988Return a list of available font families on FRAME. If FRAME is
989omitted or nil, use the selected frame. Value is a list of conses
990(FAMILY . FIXED-P) where FAMILY is a font family, and FIXED-P is
991non-nil if fonts of that family are fixed-pitch.
992
993- Variable: font-list-limit
994
995Limit for font matching. If an integer > 0, font matching functions
996won't load more than that number of fonts when searching for a
997matching font. The default is currently 100.
998
999+++
1000*** Setting face attributes.
1001
1002For the most part, the new face implementation is interface-compatible
1003with the old one. Old face attribute related functions are now
1004implemented in terms of the new functions `set-face-attribute' and
1005`face-attribute'.
1006
1007Face attributes are identified by their names which are keyword
1008symbols. All attributes can be set to `unspecified'.
1009
1010The following attributes are recognized:
1011
1012`:family'
1013
1014VALUE must be a string specifying the font family, e.g. ``courier'',
1015or a fontset alias name. If a font family is specified, wild-cards `*'
1016and `?' are allowed.
1017
1018`:width'
1019
1020VALUE specifies the relative proportionate width of the font to use.
1021It must be one of the symbols `ultra-condensed', `extra-condensed',
1022`condensed', `semi-condensed', `normal', `semi-expanded', `expanded',
1023`extra-expanded', or `ultra-expanded'.
1024
1025`:height'
1026
1027VALUE must be an integer specifying the height of the font to use in
10281/10 pt.
1029
1030`:weight'
1031
1032VALUE specifies the weight of the font to use. It must be one of the
1033symbols `ultra-bold', `extra-bold', `bold', `semi-bold', `normal',
1034`semi-light', `light', `extra-light', `ultra-light'.
1035
1036`:slant'
1037
1038VALUE specifies the slant of the font to use. It must be one of the
1039symbols `italic', `oblique', `normal', `reverse-italic', or
1040`reverse-oblique'.
1041
1042`:foreground', `:background'
1043
1044VALUE must be a color name, a string.
1045
1046`:underline'
1047
1048VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be underlined. If
1049VALUE is t, underline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is
1050a string, underline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly
1051don't underline.
1052
1053`:overline'
1054
1055VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be overlined. If
1056VALUE is t, overline with foreground color of the face. If VALUE is a
1057string, overline with that color. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't
1058overline.
1059
1060`:strike-through'
1061
1062VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be drawn with a line
1063striking through them. If VALUE is t, use the foreground color of the
1064face. If VALUE is a string, strike-through with that color. If VALUE
1065is nil, explicitly don't strike through.
1066
1067`:box'
1068
1069VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should have a box drawn
1070around them. If VALUE is nil, explicitly don't draw boxes. If
1071VALUE is t, draw a box with lines of width 1 in the foreground color
1072of the face. If VALUE is a string, the string must be a color name,
1073and the box is drawn in that color with a line width of 1. Otherwise,
1074VALUE must be a property list of the form `(:line-width WIDTH
1075:color COLOR :style STYLE)'. If a keyword/value pair is missing from
1076the property list, a default value will be used for the value, as
1077specified below. WIDTH specifies the width of the lines to draw; it
1078defaults to 1. COLOR is the name of the color to draw in, default is
1079the foreground color of the face for simple boxes, and the background
1080color of the face for 3D boxes. STYLE specifies whether a 3D box
1081should be draw. If STYLE is `released-button', draw a box looking
1082like a released 3D button. If STYLE is `pressed-button' draw a box
1083that appears like a pressed button. If STYLE is nil, the default if
1084the property list doesn't contain a style specification, draw a 2D
1085box.
1086
1087`:inverse-video'
1088
1089VALUE specifies whether characters in FACE should be displayed in
1090inverse video. VALUE must be one of t or nil.
1091
1092`:stipple'
1093
1094If VALUE is a string, it must be the name of a file of pixmap data.
1095The directories listed in the `x-bitmap-file-path' variable are
1096searched. Alternatively, VALUE may be a list of the form (WIDTH
1097HEIGHT DATA) where WIDTH and HEIGHT are the size in pixels, and DATA
1098is a string containing the raw bits of the bitmap. VALUE nil means
1099explicitly don't use a stipple pattern.
1100
1101For convenience, attributes `:family', `:width', `:height', `:weight',
1102and `:slant' may also be set in one step from an X font name:
1103
1104`:font'
1105
1106Set font-related face attributes from VALUE. VALUE must be a valid
1107XLFD font name. If it is a font name pattern, the first matching font
1108is used--this is for compatibility with the behavior of previous
1109versions of Emacs.
1110
1111For compatibility with Emacs 20, keywords `:bold' and `:italic' can
1112be used to specify that a bold or italic font should be used. VALUE
1113must be t or nil in that case. A value of `unspecified' is not allowed."
1114
1115Please see also the documentation of `set-face-attribute' and
1116`defface'.
1117
1118*** Face attributes and X resources
1119
1120The following X resource names can be used to set face attributes
1121from X resources:
1122
1123 Face attribute X resource class
1124-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1125 :family attributeFamily . Face.AttributeFamily
1126 :width attributeWidth Face.AttributeWidth
1127 :height attributeHeight Face.AttributeHeight
1128 :weight attributeWeight Face.AttributeWeight
1129 :slant attributeSlant Face.AttributeSlant
1130 foreground attributeForeground Face.AttributeForeground
1131 :background attributeBackground . Face.AttributeBackground
1132 :overline attributeOverline Face.AttributeOverline
1133 :strike-through attributeStrikeThrough Face.AttributeStrikeThrough
1134 :box attributeBox Face.AttributeBox
1135 :underline attributeUnderline Face.AttributeUnderline
1136 :inverse-video attributeInverse Face.AttributeInverse
1137 :stipple attributeStipple Face.AttributeStipple
1138 or attributeBackgroundPixmap
1139 Face.AttributeBackgroundPixmap
1140 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1141 :bold attributeBold Face.AttributeBold
1142 :italic attributeItalic . Face.AttributeItalic
1143 :font attributeFont Face.AttributeFont
1144
1145+++
1146*** Text property `face'.
1147
1148The value of the `face' text property can now be a single face
1149specification or a list of such specifications. Each face
1150specification can be
1151
11521. A symbol or string naming a Lisp face.
1153
11542. A property list of the form (KEYWORD VALUE ...) where each
1155 KEYWORD is a face attribute name, and VALUE is an appropriate value
1156 for that attribute. Please see the doc string of `set-face-attribute'
1157 for face attribute names.
1158
11593. Conses of the form (FOREGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) or
1160 (BACKGROUND-COLOR . COLOR) where COLOR is a color name. This is
1161 for compatibility with previous Emacs versions.
1162
1163+++
1164** Support functions for colors on text-only terminals.
1165
1166The function `face-register-tty-color' can be used to define colors
1167for use on TTY frames. It maps a color name to a color number on the
1168terminal. Emacs defines a couple of default color mappings by
1169default. You can get defined colors with a call to
1170`tty-defined-colors'. The function `face-clear-tty-colors' can be
1171used to clear the mapping table.
1172
1173+++
1174** The minibuffer prompt is now actually inserted in the minibuffer.
1175This makes it possible to scroll through the prompt, if you want to.
1176
1177A number of functions such as forward-word, forward-sentence,
1178forward-paragraph, and beginning-of-line, stop moving when they
1179come to the boundary between the prompt and the actual contents.
1180The function erase-buffer does not delete the prompt.
1181
1182The function minubuffer-prompt-end returns the current position of the
1183end of the minibuffer prompt, if the minibuffer is current.
1184Otherwise, it returns zero.
1185
1186The function buffer-string does not return the portion of the
1187mini-buffer belonging to the prompt; buffer-substring does.
1188
1189+++
1190** Image support.
1191
1192Emacs can now display images. Images are inserted into text by giving
1193strings or buffer text a `display' text property containing one of
1194(AREA IMAGE) or IMAGE. The display of the `display' property value
1195replaces the display of the characters having that property.
1196
1197If the property value has the form (AREA IMAGE), AREA must be one of
1198`(margin left-margin)', `(margin right-margin)' or `(margin nil)'. If
1199AREA is `(margin nil)', IMAGE will be displayed in the text area of a
1200window, otherwise it will be displayed in the left or right marginal
1201area.
1202
1203IMAGE is an image specification.
1204
1205*** Image specifications
1206
1207Image specifications are lists of the form `(image PROPS)' where PROPS
1208is a property list whose keys are keyword symbols. Each
1209specifications must contain a property `:type TYPE' with TYPE being a
1210symbol specifying the image type, e.g. `xbm'.
1211
1212The following is a list of properties all image types share.
1213
1214`:ascent ASCENT'
1215
1216ASCENT must be a number in the range 0..100, and specifies the percentage
1217of the image's height to use for its ascent. Default is 50.
1218
1219`:margin MARGIN'
1220
1221MARGIN must be a number >= 0 specifying how many pixels to put as
1222margin around the image. Default is 0.
1223
1224`:relief RELIEF'
1225
1226RELIEF is analogous to the `:relief' attribute of faces. Puts a relief
1227around an image.
1228
1229`:algorithm ALGO'
1230
1231Apply an image algorithm to the image before displaying it. ALGO must
1232be a symbol specifying the algorithm. Currently only `laplace' is
1233supported which applies a Laplace edge detection algorithm to an image
1234which is intended to display images "disabled."
1235
1236`:heuristic-mask BG'
1237
1238If BG is not nil, build a clipping mask for the image, so that the
1239background of a frame is visible behind the image. If BG is t,
1240determine the background color of the image by looking at the 4
1241corners of the image, assuming the most frequently occuring color from
1242the corners is the background color of the image. Otherwise, BG must
1243be a list `(RED GREEN BLUE)' specifying the color to assume for the
1244background of the image.
1245
1246`:file FILE'
1247
1248Load image from FILE. If FILE is not absolute after expanding it,
1249search for the image in `data-directory'. Some image types support
1250building images from data. When this is done, no `:file' property
1251may be present in the image specification.
1252
1253
1254*** Supported image types
1255
1256**** XBM, iamge type `xbm'.
1257
1258XBM images don't require an external library. Additional image
1259properties supported are
1260
1261`:foreground FG'
1262
1263FG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default
1264is the frame's foreground.
1265
1266`:background FG'
1267
1268BG must be a string specifying the image foreground color. Default is
1269the frame's background color.
1270
1271XBM images can be constructed from data instead of file. In this
1272case, the image specification must contain the following properties
1273instead of a `:file' property.
1274
1275`:width WIDTH'
1276
1277WIDTH specifies the width of the image in pixels.
1278
1279`:height HEIGHT'
1280
1281HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pixels.
1282
1283`:data DATA'
1284
1285DATA must be either
1286
1287 1. a string large enough to hold the bitmap data, i.e. it must
1288 have a size >= (WIDTH + 7) / 8 * HEIGHT
1289
1290 2. a bool-vector of size >= WIDTH * HEIGHT
1291
1292 3. a vector of strings or bool-vectors, one for each line of the
1293 bitmap.
1294
1295**** XPM, image type `xpm'
1296
1297XPM images require the external library `libXpm', package
1298`xpm-3.4k.tar.gz', version 3.4k or later. Make sure the library is
1299found when Emacs is configured by supplying appropriate paths via
1300`--x-includes' and `--x-libraries'.
1301
1302Additional image properties supported are:
1303
1304`:color-symbols SYMBOLS'
1305
1306SYMBOLS must be a list of pairs (NAME . COLOR), with NAME being the
1307name of color as it appears in an XPM file, and COLOR being an X color
1308name.
1309
1310XPM images can be built from memory instead of files. In that case,
1311add a `:data' property instead of a `:file' property.
1312
1313`:data DATA'
1314
1315DATA must be a string containing an XPM image. The contents of the
1316string are of the same format as that of XPM files.
1317
1318The XPM library uses libz in its implementation so that it is able
1319to display compressed images.
1320
1321**** PBM, image type `pbm'
1322
1323PBM images don't require an external library. Color, gray-scale and
1324mono images are supported. There are no additional image properties
1325defined.
1326
1327**** JPEG, image type `jpeg'
1328
1329Support for JPEG images requires the external library `libjpeg',
1330package `jpegsrc.v6a.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1331properties defined.
1332
1333**** TIFF, image type `tiff'
1334
1335Support for TIFF images requires the external library `libtiff',
1336package `tiff-v3.4-tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1337properties defined.
1338
1339**** GIF, image type `gif'
1340
1341Support for GIF images requires the external library `libungif', package
1342`libungif-4.1.0', or later.
1343
1344Additional image properties supported are:
1345
1346`:index INDEX'
1347
1348INDEX must be an integer >= 0. Load image number INDEX from a
1349multi-image GIF file. An error is signalled if INDEX is too large.
1350
1351This could be used to implement limited support for animated GIFs.
1352For example, the following function displays a multi-image GIF file
1353at point-min in the current buffer, switching between sub-images
1354every 0.1 seconds.
1355
1356(defun show-anim (file max)
1357 "Display multi-image GIF file FILE which contains MAX subimages."
1358 (display-anim (current-buffer) file 0 max t))
1359
1360(defun display-anim (buffer file idx max first-time)
1361 (when (= idx max)
1362 (setq idx 0))
1363 (let ((img (create-image file nil :index idx)))
1364 (save-excursion
1365 (set-buffer buffer)
1366 (goto-char (point-min))
1367 (unless first-time (delete-char 1))
1368 (insert-image img "x"))
1369 (run-with-timer 0.1 nil 'display-anim buffer file (1+ idx) max nil)))
1370
1371**** PNG, image type `png'
1372
1373Support for PNG images requires the external library `libpng',
1374package `libpng-1.0.2.tar.gz', or later. There are no additional image
1375properties defined.
1376
1377**** Ghostscript, image type `postscript'.
1378
1379Additional image properties supported are:
1380
1381`:pt-width WIDTH'
1382
1383WIDTH is width of the image in pt (1/72 inch). WIDTH must be an
1384integer. This is an required property.
1385
1386`:pt-height HEIGHT'
1387
1388HEIGHT specifies the height of the image in pt (1/72 inch). HEIGHT
1389must be an integer. This is an required property.
1390
1391`:bounding-box BOX'
1392
1393BOX must be a list or vector of 4 integers giving the bounding box of
1394the PS image, analogous to the `BoundingBox' comment found in PS
1395files. This is an required property.
1396
1397Part of the Ghostscript interface is implemented in Lisp. See
1398lisp/gs.el.
1399
1400*** Lisp interface.
1401
1402The variable `image-types' contains a list of those image types
1403which are supported in the current configuration.
1404
1405Images are stored in an image cache and removed from the cache when
1406they haven't been displayed for `image-cache-eviction-delay seconds.
1407The function `clear-image-cache' can be used to clear the image cache
1408manually.
1409
1410*** Simplified image API, image.el
1411
1412The new Lisp package image.el contains functions that simplify image
1413creation and putting images into text. The function `create-image'
1414can be used to create images. The macro `defimage' can be used to
1415define an image based on available image types. The functions
1416`put-image' and `insert-image' can be used to insert an image into a
1417buffer.
1418
1419+++
1420** Display margins.
1421
1422Windows can now have margins which are used for special text
1423and images.
1424
1425To give a window margins, either set the buffer-local variables
1426`left-margin-width' and `right-margin-width', or call
1427`set-window-margins'. The function `window-margins' can be used to
1428obtain the current settings. To make `left-margin-width' and
1429`right-margin-width' take effect, you must set them before displaying
1430the buffer in a window, or use `set-window-buffer' to force an update
1431of the display margins.
1432
1433You can put text in margins by giving it a `display' text property
1434containing a pair of the form `(LOCATION . VALUE)', where LOCATION is
1435one of `left-margin' or `right-margin' or nil. VALUE can be either a
1436string, an image specification or a stretch specification (see later
1437in this file).
1438
1439+++
1440** Help display
1441
1442Emacs displays short help messages in the echo area, when the mouse
1443moves over a tool-bar item or a piece of text that has a text property
1444`help-echo'. This feature also applies to strings in the mode line
1445that have a `help-echo' property.
1446
1447The value of the `help-echo' property must be a string. For tool-bar
1448items, their key definition is used to determine the help to display.
1449If their definition contains a property `:help FORM', FORM is
1450evaluated to determine the help string. Otherwise, the caption of the
1451tool-bar item is used.
1452
1453The hook `show-help-function' can be set to a function that displays
1454help differently. For example, enabling a tooltip window causes the
1455help display to appear there instead of in the echo area.
1456
1457+++
1458** Vertical fractional scrolling.
1459
1460The display of text in windows can be scrolled smoothly in pixels.
1461This is useful, for example, for making parts of large images visible.
1462
1463The function `window-vscroll' returns the current value of vertical
1464scrolling, a non-negative fraction of the canonical character height.
1465The function `set-window-vscroll' can be used to set the vertical
1466scrolling value. Here is an example of how these function might be
1467used.
1468
1469 (global-set-key [A-down]
1470 #'(lambda ()
1471 (interactive)
1472 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1473 (+ 0.5 (window-vscroll)))))
1474 (global-set-key [A-up]
1475 #'(lambda ()
1476 (interactive)
1477 (set-window-vscroll (selected-window)
1478 (- (window-vscroll) 0.5)))))
1479
1480+++
1481** New hook `fontification-functions'.
1482
1483Functions from `fontification-functions' are called from redisplay
1484when it encounters a region of text that is not yet fontified. This
1485variable automatically becomes buffer-local when set. Each function
1486is called with one argument, POS.
1487
1488At least one of the hook functions should fontify one or more
1489characters starting at POS in the current buffer. It should mark them
1490as fontified by giving them a non-nil value of the `fontified' text
1491property. It may be reasonable for these functions to check for the
1492`fontified' property and not put it back on, but they do not have to.
1493
1494+++
1495** Tool bar support.
1496
1497Emacs supports a tool bar at the top of a frame under X. The frame
1498parameter `tool-bar-lines' (X resource "toolBar", class "ToolBar")
1499controls how may lines to reserve for the tool bar. A zero value
1500suppresses the tool bar. If the value is non-zero and
1501`auto-resize-tool-bars' is non-nil the tool bar's size will be changed
1502automatically so that all tool bar items are visible.
1503
1504*** Tool bar item definitions
1505
1506Tool bar items are defined using `define-key' with a prefix-key
1507`tool-bar'. For example `(define-key global-map [tool-bar item1] ITEM)'
1508where ITEM is a list `(menu-item CAPTION BINDING PROPS...)'.
1509
1510CAPTION is the caption of the item, If it's not a string, it is
1511evaluated to get a string. The caption is currently not displayed in
1512the tool bar, but it is displayed if the item doesn't have a `:help'
1513property (see below).
1514
1515BINDING is the tool bar item's binding. Tool bar items with keymaps as
1516binding are currently ignored.
1517
1518The following properties are recognized:
1519
1520`:enable FORM'.
1521
1522FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is enabled
1523or disabled.
1524
1525`:visible FORM'
1526
1527FORM is evaluated and specifies whether the tool bar item is displayed.
1528
1529`:filter FUNCTION'
1530
1531FUNCTION is called with one parameter, the same list BINDING in which
1532FUNCTION is specified as the filter. The value FUNCTION returns is
1533used instead of BINDING to display this item.
1534
1535`:button (TYPE SELECTED)'
1536
1537TYPE must be one of `:radio' or `:toggle'. SELECTED is evaluated
1538and specifies whether the button is selected (pressed) or not.
1539
1540`:image IMAGES'
1541
1542IMAGES is either a single image specification or a vector of four
1543image specifications. If it is a vector, this table lists the
1544meaning of each of the four elements:
1545
1546 Index Use when item is
1547 ----------------------------------------
1548 0 enabled and selected
1549 1 enabled and deselected
1550 2 disabled and selected
1551 3 disabled and deselected
1552
1553`:help HELP-STRING'.
1554
1555Gives a help string to display for the tool bar item. This help
1556is displayed when the mouse is moved over the item.
1557
1558*** Tool-bar-related variables.
1559
1560If `auto-resize-tool-bar' is non-nil, the tool bar will automatically
1561resize to show all defined tool bar items. It will never grow larger
1562than 1/4 of the frame's size.
1563
1564If `auto-raise-tool-bar-buttons' is non-nil, tool bar buttons will be
1565raised when the mouse moves over them.
1566
1567You can add extra space between tool bar items by setting
1568`tool-bar-button-margin' to a positive integer specifying a number of
1569pixels. Default is 1.
1570
1571You can change the shadow thickness of tool bar buttons by setting
1572`tool-bar-button-relief' to an integer. Default is 3.
1573
1574*** Tool-bar clicks with modifiers.
1575
1576You can bind commands to clicks with control, shift, meta etc. on
1577a tool bar item. If
1578
1579 (define-key global-map [tool-bar shell]
1580 '(menu-item "Shell" shell
1581 :image (image :type xpm :file "shell.xpm")))
1582
1583is the original tool bar item definition, then
1584
1585 (define-key global-map [tool-bar S-shell] 'some-command)
1586
1587makes a binding to run `some-command' for a shifted click on the same
1588item.
1589
1590** Mode line changes.
1591
1592+++
1593*** Mouse-sensitive mode line.
1594
1595The mode line can be made mouse-sensitive by displaying strings there
1596that have a `local-map' text property. There are three ways to display
1597a string with a `local-map' property in the mode line.
1598
15991. The mode line spec contains a variable whose string value has
1600a `local-map' text property.
1601
16022. The mode line spec contains a format specifier (e.g. `%12b'), and
1603that format specifier has a `local-map' property.
1604
16053. The mode line spec contains a list containing `:eval FORM'. FORM
1606is evaluated. If the result is a string, and that string has a
1607`local-map' property.
1608
1609The same mechanism is used to determine the `face' and `help-echo'
1610properties of strings in the mode line. See `bindings.el' for an
1611example.
1612
1613+++
1614*** You can suppress mode-line display by setting the buffer-local
1615variable mode-line-format to nil.
1616
1617+++
1618*** A headerline can now be displayed at the top of a window.
1619
1620This mode line's contents are controlled by the new variable
1621`header-line-format' and `default-header-line-format' which are
1622completely analogous to `mode-line-format' and
1623`default-mode-line-format'. A value of nil means don't display a top
1624line.
1625
1626The appearance of top mode lines is controlled by the face
1627`header-line'.
1628
1629The function `coordinates-in-window-p' returns `header-line' for a
1630position in the header-line.
1631
1632+++
1633** Text property `display'
1634
1635The `display' text property is used to insert images into text, and
1636also control other aspects of how text displays. The value of the
1637`display' property should be a display specification, as described
1638below, or a list or vector containing display specifications.
1639
1640*** Variable width and height spaces
1641
1642To display a space of fractional width or height, use a display
1643specification of the form `(LOCATION STRECH)'. If LOCATION is
1644`(margin left-margin)', the space is displayed in the left marginal
1645area, if it is `(margin right-margin)', it is displayed in the right
1646marginal area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the space is
1647displayed in the text. In the latter case you can also use the
1648simpler form STRETCH as property value.
1649
1650The stretch specification STRETCH itself is a list of the form `(space
1651PROPS)', where PROPS is a property list which can contain the
1652properties described below.
1653
1654The display of the fractional space replaces the display of the
1655characters having the `display' property.
1656
1657- :width WIDTH
1658
1659Specifies that the space width should be WIDTH times the normal
1660character width. WIDTH can be an integer or floating point number.
1661
1662- :relative-width FACTOR
1663
1664Specifies that the width of the stretch should be computed from the
1665first character in a group of consecutive characters that have the
1666same `display' property. The computation is done by multiplying the
1667width of that character by FACTOR.
1668
1669- :align-to HPOS
1670
1671Specifies that the space should be wide enough to reach HPOS. The
1672value HPOS is measured in units of the normal character width.
1673
1674Exactly one of the above properties should be used.
1675
1676- :height HEIGHT
1677
1678Specifies the height of the space, as HEIGHT, measured in terms of the
1679normal line height.
1680
1681- :relative-height FACTOR
1682
1683The height of the space is computed as the product of the height
1684of the text having the `display' property and FACTOR.
1685
1686- :ascent ASCENT
1687
1688Specifies that ASCENT percent of the height of the stretch should be
1689used for the ascent of the stretch, i.e. for the part above the
1690baseline. The value of ASCENT must be a non-negative number less or
1691equal to 100.
1692
1693You should not use both `:height' and `:relative-height' together.
1694
1695*** Images
1696
1697A display specification for an image has the form `(LOCATION
1698. IMAGE)', where IMAGE is an image specification. The image replaces,
1699in the display, the characters having this display specification in
1700their `display' text property. If LOCATION is `(margin left-margin)',
1701the image will be displayed in the left marginal area, if it is
1702`(margin right-margin)' it will be displayed in the right marginal
1703area, and if LOCATION is `(margin nil)' the image will be displayed in
1704the text. In the latter case you can also use the simpler form IMAGE
1705as display specification.
1706
1707*** Other display properties
1708
1709- :space-width FACTOR
1710
1711Specifies that space characters in the text having that property
1712should be displayed FACTOR times as wide as normal; FACTOR must be an
1713integer or float.
1714
1715- :height HEIGHT
1716
1717Display text having this property in a font that is smaller or larger.
1718
1719If HEIGHT is a list of the form `(+ N)', where N is an integer, that
1720means to use a font that is N steps larger. If HEIGHT is a list of
1721the form `(- N)', that means to use a font that is N steps smaller. A
1722``step'' is defined by the set of available fonts; each size for which
1723a font is available counts as a step.
1724
1725If HEIGHT is a number, that means to use a font that is HEIGHT times
1726as tall as the frame's default font.
1727
1728If HEIGHT is a symbol, it is called as a function with the current
1729height as argument. The function should return the new height to use.
1730
1731Otherwise, HEIGHT is evaluated to get the new height, with the symbol
1732`height' bound to the current specified font height.
1733
1734- :raise FACTOR
1735
1736FACTOR must be a number, specifying a multiple of the current
1737font's height. If it is positive, that means to display the characters
1738raised. If it is negative, that means to display them lower down. The
1739amount of raising or lowering is computed without taking account of the
1740`:height' subproperty.
1741
1742*** Conditional display properties
1743
1744All display specifications can be conditionalized. If a specification
1745has the form `(:when CONDITION . SPEC)', the specification SPEC
1746applies only when CONDITION yields a non-nil value when evaluated.
1747During evaluattion, point is temporarily set to the end position of
1748the text having the `display' property.
1749
1750The normal specification consisting of SPEC only is equivalent to
1751`(:when t SPEC)'.
1752
1753+++
1754** New menu separator types.
1755
1756Emacs now supports more than one menu separator type. Menu items with
1757item names consisting of dashes only (including zero dashes) are
1758treated like before. In addition, the following item names are used
1759to specify other menu separator types.
1760
1761- `--no-line' or `--space', or `--:space', or `--:noLine'
1762
1763No separator lines are drawn, but a small space is inserted where the
1764separator occurs.
1765
1766- `--single-line' or `--:singleLine'
1767
1768A single line in the menu's foreground color.
1769
1770- `--double-line' or `--:doubleLine'
1771
1772A double line in the menu's foreground color.
1773
1774- `--single-dashed-line' or `--:singleDashedLine'
1775
1776A single dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1777
1778- `--double-dashed-line' or `--:doubleDashedLine'
1779
1780A double dashed line in the menu's foreground color.
1781
1782- `--shadow-etched-in' or `--:shadowEtchedIn'
1783
1784A single line with 3D sunken appearance. This is the the form
1785displayed for item names consisting of dashes only.
1786
1787- `--shadow-etched-out' or `--:shadowEtchedOut'
1788
1789A single line with 3D raised appearance.
1790
1791- `--shadow-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedInDash'
1792
1793A single dashed line with 3D sunken appearance.
1794
1795- `--shadow-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowEtchedOutDash'
1796
1797A single dashed line with 3D raise appearance.
1798
1799- `--shadow-double-etched-in' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedIn'
1800
1801Two lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1802
1803- `--shadow-double-etched-out' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOut'
1804
1805Two lines with 3D raised appearance.
1806
1807- `--shadow-double-etched-in-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedInDash'
1808
1809Two dashed lines with 3D sunken appearance.
1810
1811- `--shadow-double-etched-out-dash' or `--:shadowDoubleEtchedOutDash'
1812
1813Two dashed lines with 3D raised appearance.
1814
1815Under LessTif/Motif, the last four separator types are displayed like
1816the corresponding single-line separators.
1817
1818+++
1819** New frame parameters for scroll bar colors.
1820
1821The new frame parameters `scroll-bar-foreground' and
1822`scroll-bar-background' can be used to change scroll bar colors.
1823Their value must be either a color name, a string, or nil to specify
1824that scroll bars should use a default color. For toolkit scroll bars,
1825default colors are toolkit specific. For non-toolkit scroll bars, the
1826default background is the background color of the frame, and the
1827default foreground is black.
1828
1829The X resource name of these parameters are `scrollBarForeground'
1830(class ScrollBarForeground) and `scrollBarBackground' (class
1831`ScrollBarBackground').
1832
1833Setting these parameters overrides toolkit specific X resource
1834settings for scroll bar colors.
1835
1836+++
1837** You can set `redisplay-dont-pause' to a non-nil value to prevent
1838display updates from being interrupted when input is pending.
1839
1840---
1841** Changing a window's width may now change its window start if it
1842starts on a continuation line. The new window start is computed based
1843on the window's new width, starting from the start of the continued
1844line as the start of the screen line with the minimum distance from
1845the original window start.
1846
1847---
1848** The variable `hscroll-step' and the functions
1849`hscroll-point-visible' and `hscroll-window-column' have been removed
1850now that proper horizontal scrolling is implemented.
1851
1852+++
1853** Windows can now be made fixed-width and/or fixed-height.
1854
1855A window is fixed-size if its buffer has a buffer-local variable
1856`window-size-fixed' whose value is not nil. A value of `height' makes
1857windows fixed-height, a value of `width' makes them fixed-width, any
1858other non-nil value makes them both fixed-width and fixed-height.
1859
1860The following code makes all windows displaying the current buffer
1861fixed-width and fixed-height.
1862
1863 (set (make-local-variable 'window-size-fixed) t)
1864
1865A call to enlarge-window on a window gives an error if that window is
1866fixed-width and it is tried to change the window's width, or if the
1867window is fixed-height, and it is tried to change its height. To
1868change the size of a fixed-size window, bind `window-size-fixed'
1869temporarily to nil, for example
1870
1871 (let ((window-size-fixed nil))
1872 (enlarge-window 10))
1873
1874Likewise, an attempt to split a fixed-height window vertically,
1875or a fixed-width window horizontally results in a error.
1876\f
1877* Changes in Emacs 20.4
1878
1879** Init file may be called .emacs.el.
1880
1881You can now call the Emacs init file `.emacs.el'.
1882Formerly the name had to be `.emacs'. If you use the name
1883`.emacs.el', you can byte-compile the file in the usual way.
1884
1885If both `.emacs' and `.emacs.el' exist, the latter file
1886is the one that is used.
1887
1888** shell-command, and shell-command-on-region, now return
1889the exit code of the command (unless it is asynchronous).
1890Also, you can specify a place to put the error output,
1891separate from the command's regular output.
1892Interactively, the variable shell-command-default-error-buffer
1893says where to put error output; set it to a buffer name.
1894In calls from Lisp, an optional argument ERROR-BUFFER specifies
1895the buffer name.
1896
1897When you specify a non-nil error buffer (or buffer name), any error
1898output is inserted before point in that buffer, with \f\n to separate
1899it from the previous batch of error output. The error buffer is not
1900cleared, so error output from successive commands accumulates there.
1901
1902** Setting the default value of enable-multibyte-characters to nil in
1903the .emacs file, either explicitly using setq-default, or via Custom,
1904is now essentially equivalent to using --unibyte: all buffers
1905created during startup will be made unibyte after loading .emacs.
1906
1907** C-x C-f now handles the wildcards * and ? in file names. For
1908example, typing C-x C-f c*.c RET visits all the files whose names
1909match c*.c. To visit a file whose name contains * or ?, add the
1910quoting sequence /: to the beginning of the file name.
1911
1912** The M-x commands keep-lines, flush-lines and count-matches
1913now have the same feature as occur and query-replace:
1914if the pattern contains any upper case letters, then
1915they never ignore case.
1916
1917** The end-of-line format conversion feature previously mentioned
1918under `* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows' actually
1919applies to all operating systems. Emacs recognizes from the contents
1920of a file what convention it uses to separate lines--newline, CRLF, or
1921just CR--and automatically converts the contents to the normal Emacs
1922convention (using newline to separate lines) for editing. This is a
1923part of the general feature of coding system conversion.
1924
1925If you subsequently save the buffer, Emacs converts the text back to
1926the same format that was used in the file before.
1927
1928You can turn off end-of-line conversion by setting the variable
1929`inhibit-eol-conversion' to non-nil, e.g. with Custom in the MULE group.
1930
1931** The character set property `prefered-coding-system' has been
1932renamed to `preferred-coding-system', for the sake of correct spelling.
1933This is a fairly internal feature, so few programs should be affected.
1934
1935** Mode-line display of end-of-line format is changed.
1936The indication of the end-of-line format of the file visited by a
1937buffer is now more explicit when that format is not the usual one for
1938your operating system. For example, the DOS-style end-of-line format
1939is displayed as "(DOS)" on Unix and GNU/Linux systems. The usual
1940end-of-line format is still displayed as a single character (colon for
1941Unix, backslash for DOS and Windows, and forward slash for the Mac).
1942
1943The values of the variables eol-mnemonic-unix, eol-mnemonic-dos,
1944eol-mnemonic-mac, and eol-mnemonic-undecided, which are strings,
1945control what is displayed in the mode line for each end-of-line
1946format. You can now customize these variables.
1947
1948** In the previous version of Emacs, tar-mode didn't work well if a
1949filename contained non-ASCII characters. Now this is fixed. Such a
1950filename is decoded by file-name-coding-system if the default value of
1951enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil.
1952
1953** The command temp-buffer-resize-mode toggles a minor mode
1954in which temporary buffers (such as help buffers) are given
1955windows just big enough to hold the whole contents.
1956
1957** If you use completion.el, you must now run the function
1958dynamic-completion-mode to enable it. Just loading the file
1959doesn't have any effect.
1960
1961** In Flyspell mode, the default is now to make just one Ispell process,
1962not one per buffer.
1963
1964** If you use iswitchb but do not call (iswitchb-default-keybindings) to
1965use the default keybindings, you will need to add the following line:
1966 (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'iswitchb-minibuffer-setup)
1967
1968** Auto-show mode is no longer enabled just by loading auto-show.el.
1969To control it, set `auto-show-mode' via Custom or use the
1970`auto-show-mode' command.
1971
1972** Handling of X fonts' ascent/descent parameters has been changed to
1973avoid redisplay problems. As a consequence, compared with previous
1974versions the line spacing and frame size now differ with some font
1975choices, typically increasing by a pixel per line. This change
1976occurred in version 20.3 but was not documented then.
1977
1978** If you select the bar cursor style, it uses the frame's
1979cursor-color, rather than the cursor foreground pixel.
1980
1981** In multibyte mode, Rmail decodes incoming MIME messages using the
1982character set specified in the message. If you want to disable this
1983feature, set the variable rmail-decode-mime-charset to nil.
1984
1985** Not new, but not mentioned previously in NEWS: when you use #! at
1986the beginning of a file to make it executable and specify an
1987interpreter program, Emacs looks on the second line for the -*- mode
1988and variable specification, as well as on the first line.
1989
1990** Support for IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters.
1991
1992The new command M-x codepage-setup creates a special coding system
1993that can be used to convert text between a specific IBM codepage and
1994one of the character sets built into Emacs which matches that
1995codepage. For example, codepage 850 corresponds to Latin-1 character
1996set, codepage 855 corresponds to Cyrillic-ISO character set, etc.
1997
1998Windows codepages 1250, 1251 and some others, where Windows deviates
1999from the corresponding ISO character set, are also supported.
2000
2001IBM box-drawing characters and other glyphs which don't have
2002equivalents in the corresponding ISO character set, are converted to
2003a character defined by dos-unsupported-char-glyph on MS-DOS, and to
2004`?' on other systems.
2005
2006IBM codepages are widely used on MS-DOS and MS-Windows, so this
2007feature is most useful on those platforms, but it can also be used on
2008Unix.
2009
2010Emacs compiled for MS-DOS automatically loads the support for the
2011current codepage when it starts.
2012
2013** Mail changes
2014
2015*** The new variable default-sendmail-coding-system specifies the
2016default way to encode outgoing mail. This has higher priority than
2017default-buffer-file-coding-system but has lower priority than
2018sendmail-coding-system and the local value of
2019buffer-file-coding-system.
2020
2021You should not set this variable manually. Instead, set
2022sendmail-coding-system to specify a fixed encoding for all outgoing
2023mail.
2024
2025*** When you try to send a message that contains non-ASCII characters,
2026if the coding system specified by those variables doesn't handle them,
2027Emacs will ask you to select a suitable coding system while showing a
2028list of possible coding systems.
2029
2030** CC Mode changes
2031
2032*** c-default-style can now take an association list that maps major
2033modes to style names. When this variable is an alist, Java mode no
2034longer hardcodes a setting to "java" style. See the variable's
2035docstring for details.
2036
2037*** It's now possible to put a list as the offset on a syntactic
2038symbol. The list is evaluated recursively until a non-nil offset is
2039found. This is useful to combine several lineup functions to act in a
2040prioritized order on a single line. However, none of the supplied
2041lineup functions use this feature currently.
2042
2043*** New syntactic symbol catch-clause, which is used on the "catch" and
2044"finally" lines in try-catch constructs in C++ and Java.
2045
2046*** New cleanup brace-catch-brace on c-cleanup-list, which does for
2047"catch" lines what brace-elseif-brace does for "else if" lines.
2048
2049*** The braces of Java anonymous inner classes are treated separately
2050from the braces of other classes in auto-newline mode. Two new
2051symbols inexpr-class-open and inexpr-class-close may be used on
2052c-hanging-braces-alist to control the automatic newlines used for
2053anonymous classes.
2054
2055*** Support for the Pike language added, along with new Pike specific
2056syntactic symbols: inlambda, lambda-intro-cont
2057
2058*** Support for Java anonymous classes via new syntactic symbol
2059inexpr-class. New syntactic symbol inexpr-statement for Pike
2060support and gcc-style statements inside expressions. New lineup
2061function c-lineup-inexpr-block.
2062
2063*** New syntactic symbol brace-entry-open which is used in brace lists
2064(i.e. static initializers) when a list entry starts with an open
2065brace. These used to be recognized as brace-list-entry's.
2066c-electric-brace also recognizes brace-entry-open braces
2067(brace-list-entry's can no longer be electrified).
2068
2069*** New command c-indent-line-or-region, not bound by default.
2070
2071*** `#' is only electric when typed in the indentation of a line.
2072
2073*** Parentheses are now electric (via the new command c-electric-paren)
2074for auto-reindenting lines when parens are typed.
2075
2076*** In "gnu" style, inline-open offset is now set to zero.
2077
2078*** Uniform handling of the inclass syntactic symbol. The indentation
2079associated with it is now always relative to the class opening brace.
2080This means that the indentation behavior has changed in some
2081circumstances, but only if you've put anything besides 0 on the
2082class-open syntactic symbol (none of the default styles do that).
2083
2084** Gnus changes.
2085
2086*** New functionality for using Gnus as an offline newsreader has been
2087added. A plethora of new commands and modes have been added. See the
2088Gnus manual for the full story.
2089
2090*** The nndraft backend has returned, but works differently than
2091before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
2092group, which is created automatically.
2093
2094*** `gnus-alter-header-function' can now be used to alter header
2095values.
2096
2097*** `gnus-summary-goto-article' now accept Message-ID's.
2098
2099*** A new Message command for deleting text in the body of a message
2100outside the region: `C-c C-v'.
2101
2102*** You can now post to component group in nnvirtual groups with
2103`C-u C-c C-c'.
2104
2105*** `nntp-rlogin-program' -- new variable to ease customization.
2106
2107*** `C-u C-c C-c' in `gnus-article-edit-mode' will now inhibit
2108re-highlighting of the article buffer.
2109
2110*** New element in `gnus-boring-article-headers' -- `long-to'.
2111
2112*** `M-i' symbolic prefix command. See the section "Symbolic
2113Prefixes" in the Gnus manual for details.
2114
2115*** `L' and `I' in the summary buffer now take the symbolic prefix
2116`a' to add the score rule to the "all.SCORE" file.
2117
2118*** `gnus-simplify-subject-functions' variable to allow greater
2119control over simplification.
2120
2121*** `A T' -- new command for fetching the current thread.
2122
2123*** `/ T' -- new command for including the current thread in the
2124limit.
2125
2126*** `M-RET' is a new Message command for breaking cited text.
2127
2128*** \\1-expressions are now valid in `nnmail-split-methods'.
2129
2130*** The `custom-face-lookup' function has been removed.
2131If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
2132rewrite them to use `face-spec-set' instead.
2133
2134*** Cancelling now uses the current select method. Symbolic prefix
2135`a' forces normal posting method.
2136
2137*** New command to translate M******** sm*rtq**t*s into proper text
2138-- `W d'.
2139
2140*** For easier debugging of nntp, you can set `nntp-record-commands'
2141to a non-nil value.
2142
2143*** nntp now uses ~/.authinfo, a .netrc-like file, for controlling
2144where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
2145
2146*** A command for editing group parameters from the summary buffer
2147has been added.
2148
2149*** A history of where mails have been split is available.
2150
2151*** A new article date command has been added -- `article-date-iso8601'.
2152
2153*** Subjects can be simplified when threading by setting
2154`gnus-score-thread-simplify'.
2155
2156*** A new function for citing in Message has been added --
2157`message-cite-original-without-signature'.
2158
2159*** `article-strip-all-blank-lines' -- new article command.
2160
2161*** A new Message command to kill to the end of the article has
2162been added.
2163
2164*** A minimum adaptive score can be specified by using the
2165`gnus-adaptive-word-minimum' variable.
2166
2167*** The "lapsed date" article header can be kept continually
2168updated by the `gnus-start-date-timer' command.
2169
2170*** Web listserv archives can be read with the nnlistserv backend.
2171
2172*** Old dejanews archives can now be read by nnweb.
2173
2174*** `gnus-posting-styles' has been re-activated.
2175
2176** Changes to TeX and LaTeX mode
2177
2178*** The new variable `tex-start-options-string' can be used to give
2179options for the TeX run. The default value causes TeX to run in
2180nonstopmode. For an interactive TeX run set it to nil or "".
2181
2182*** The command `tex-feed-input' sends input to the Tex Shell. In a
2183TeX buffer it is bound to the keys C-RET, C-c RET, and C-c C-m (some
2184of these keys may not work on all systems). For instance, if you run
2185TeX interactively and if the TeX run stops because of an error, you
2186can continue it without leaving the TeX buffer by typing C-RET.
2187
2188*** The Tex Shell Buffer is now in `compilation-shell-minor-mode'.
2189All error-parsing commands of the Compilation major mode are available
2190but bound to keys that don't collide with the shell. Thus you can use
2191the Tex Shell for command line executions like a usual shell.
2192
2193*** The commands `tex-validate-region' and `tex-validate-buffer' check
2194the matching of braces and $'s. The errors are listed in a *Occur*
2195buffer and you can use C-c C-c or mouse-2 to go to a particular
2196mismatch.
2197
2198** Changes to RefTeX mode
2199
2200*** The table of contents buffer can now also display labels and
2201file boundaries in addition to sections. Use `l', `i', and `c' keys.
2202
2203*** Labels derived from context (the section heading) are now
2204lowercase by default. To make the label legal in LaTeX, latin-1
2205characters will lose their accent. All Mule characters will be
2206removed from the label.
2207
2208*** The automatic display of cross reference information can also use
2209a window instead of the echo area. See variable `reftex-auto-view-crossref'.
2210
2211*** kpsewhich can be used by RefTeX to find TeX and BibTeX files. See the
2212customization group `reftex-finding-files'.
2213
2214*** The option `reftex-bibfile-ignore-list' has been renamed to
2215`reftex-bibfile-ignore-regexps' and indeed can be fed with regular
2216expressions.
2217
2218*** Multiple Selection buffers are now hidden buffers.
2219
2220** New/deleted modes and packages
2221
2222*** The package snmp-mode.el provides major modes for editing SNMP and
2223SNMPv2 MIBs. It has entries on `auto-mode-alist'.
2224
2225*** The package sql.el provides a major mode, M-x sql-mode, for
2226editing SQL files, and M-x sql-interactive-mode for interacting with
2227SQL interpreters. It has an entry on `auto-mode-alist'.
2228
2229*** M-x highlight-changes-mode provides a minor mode displaying buffer
2230changes with a special face.
2231
2232*** ispell4.el has been deleted. It got in the way of ispell.el and
2233this was hard to fix reliably. It has long been obsolete -- use
2234Ispell 3.1 and ispell.el.
2235\f
2236* MS-DOS changes in Emacs 20.4
2237
2238** Emacs compiled for MS-DOS now supports MULE features better.
2239This includes support for display of all ISO 8859-N character sets,
2240conversion to and from IBM codepage encoding of non-ASCII characters,
2241and automatic setup of the MULE environment at startup. For details,
2242check out the section `MS-DOS and MULE' in the manual.
2243
2244The MS-DOS installation procedure automatically configures and builds
2245Emacs with input method support if it finds an unpacked Leim
2246distribution when the config.bat script is run.
2247
2248** Formerly, the value of lpr-command did not affect printing on
2249MS-DOS unless print-region-function was set to nil, but now it
2250controls whether an external program is invoked or output is written
2251directly to a printer port. Similarly, in the previous version of
2252Emacs, the value of ps-lpr-command did not affect PostScript printing
2253on MS-DOS unless ps-printer-name was set to something other than a
2254string (eg. t or `pipe'), but now it controls whether an external
2255program is used. (These changes were made so that configuration of
2256printing variables would be almost identical across all platforms.)
2257
2258** In the previous version of Emacs, PostScript and non-PostScript
2259output was piped to external programs, but because most print programs
2260available for MS-DOS and MS-Windows cannot read data from their standard
2261input, on those systems the data to be output is now written to a
2262temporary file whose name is passed as the last argument to the external
2263program.
2264
2265An exception is made for `print', a standard program on Windows NT,
2266and `nprint', a standard program on Novell Netware. For both of these
2267programs, the command line is constructed in the appropriate syntax
2268automatically, using only the value of printer-name or ps-printer-name
2269as appropriate--the value of the relevant `-switches' variable is
2270ignored, as both programs have no useful switches.
2271
2272** The value of the variable dos-printer (cf. dos-ps-printer), if it has
2273a value, overrides the value of printer-name (cf. ps-printer-name), on
2274MS-DOS and MS-Windows only. This has been true since version 20.3, but
2275was not documented clearly before.
2276
2277** All the Emacs games now work on MS-DOS terminals.
2278This includes Tetris and Snake.
2279\f
2280* Lisp changes in Emacs 20.4
2281
2282** New functions line-beginning-position and line-end-position
2283return the position of the beginning or end of the current line.
2284They both accept an optional argument, which has the same
2285meaning as the argument to beginning-of-line or end-of-line.
2286
2287** find-file and allied functions now have an optional argument
2288WILDCARD. If this is non-nil, they do wildcard processing,
2289and visit all files that match the wildcard pattern.
2290
2291** Changes in the file-attributes function.
2292
2293*** The file size returned by file-attributes may be an integer or a float.
2294It is an integer if the size fits in a Lisp integer, float otherwise.
2295
2296*** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
2297the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a cons cell containing two
2298integers.
2299
2300** The new function directory-files-and-attributes returns a list of
2301files in a directory and their attributes. It accepts the same
2302arguments as directory-files and has similar semantics, except that
2303file names and attributes are returned.
2304
2305** The new function file-attributes-lessp is a helper function for
2306sorting the list generated by directory-files-and-attributes. It
2307accepts two arguments, each a list of a file name and its atttributes.
2308It compares the file names of each according to string-lessp and
2309returns the result.
2310
2311** The new function file-expand-wildcards expands a wildcard-pattern
2312to produce a list of existing files that match the pattern.
2313
2314** New functions for base64 conversion:
2315
2316The function base64-encode-region converts a part of the buffer
2317into the base64 code used in MIME. base64-decode-region
2318performs the opposite conversion. Line-breaking is supported
2319optionally.
2320
2321Functions base64-encode-string and base64-decode-string do a similar
2322job on the text in a string. They return the value as a new string.
2323
2324**
2325The new function process-running-child-p
2326will tell you if a subprocess has given control of its
2327terminal to its own child process.
2328
2329** interrupt-process and such functions have a new feature:
2330when the second argument is `lambda', they send a signal
2331to the running child of the subshell, if any, but if the shell
2332itself owns its terminal, no signal is sent.
2333
2334** There are new widget types `plist' and `alist' which can
2335be used for customizing variables whose values are plists or alists.
2336
2337** easymenu.el Now understands `:key-sequence' and `:style button'.
2338:included is an alias for :visible.
2339
2340easy-menu-add-item now understands the values returned by
2341easy-menu-remove-item and easy-menu-item-present-p. This can be used
2342to move or copy menu entries.
2343
2344** Multibyte editing changes
2345
2346*** The definitions of sref and char-bytes are changed. Now, sref is
2347an alias of aref and char-bytes always returns 1. This change is to
2348make some Emacs Lisp code which works on 20.2 and earlier also
2349work on the latest Emacs. Such code uses a combination of sref and
2350char-bytes in a loop typically as below:
2351 (setq char (sref str idx)
2352 idx (+ idx (char-bytes idx)))
2353The byte-compiler now warns that this is obsolete.
2354
2355If you want to know how many bytes a specific multibyte character
2356(say, CH) occupies in a multibyte buffer, use this code:
2357 (charset-bytes (char-charset ch))
2358
2359*** In multibyte mode, when you narrow a buffer to some region, and the
2360region is preceded or followed by non-ASCII codes, inserting or
2361deleting at the head or the end of the region may signal this error:
2362
2363 Byte combining across boundary of accessible buffer text inhibitted
2364
2365This is to avoid some bytes being combined together into a character
2366across the boundary.
2367
2368*** The functions find-charset-region and find-charset-string include
2369`unknown' in the returned list in the following cases:
2370 o The current buffer or the target string is unibyte and
2371 contains 8-bit characters.
2372 o The current buffer or the target string is multibyte and
2373 contains invalid characters.
2374
2375*** The functions decode-coding-region and encode-coding-region remove
2376text properties of the target region. Ideally, they should correctly
2377preserve text properties, but for the moment, it's hard. Removing
2378text properties is better than preserving them in a less-than-correct
2379way.
2380
2381*** prefer-coding-system sets EOL conversion of default coding systems.
2382If the argument to prefer-coding-system specifies a certain type of
2383end of line conversion, the default coding systems set by
2384prefer-coding-system will specify that conversion type for end of line.
2385
2386*** The new function thai-compose-string can be used to properly
2387compose Thai characters in a string.
2388
2389** The primitive `define-prefix-command' now takes an optional third
2390argument NAME, which should be a string. It supplies the menu name
2391for the created keymap. Keymaps created in order to be displayed as
2392menus should always use the third argument.
2393
2394** The meanings of optional second arguments for read-char,
2395read-event, and read-char-exclusive are flipped. Now the second
2396arguments are INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. These functions use the current
2397input method (if any) if and only if INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD is non-nil.
2398
2399** The new function clear-this-command-keys empties out the contents
2400of the vector that (this-command-keys) returns. This is useful in
2401programs that read passwords, to prevent the passwords from echoing
2402inadvertently as part of the next command in certain cases.
2403
2404** The new macro `with-temp-message' displays a temporary message in
2405the echo area, while executing some Lisp code. Like `progn', it
2406returns the value of the last form, but it also restores the previous
2407echo area contents.
2408
2409 (with-temp-message MESSAGE &rest BODY)
2410
2411** The function `require' now takes an optional third argument
2412NOERROR. If it is non-nil, then there is no error if the
2413requested feature cannot be loaded.
2414
2415** In the function modify-face, an argument of (nil) for the
2416foreground color, background color or stipple pattern
2417means to clear out that attribute.
2418
2419** The `outer-window-id' frame property of an X frame
2420gives the window number of the outermost X window for the frame.
2421
2422** Temporary buffers made with with-output-to-temp-buffer are now
2423read-only by default, and normally use the major mode Help mode
2424unless you put them in some other non-Fundamental mode before the
2425end of with-output-to-temp-buffer.
2426
2427** The new functions gap-position and gap-size return information on
2428the gap of the current buffer.
2429
2430** The new functions position-bytes and byte-to-position provide a way
2431to convert between character positions and byte positions in the
2432current buffer.
2433
2434** vc.el defines two new macros, `edit-vc-file' and `with-vc-file', to
2435facilitate working with version-controlled files from Lisp programs.
2436These macros check out a given file automatically if needed, and check
2437it back in after any modifications have been made.
2438\f
2439* Installation Changes in Emacs 20.3
2440
2441** The default value of load-path now includes most subdirectories of
2442the site-specific directories /usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp and
2443/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp, in addition to those
2444directories themselves. Both immediate subdirectories and
2445subdirectories multiple levels down are added to load-path.
2446
2447Not all subdirectories are included, though. Subdirectories whose
2448names do not start with a letter or digit are excluded.
2449Subdirectories named RCS or CVS are excluded. Also, a subdirectory
2450which contains a file named `.nosearch' is excluded. You can use
2451these methods to prevent certain subdirectories from being searched.
2452
2453Emacs finds these subdirectories and adds them to load-path when it
2454starts up. While it would be cleaner to find the subdirectories each
2455time Emacs loads a file, that would be much slower.
2456
2457This feature is an incompatible change. If you have stored some Emacs
2458Lisp files in a subdirectory of the site-lisp directory specifically
2459to prevent them from being used, you will need to rename the
2460subdirectory to start with a non-alphanumeric character, or create a
2461`.nosearch' file in it, in order to continue to achieve the desired
2462results.
2463
2464** Emacs no longer includes an old version of the C preprocessor from
2465GCC. This was formerly used to help compile Emacs with C compilers
2466that had limits on the significant length of an identifier, but in
2467fact we stopped supporting such compilers some time ago.
2468\f
2469* Changes in Emacs 20.3
2470
2471** The new command C-x z (repeat) repeats the previous command
2472including its argument. If you repeat the z afterward,
2473it repeats the command additional times; thus, you can
2474perform many repetitions with one keystroke per repetition.
2475
2476** Emacs now supports "selective undo" which undoes only within a
2477specified region. To do this, set point and mark around the desired
2478region and type C-u C-x u (or C-u C-_). You can then continue undoing
2479further, within the same region, by repeating the ordinary undo
2480command C-x u or C-_. This will keep undoing changes that were made
2481within the region you originally specified, until either all of them
2482are undone, or it encounters a change which crosses the edge of that
2483region.
2484
2485In Transient Mark mode, undoing when a region is active requests
2486selective undo.
2487
2488** If you specify --unibyte when starting Emacs, then all buffers are
2489unibyte, except when a Lisp program specifically creates a multibyte
2490buffer. Setting the environment variable EMACS_UNIBYTE has the same
2491effect. The --no-unibyte option overrides EMACS_UNIBYTE and directs
2492Emacs to run normally in multibyte mode.
2493
2494The option --unibyte does not affect the reading of Emacs Lisp files,
2495though. If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode, use
2496-*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line. That will force Emacs to
2497load that file in unibyte mode, regardless of how Emacs was started.
2498
2499** toggle-enable-multibyte-characters no longer has a key binding and
2500no longer appears in the menu bar. We've realized that changing the
2501enable-multibyte-characters variable in an existing buffer is
2502something that most users not do.
2503
2504** You can specify a coding system to use for the next cut or paste
2505operations through the window system with the command C-x RET X.
2506The coding system can make a difference for communication with other
2507applications.
2508
2509C-x RET x specifies a coding system for all subsequent cutting and
2510pasting operations.
2511
2512** You can specify the printer to use for commands that do printing by
2513setting the variable `printer-name'. Just what a printer name looks
2514like depends on your operating system. You can specify a different
2515printer for the Postscript printing commands by setting
2516`ps-printer-name'.
2517
2518** Emacs now supports on-the-fly spell checking by the means of a
2519minor mode. It is called M-x flyspell-mode. You don't have to remember
2520any other special commands to use it, and you will hardly notice it
2521except when you make a spelling error. Flyspell works by highlighting
2522incorrect words as soon as they are completed or as soon as the cursor
2523hits a new word.
2524
2525Flyspell mode works with whichever dictionary you have selected for
2526Ispell in Emacs. In TeX mode, it understands TeX syntax so as not
2527to be confused by TeX commands.
2528
2529You can correct a misspelled word by editing it into something
2530correct. You can also correct it, or accept it as correct, by
2531clicking on the word with Mouse-2; that gives you a pop-up menu
2532of various alternative replacements and actions.
2533
2534Flyspell mode also proposes "automatic" corrections. M-TAB replaces
2535the current misspelled word with a possible correction. If several
2536corrections are made possible, M-TAB cycles through them in
2537alphabetical order, or in order of decreasing likelihood if
2538flyspell-sort-corrections is nil.
2539
2540Flyspell mode also flags an error when a word is repeated, if
2541flyspell-mark-duplications-flag is non-nil.
2542
2543** Changes in input method usage.
2544
2545Now you can use arrow keys (right, left, down, up) for selecting among
2546the alternatives just the same way as you do by C-f, C-b, C-n, and C-p
2547respectively.
2548
2549You can use the ENTER key to accept the current conversion.
2550
2551If you type TAB to display a list of alternatives, you can select one
2552of the alternatives with Mouse-2.
2553
2554The meaning of the variable `input-method-verbose-flag' is changed so
2555that you can set it to t, nil, `default', or `complex-only'.
2556
2557 If the value is nil, extra guidance is never given.
2558
2559 If the value is t, extra guidance is always given.
2560
2561 If the value is `complex-only', extra guidance is always given only
2562 when you are using complex input methods such as chinese-py.
2563
2564 If the value is `default' (this is the default), extra guidance is
2565 given in the following case:
2566 o When you are using a complex input method.
2567 o When you are using a simple input method but not in the minibuffer.
2568
2569If you are using Emacs through a very slow line, setting
2570input-method-verbose-flag to nil or to complex-only is a good choice,
2571and if you are using an input method you are not familiar with,
2572setting it to t is helpful.
2573
2574The old command select-input-method is now called set-input-method.
2575
2576In the language environment "Korean", you can use the following
2577keys:
2578 Shift-SPC toggle-korean-input-method
2579 C-F9 quail-hangul-switch-symbol-ksc
2580 F9 quail-hangul-switch-hanja
2581These key bindings are canceled when you switch to another language
2582environment.
2583
2584** The minibuffer history of file names now records the specified file
2585names, not the entire minibuffer input. For example, if the
2586minibuffer starts out with /usr/foo/, you might type in /etc/passwd to
2587get
2588
2589 /usr/foo//etc/passwd
2590
2591which stands for the file /etc/passwd.
2592
2593Formerly, this used to put /usr/foo//etc/passwd in the history list.
2594Now this puts just /etc/passwd in the history list.
2595
2596** If you are root, Emacs sets backup-by-copying-when-mismatch to t
2597at startup, so that saving a file will be sure to preserve
2598its owner and group.
2599
2600** find-func.el can now also find the place of definition of Emacs
2601Lisp variables in user-loaded libraries.
2602
2603** C-x r t (string-rectangle) now deletes the existing rectangle
2604contents before inserting the specified string on each line.
2605
2606** There is a new command delete-whitespace-rectangle
2607which deletes whitespace starting from a particular column
2608in all the lines on a rectangle. The column is specified
2609by the left edge of the rectangle.
2610
2611** You can now store a number into a register with C-u NUMBER C-x r n REG,
2612increment it by INC with C-u INC C-x r + REG (to increment by one, omit
2613C-u INC), and insert it in the buffer with C-x r g REG. This is useful
2614for writing keyboard macros.
2615
2616** The new command M-x speedbar displays a frame in which directories,
2617files, and tags can be displayed, manipulated, and jumped to. The
2618frame defaults to 20 characters in width, and is the same height as
2619the frame that it was started from. Some major modes define
2620additional commands for the speedbar, including Rmail, GUD/GDB, and
2621info.
2622
2623** query-replace-regexp is now bound to C-M-%.
2624
2625** In Transient Mark mode, when the region is active, M-x
2626query-replace and the other replace commands now operate on the region
2627contents only.
2628
2629** M-x write-region, when used interactively, now asks for
2630confirmation before overwriting an existing file. When you call
2631the function from a Lisp program, a new optional argument CONFIRM
2632says whether to ask for confirmation in this case.
2633
2634** If you use find-file-literally and the file is already visited
2635non-literally, the command asks you whether to revisit the file
2636literally. If you say no, it signals an error.
2637
2638** Major modes defined with the "derived mode" feature
2639now use the proper name for the mode hook: WHATEVER-mode-hook.
2640Formerly they used the name WHATEVER-mode-hooks, but that is
2641inconsistent with Emacs conventions.
2642
2643** shell-command-on-region (and shell-command) reports success or
2644failure if the command produces no output.
2645
2646** Set focus-follows-mouse to nil if your window system or window
2647manager does not transfer focus to another window when you just move
2648the mouse.
2649
2650** mouse-menu-buffer-maxlen has been renamed to
2651mouse-buffer-menu-maxlen to be consistent with the other related
2652function and variable names.
2653
2654** The new variable auto-coding-alist specifies coding systems for
2655reading specific files. This has higher priority than
2656file-coding-system-alist.
2657
2658** If you set the variable unibyte-display-via-language-environment to
2659t, then Emacs displays non-ASCII characters are displayed by
2660converting them to the equivalent multibyte characters according to
2661the current language environment. As a result, they are displayed
2662according to the current fontset.
2663
2664** C-q's handling of codes in the range 0200 through 0377 is changed.
2665
2666The codes in the range 0200 through 0237 are inserted as one byte of
2667that code regardless of the values of nonascii-translation-table and
2668nonascii-insert-offset.
2669
2670For the codes in the range 0240 through 0377, if
2671enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil and nonascii-translation-table
2672nor nonascii-insert-offset can't convert them to valid multibyte
2673characters, they are converted to Latin-1 characters.
2674
2675** If you try to find a file that is not read-accessible, you now get
2676an error, rather than an empty buffer and a warning.
2677
2678** In the minibuffer history commands M-r and M-s, an upper case
2679letter in the regular expression forces case-sensitive search.
2680
2681** In the *Help* buffer, cross-references to commands and variables
2682are inferred and hyperlinked. Use C-h m in Help mode for the relevant
2683command keys.
2684
2685** M-x apropos-command, with a prefix argument, no longer looks for
2686user option variables--instead it looks for noninteractive functions.
2687
2688Meanwhile, the command apropos-variable normally searches for
2689user option variables; with a prefix argument, it looks at
2690all variables that have documentation.
2691
2692** When you type a long line in the minibuffer, and the minibuffer
2693shows just one line, automatically scrolling works in a special way
2694that shows you overlap with the previous line of text. The variable
2695minibuffer-scroll-overlap controls how many characters of overlap
2696it should show; the default is 20.
2697
2698Meanwhile, Resize Minibuffer mode is still available; in that mode,
2699the minibuffer grows taller (up to a point) as needed to show the whole
2700of your input.
2701
2702** The new command M-x customize-changed-options lets you customize
2703all the options whose meanings or default values have changed in
2704recent Emacs versions. You specify a previous Emacs version number as
2705argument, and the command creates a customization buffer showing all
2706the customizable options which were changed since that version.
2707Newly added options are included as well.
2708
2709If you don't specify a particular version number argument,
2710then the customization buffer shows all the customizable options
2711for which Emacs versions of changes are recorded.
2712
2713This function is also bound to the Changed Options entry in the
2714Customize menu.
2715
2716** When you run M-x grep with a prefix argument, it figures out
2717the tag around point and puts that into the default grep command.
2718
2719** The new command M-* (pop-tag-mark) pops back through a history of
2720buffer positions from which M-. or other tag-finding commands were
2721invoked.
2722
2723** The new variable comment-padding specifies the number of spaces
2724that `comment-region' will insert before the actual text of the comment.
2725The default is 1.
2726
2727** In Fortran mode the characters `.', `_' and `$' now have symbol
2728syntax, not word syntax. Fortran mode now supports `imenu' and has
2729new commands fortran-join-line (M-^) and fortran-narrow-to-subprogram
2730(C-x n d). M-q can be used to fill a statement or comment block
2731sensibly.
2732
2733** GUD now supports jdb, the Java debugger, and pdb, the Python debugger.
2734
2735** If you set the variable add-log-keep-changes-together to a non-nil
2736value, the command `C-x 4 a' will automatically notice when you make
2737two entries in one day for one file, and combine them.
2738
2739** You can use the command M-x diary-mail-entries to mail yourself a
2740reminder about upcoming diary entries. See the documentation string
2741for a sample shell script for calling this function automatically
2742every night.
2743
2744** All you need to do, to enable use of the Desktop package, is to set
2745the variable desktop-enable to t with Custom.
2746
2747** There is no need to do anything special, now, to enable Gnus to
2748read and post multi-lingual articles.
2749
2750** Outline mode has now support for showing hidden outlines when
2751doing an isearch. In order for this to happen search-invisible should
2752be set to open (the default). If an isearch match is inside a hidden
2753outline the outline is made visible. If you continue pressing C-s and
2754the match moves outside the formerly invisible outline, the outline is
2755made invisible again.
2756
2757** Mail reading and sending changes
2758
2759*** The Rmail e command now switches to displaying the whole header of
2760the message before it lets you edit the message. This is so that any
2761changes you make in the header will not be lost if you subsequently
2762toggle.
2763
2764*** The w command in Rmail, which writes the message body into a file,
2765now works in the summary buffer as well. (The command to delete the
2766summary buffer is now Q.) The default file name for the w command, if
2767the message has no subject, is stored in the variable
2768rmail-default-body-file.
2769
2770*** Most of the commands and modes that operate on mail and netnews no
2771longer depend on the value of mail-header-separator. Instead, they
2772handle whatever separator the buffer happens to use.
2773
2774*** If you set mail-signature to a value which is not t, nil, or a string,
2775it should be an expression. When you send a message, this expression
2776is evaluated to insert the signature.
2777
2778*** The new Lisp library feedmail.el (version 8) enhances processing of
2779outbound email messages. It works in coordination with other email
2780handling packages (e.g., rmail, VM, gnus) and is responsible for
2781putting final touches on messages and actually submitting them for
2782transmission. Users of the emacs program "fakemail" might be
2783especially interested in trying feedmail.
2784
2785feedmail is not enabled by default. See comments at the top of
2786feedmail.el for set-up instructions. Among the bigger features
2787provided by feedmail are:
2788
2789**** you can park outgoing messages into a disk-based queue and
2790stimulate sending some or all of them later (handy for laptop users);
2791there is also a queue for draft messages
2792
2793**** you can get one last look at the prepped outbound message and
2794be prompted for confirmation
2795
2796**** does smart filling of address headers
2797
2798**** can generate a MESSAGE-ID: line and a DATE: line; the date can be
2799the time the message was written or the time it is being sent; this
2800can make FCC copies more closely resemble copies that recipients get
2801
2802**** you can specify an arbitrary function for actually transmitting
2803the message; included in feedmail are interfaces for /bin/[r]mail,
2804/usr/lib/sendmail, and elisp smtpmail; it's easy to write a new
2805function for something else (10-20 lines of elisp)
2806
2807** Dired changes
2808
2809*** The Dired function dired-do-toggle, which toggles marked and unmarked
2810files, is now bound to "t" instead of "T".
2811
2812*** dired-at-point has been added to ffap.el. It allows one to easily
2813run Dired on the directory name at point.
2814
2815*** Dired has a new command: %g. It searches the contents of
2816files in the directory and marks each file that contains a match
2817for a specified regexp.
2818
2819** VC Changes
2820
2821*** New option vc-ignore-vc-files lets you turn off version control
2822conveniently.
2823
2824*** VC Dired has been completely rewritten. It is now much
2825faster, especially for CVS, and works very similar to ordinary
2826Dired.
2827
2828VC Dired is invoked by typing C-x v d and entering the name of the
2829directory to display. By default, VC Dired gives you a recursive
2830listing of all files at or below the given directory which are
2831currently locked (for CVS, all files not up-to-date are shown).
2832
2833You can change the listing format by setting vc-dired-recurse to nil,
2834then it shows only the given directory, and you may also set
2835vc-dired-terse-display to nil, then it shows all files under version
2836control plus the names of any subdirectories, so that you can type `i'
2837on such lines to insert them manually, as in ordinary Dired.
2838
2839All Dired commands operate normally in VC Dired, except for `v', which
2840is redefined as the version control prefix. That means you may type
2841`v l', `v =' etc. to invoke `vc-print-log', `vc-diff' and the like on
2842the file named in the current Dired buffer line. `v v' invokes
2843`vc-next-action' on this file, or on all files currently marked.
2844
2845The new command `v t' (vc-dired-toggle-terse-mode) allows you to
2846toggle between terse display (only locked files) and full display (all
2847VC files plus subdirectories). There is also a special command,
2848`* l', to mark all files currently locked.
2849
2850Giving a prefix argument to C-x v d now does the same thing as in
2851ordinary Dired: it allows you to supply additional options for the ls
2852command in the minibuffer, to fine-tune VC Dired's output.
2853
2854*** Under CVS, if you merge changes from the repository into a working
2855file, and CVS detects conflicts, VC now offers to start an ediff
2856session to resolve them.
2857
2858Alternatively, you can use the new command `vc-resolve-conflicts' to
2859resolve conflicts in a file at any time. It works in any buffer that
2860contains conflict markers as generated by rcsmerge (which is what CVS
2861uses as well).
2862
2863*** You can now transfer changes between branches, using the new
2864command vc-merge (C-x v m). It is implemented for RCS and CVS. When
2865you invoke it in a buffer under version-control, you can specify
2866either an entire branch or a pair of versions, and the changes on that
2867branch or between the two versions are merged into the working file.
2868If this results in any conflicts, they may be resolved interactively,
2869using ediff.
2870
2871** Changes in Font Lock
2872
2873*** The face and variable previously known as font-lock-reference-face
2874are now called font-lock-constant-face to better reflect their typical
2875use for highlighting constants and labels. (Its face properties are
2876unchanged.) The variable font-lock-reference-face remains for now for
2877compatibility reasons, but its value is font-lock-constant-face.
2878
2879** Frame name display changes
2880
2881*** The command set-frame-name lets you set the name of the current
2882frame. You can use the new command select-frame-by-name to select and
2883raise a frame; this is mostly useful on character-only terminals, or
2884when many frames are invisible or iconified.
2885
2886*** On character-only terminal (not a window system), changing the
2887frame name is now reflected on the mode line and in the Buffers/Frames
2888menu.
2889
2890** Comint (subshell) changes
2891
2892*** In Comint modes, the commands to kill, stop or interrupt a
2893subjob now also kill pending input. This is for compatibility
2894with ordinary shells, where the signal characters do this.
2895
2896*** There are new commands in Comint mode.
2897
2898C-c C-x fetches the "next" line from the input history;
2899that is, the line after the last line you got.
2900You can use this command to fetch successive lines, one by one.
2901
2902C-c SPC accumulates lines of input. More precisely, it arranges to
2903send the current line together with the following line, when you send
2904the following line.
2905
2906C-c C-a if repeated twice consecutively now moves to the process mark,
2907which separates the pending input from the subprocess output and the
2908previously sent input.
2909
2910C-c M-r now runs comint-previous-matching-input-from-input;
2911it searches for a previous command, using the current pending input
2912as the search string.
2913
2914*** New option compilation-scroll-output can be set to scroll
2915automatically in compilation-mode windows.
2916
2917** C mode changes
2918
2919*** Multiline macros are now handled, both as they affect indentation,
2920and as recognized syntax. New syntactic symbol cpp-macro-cont is
2921assigned to second and subsequent lines of a multiline macro
2922definition.
2923
2924*** A new style "user" which captures all non-hook-ified
2925(i.e. top-level) .emacs file variable settings and customizations.
2926Style "cc-mode" is an alias for "user" and is deprecated. "gnu"
2927style is still the default however.
2928
2929*** "java" style now conforms to Sun's JDK coding style.
2930
2931*** There are new commands c-beginning-of-defun, c-end-of-defun which
2932are alternatives which you could bind to C-M-a and C-M-e if you prefer
2933them. They do not have key bindings by default.
2934
2935*** New and improved implementations of M-a (c-beginning-of-statement)
2936and M-e (c-end-of-statement).
2937
2938*** C++ namespace blocks are supported, with new syntactic symbols
2939namespace-open, namespace-close, and innamespace.
2940
2941*** File local variable settings of c-file-style and c-file-offsets
2942makes the style variables local to that buffer only.
2943
2944*** New indentation functions c-lineup-close-paren,
2945c-indent-one-line-block, c-lineup-dont-change.
2946
2947*** Improvements (hopefully!) to the way CC Mode is loaded. You
2948should now be able to do a (require 'cc-mode) to get the entire
2949package loaded properly for customization in your .emacs file. A new
2950variable c-initialize-on-load controls this and is t by default.
2951
2952** Changes to hippie-expand.
2953
2954*** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-skip-space'. If
2955non-nil, trailing spaces may be included in the abbreviation to search for,
2956which then gives the same behavior as the original `dabbrev-expand'.
2957
2958*** New customization variable `hippie-expand-dabbrev-as-symbol'. If
2959non-nil, characters of syntax '_' is considered part of the word when
2960expanding dynamically.
2961
2962*** New customization variable `hippie-expand-no-restriction'. If
2963non-nil, narrowed buffers are widened before they are searched.
2964
2965*** New customization variable `hippie-expand-only-buffers'. If
2966non-empty, buffers searched are restricted to the types specified in
2967this list. Useful for example when constructing new special-purpose
2968expansion functions with `make-hippie-expand-function'.
2969
2970*** Text properties of the expansion are no longer copied.
2971
2972** Changes in BibTeX mode.
2973
2974*** Any titleword matching a regexp in the new variable
2975bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore (case sensitive) is ignored during
2976automatic key generation. This replaces variable
2977bibtex-autokey-titleword-first-ignore, which only checked for matches
2978against the first word in the title.
2979
2980*** Autokey generation now uses all words from the title, not just
2981capitalized words. To avoid conflicts with existing customizations,
2982bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore is set up such that words starting with
2983lowerkey characters will still be ignored. Thus, if you want to use
2984lowercase words from the title, you will have to overwrite the
2985bibtex-autokey-titleword-ignore standard setting.
2986
2987*** Case conversion of names and title words for automatic key
2988generation is more flexible. Variable bibtex-autokey-preserve-case is
2989replaced by bibtex-autokey-titleword-case-convert and
2990bibtex-autokey-name-case-convert.
2991
2992** Changes in vcursor.el.
2993
2994*** Support for character terminals is available: there is a new keymap
2995and the vcursor will appear as an arrow between buffer text. A
2996variable `vcursor-interpret-input' allows input from the vcursor to be
2997entered exactly as if typed. Numerous functions, including
2998`vcursor-compare-windows', have been rewritten to improve consistency
2999in the selection of windows and corresponding keymaps.
3000
3001*** vcursor options can now be altered with M-x customize under the
3002Editing group once the package is loaded.
3003
3004*** Loading vcursor now does not define keys by default, as this is
3005generally a bad side effect. Use M-x customize to set
3006vcursor-key-bindings to t to restore the old behaviour.
3007
3008*** vcursor-auto-disable can be `copy', which turns off copying from the
3009vcursor, but doesn't disable it, after any non-vcursor command.
3010
3011** Ispell changes.
3012
3013*** You can now spell check comments and strings in the current
3014buffer with M-x ispell-comments-and-strings. Comments and strings
3015are identified by syntax tables in effect.
3016
3017*** Generic region skipping implemented.
3018A single buffer can be broken into a number of regions where text will
3019and will not be checked. The definitions of the regions can be user
3020defined. New applications and improvements made available by this
3021include:
3022
3023 o URLs are automatically skipped
3024 o EMail message checking is vastly improved.
3025
3026*** Ispell can highlight the erroneous word even on non-window terminals.
3027
3028** Changes to RefTeX mode
3029
3030RefTeX has been updated in order to make it more usable with very
3031large projects (like a several volume math book). The parser has been
3032re-written from scratch. To get maximum speed from RefTeX, check the
3033section `Optimizations' in the manual.
3034
3035*** New recursive parser.
3036
3037The old version of RefTeX created a single large buffer containing the
3038entire multifile document in order to parse the document. The new
3039recursive parser scans the individual files.
3040
3041*** Parsing only part of a document.
3042
3043Reparsing of changed document parts can now be made faster by enabling
3044partial scans. To use this feature, read the documentation string of
3045the variable `reftex-enable-partial-scans' and set the variable to t.
3046
3047 (setq reftex-enable-partial-scans t)
3048
3049*** Storing parsing information in a file.
3050
3051This can improve startup times considerably. To turn it on, use
3052
3053 (setq reftex-save-parse-info t)
3054
3055*** Using multiple selection buffers
3056
3057If the creation of label selection buffers is too slow (this happens
3058for large documents), you can reuse these buffers by setting
3059
3060 (setq reftex-use-multiple-selection-buffers t)
3061
3062*** References to external documents.
3063
3064The LaTeX package `xr' allows to cross-reference labels in external
3065documents. RefTeX can provide information about the external
3066documents as well. To use this feature, set up the \externaldocument
3067macros required by the `xr' package and rescan the document with
3068RefTeX. The external labels can then be accessed with the `x' key in
3069the selection buffer provided by `reftex-reference' (bound to `C-c )').
3070The `x' key also works in the table of contents buffer.
3071
3072*** Many more labeled LaTeX environments are recognized by default.
3073
3074The builtin command list now covers all the standard LaTeX commands,
3075and all of the major packages included in the LaTeX distribution.
3076
3077Also, RefTeX now understands the \appendix macro and changes
3078the enumeration of sections in the *toc* buffer accordingly.
3079
3080*** Mouse support for selection and *toc* buffers
3081
3082The mouse can now be used to select items in the selection and *toc*
3083buffers. See also the new option `reftex-highlight-selection'.
3084
3085*** New keymaps for selection and table of contents modes.
3086
3087The selection processes for labels and citation keys, and the table of
3088contents buffer now have their own keymaps: `reftex-select-label-map',
3089`reftex-select-bib-map', `reftex-toc-map'. The selection processes
3090have a number of new keys predefined. In particular, TAB lets you
3091enter a label with completion. Check the on-the-fly help (press `?'
3092at the selection prompt) or read the Info documentation to find out
3093more.
3094
3095*** Support for the varioref package
3096
3097The `v' key in the label selection buffer toggles \ref versus \vref.
3098
3099*** New hooks
3100
3101Three new hooks can be used to redefine the way labels, references,
3102and citations are created. These hooks are
3103`reftex-format-label-function', `reftex-format-ref-function',
3104`reftex-format-cite-function'.
3105
3106*** Citations outside LaTeX
3107
3108The command `reftex-citation' may also be used outside LaTeX (e.g. in
3109a mail buffer). See the Info documentation for details.
3110
3111*** Short context is no longer fontified.
3112
3113The short context in the label menu no longer copies the
3114fontification from the text in the buffer. If you prefer it to be
3115fontified, use
3116
3117 (setq reftex-refontify-context t)
3118
3119** file-cache-minibuffer-complete now accepts a prefix argument.
3120With a prefix argument, it does not try to do completion of
3121the file name within its directory; it only checks for other
3122directories that contain the same file name.
3123
3124Thus, given the file name Makefile, and assuming that a file
3125Makefile.in exists in the same directory, ordinary
3126file-cache-minibuffer-complete will try to complete Makefile to
3127Makefile.in and will therefore never look for other directories that
3128have Makefile. A prefix argument tells it not to look for longer
3129names such as Makefile.in, so that instead it will look for other
3130directories--just as if the name were already complete in its present
3131directory.
3132
3133** New modes and packages
3134
3135*** There is a new alternative major mode for Perl, Cperl mode.
3136It has many more features than Perl mode, and some people prefer
3137it, but some do not.
3138
3139*** There is a new major mode, M-x vhdl-mode, for editing files of VHDL
3140code.
3141
3142*** M-x which-function-mode enables a minor mode that displays the
3143current function name continuously in the mode line, as you move
3144around in a buffer.
3145
3146Which Function mode is effective in major modes which support Imenu.
3147
3148*** Gametree is a major mode for editing game analysis trees. The author
3149uses it for keeping notes about his postal Chess games, but it should
3150be helpful for other two-player games as well, as long as they have an
3151established system of notation similar to Chess.
3152
3153*** The new minor mode checkdoc-minor-mode provides Emacs Lisp
3154documentation string checking for style and spelling. The style
3155guidelines are found in the Emacs Lisp programming manual.
3156
3157*** The net-utils package makes some common networking features
3158available in Emacs. Some of these functions are wrappers around
3159system utilities (ping, nslookup, etc); others are implementations of
3160simple protocols (finger, whois) in Emacs Lisp. There are also
3161functions to make simple connections to TCP/IP ports for debugging and
3162the like.
3163
3164*** highlight-changes-mode is a minor mode that uses colors to
3165identify recently changed parts of the buffer text.
3166
3167*** The new package `midnight' lets you specify things to be done
3168within Emacs at midnight--by default, kill buffers that you have not
3169used in a considerable time. To use this feature, customize
3170the user option `midnight-mode' to t.
3171
3172*** The file generic-x.el defines a number of simple major modes.
3173
3174 apache-generic-mode: For Apache and NCSA httpd configuration files
3175 samba-generic-mode: Samba configuration files
3176 fvwm-generic-mode: For fvwm initialization files
3177 x-resource-generic-mode: For X resource files
3178 hosts-generic-mode: For hosts files (.rhosts, /etc/hosts, etc)
3179 mailagent-rules-generic-mode: For mailagent .rules files
3180 javascript-generic-mode: For JavaScript files
3181 vrml-generic-mode: For VRML files
3182 java-manifest-generic-mode: For Java MANIFEST files
3183 java-properties-generic-mode: For Java property files
3184 mailrc-generic-mode: For .mailrc files
3185
3186 Platform-specific modes:
3187
3188 prototype-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V prototype files
3189 pkginfo-generic-mode: For Solaris/Sys V pkginfo files
3190 alias-generic-mode: For C shell alias files
3191 inf-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INF files
3192 ini-generic-mode: For MS-Windows INI files
3193 reg-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Registry files
3194 bat-generic-mode: For MS-Windows BAT scripts
3195 rc-generic-mode: For MS-Windows Resource files
3196 rul-generic-mode: For InstallShield scripts
3197\f
3198* Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 since the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3199
3200** If you want a Lisp file to be read in unibyte mode,
3201use -*-unibyte: t;-*- on its first line.
3202That will force Emacs to read that file in unibyte mode.
3203Otherwise, the file will be loaded and byte-compiled in multibyte mode.
3204
3205Thus, each lisp file is read in a consistent way regardless of whether
3206you started Emacs with --unibyte, so that a Lisp program gives
3207consistent results regardless of how Emacs was started.
3208
3209** The new function assoc-default is useful for searching an alist,
3210and using a default value if the key is not found there. You can
3211specify a comparison predicate, so this function is useful for
3212searching comparing a string against an alist of regular expressions.
3213
3214** The functions unibyte-char-to-multibyte and
3215multibyte-char-to-unibyte convert between unibyte and multibyte
3216character codes, in a way that is appropriate for the current language
3217environment.
3218
3219** The functions read-event, read-char and read-char-exclusive now
3220take two optional arguments. PROMPT, if non-nil, specifies a prompt
3221string. SUPPRESS-INPUT-METHOD, if non-nil, says to disable the
3222current input method for reading this one event.
3223
3224** Two new variables print-escape-nonascii and print-escape-multibyte
3225now control whether to output certain characters as
3226backslash-sequences. print-escape-nonascii applies to single-byte
3227non-ASCII characters; print-escape-multibyte applies to multibyte
3228characters. Both of these variables are used only when printing
3229in readable fashion (prin1 uses them, princ does not).
3230\f
3231* Lisp changes in Emacs 20.3 before the Emacs Lisp Manual was published
3232
3233** Compiled Emacs Lisp files made with the modified "MBSK" version
3234of Emacs 20.2 do not work in Emacs 20.3.
3235
3236** Buffer positions are now measured in characters, as they were
3237in Emacs 19 and before. This means that (forward-char 1)
3238always increases point by 1.
3239
3240The function chars-in-region now just subtracts its arguments. It is
3241considered obsolete. The function char-boundary-p has been deleted.
3242
3243See below for additional changes relating to multibyte characters.
3244
3245** defcustom, defface and defgroup now accept the keyword `:version'.
3246Use this to specify in which version of Emacs a certain variable's
3247default value changed. For example,
3248
3249 (defcustom foo-max 34 "*Maximum number of foo's allowed."
3250 :type 'integer
3251 :group 'foo
3252 :version "20.3")
3253
3254 (defgroup foo-group nil "The foo group."
3255 :version "20.3")
3256
3257If an entire new group is added or the variables in it have the
3258default values changed, then just add a `:version' to that group. It
3259is recommended that new packages added to the distribution contain a
3260`:version' in the top level group.
3261
3262This information is used to control the customize-changed-options command.
3263
3264** It is now an error to change the value of a symbol whose name
3265starts with a colon--if it is interned in the standard obarray.
3266
3267However, setting such a symbol to its proper value, which is that
3268symbol itself, is not an error. This is for the sake of programs that
3269support previous Emacs versions by explicitly setting these variables
3270to themselves.
3271
3272If you set the variable keyword-symbols-constant-flag to nil,
3273this error is suppressed, and you can set these symbols to any
3274values whatever.
3275
3276** There is a new debugger command, R.
3277It evaluates an expression like e, but saves the result
3278in the buffer *Debugger-record*.
3279
3280** Frame-local variables.
3281
3282You can now make a variable local to various frames. To do this, call
3283the function make-variable-frame-local; this enables frames to have
3284local bindings for that variable.
3285
3286These frame-local bindings are actually frame parameters: you create a
3287frame-local binding in a specific frame by calling
3288modify-frame-parameters and specifying the variable name as the
3289parameter name.
3290
3291Buffer-local bindings take precedence over frame-local bindings.
3292Thus, if the current buffer has a buffer-local binding, that binding is
3293active; otherwise, if the selected frame has a frame-local binding,
3294that binding is active; otherwise, the default binding is active.
3295
3296It would not be hard to implement window-local bindings, but it is not
3297clear that this would be very useful; windows tend to come and go in a
3298very transitory fashion, so that trying to produce any specific effect
3299through a window-local binding would not be very robust.
3300
3301** `sregexq' and `sregex' are two new functions for constructing
3302"symbolic regular expressions." These are Lisp expressions that, when
3303evaluated, yield conventional string-based regexps. The symbolic form
3304makes it easier to construct, read, and maintain complex patterns.
3305See the documentation in sregex.el.
3306
3307** parse-partial-sexp's return value has an additional element which
3308is used to pass information along if you pass it to another call to
3309parse-partial-sexp, starting its scan where the first call ended.
3310The contents of this field are not yet finalized.
3311
3312** eval-region now accepts a fourth optional argument READ-FUNCTION.
3313If it is non-nil, that function is used instead of `read'.
3314
3315** unload-feature by default removes the feature's functions from
3316known hooks to avoid trouble, but a package providing FEATURE can
3317define a hook FEATURE-unload-hook to be run by unload-feature instead.
3318
3319** read-from-minibuffer no longer returns the argument DEFAULT-VALUE
3320when the user enters empty input. It now returns the null string, as
3321it did in Emacs 19. The default value is made available in the
3322history via M-n, but it is not applied here as a default.
3323
3324The other, more specialized minibuffer-reading functions continue to
3325return the default value (not the null string) when the user enters
3326empty input.
3327
3328** The new variable read-buffer-function controls which routine to use
3329for selecting buffers. For example, if you set this variable to
3330`iswitchb-read-buffer', iswitchb will be used to read buffer names.
3331Other functions can also be used if they accept the same arguments as
3332`read-buffer' and return the selected buffer name as a string.
3333
3334** The new function read-passwd reads a password from the terminal,
3335echoing a period for each character typed. It takes three arguments:
3336a prompt string, a flag which says "read it twice to make sure", and a
3337default password to use if the user enters nothing.
3338
3339** The variable fill-nobreak-predicate gives major modes a way to
3340specify not to break a line at certain places. Its value is a
3341function which is called with no arguments, with point located at the
3342place where a break is being considered. If the function returns
3343non-nil, then the line won't be broken there.
3344
3345** window-end now takes an optional second argument, UPDATE.
3346If this is non-nil, then the function always returns an accurate
3347up-to-date value for the buffer position corresponding to the
3348end of the window, even if this requires computation.
3349
3350** other-buffer now takes an optional argument FRAME
3351which specifies which frame's buffer list to use.
3352If it is nil, that means use the selected frame's buffer list.
3353
3354** The new variable buffer-display-time, always local in every buffer,
3355holds the value of (current-time) as of the last time that a window
3356was directed to display this buffer.
3357
3358** It is now meaningful to compare two window-configuration objects
3359with `equal'. Two window-configuration objects are equal if they
3360describe equivalent arrangements of windows, in the same frame--in
3361other words, if they would give the same results if passed to
3362set-window-configuration.
3363
3364** compare-window-configurations is a new function that compares two
3365window configurations loosely. It ignores differences in saved buffer
3366positions and scrolling, and considers only the structure and sizes of
3367windows and the choice of buffers to display.
3368
3369** The variable minor-mode-overriding-map-alist allows major modes to
3370override the key bindings of a minor mode. The elements of this alist
3371look like the elements of minor-mode-map-alist: (VARIABLE . KEYMAP).
3372
3373If the VARIABLE in an element of minor-mode-overriding-map-alist has a
3374non-nil value, the paired KEYMAP is active, and totally overrides the
3375map (if any) specified for the same variable in minor-mode-map-alist.
3376
3377minor-mode-overriding-map-alist is automatically local in all buffers,
3378and it is meant to be set by major modes.
3379
3380** The function match-string-no-properties is like match-string
3381except that it discards all text properties from the result.
3382
3383** The function load-average now accepts an optional argument
3384USE-FLOATS. If it is non-nil, the load average values are returned as
3385floating point numbers, rather than as integers to be divided by 100.
3386
3387** The new variable temporary-file-directory specifies the directory
3388to use for creating temporary files. The default value is determined
3389in a reasonable way for your operating system; on GNU and Unix systems
3390it is based on the TMP and TMPDIR environment variables.
3391
3392** Menu changes
3393
3394*** easymenu.el now uses the new menu item format and supports the
3395keywords :visible and :filter. The existing keyword :keys is now
3396better supported.
3397
3398The variable `easy-menu-precalculate-equivalent-keybindings' controls
3399a new feature which calculates keyboard equivalents for the menu when
3400you define the menu. The default is t. If you rarely use menus, you
3401can set the variable to nil to disable this precalculation feature;
3402then the calculation is done only if you use the menu bar.
3403
3404*** A new format for menu items is supported.
3405
3406In a keymap, a key binding that has the format
3407 (STRING . REAL-BINDING) or (STRING HELP-STRING . REAL-BINDING)
3408defines a menu item. Now a menu item definition may also be a list that
3409starts with the symbol `menu-item'.
3410
3411The format is:
3412 (menu-item ITEM-NAME) or
3413 (menu-item ITEM-NAME REAL-BINDING . ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST)
3414where ITEM-NAME is an expression which evaluates to the menu item
3415string, and ITEM-PROPERTY-LIST has the form of a property list.
3416The supported properties include
3417
3418:enable FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3419 item is enabled.
3420:visible FORM Evaluate FORM to determine whether the
3421 item should appear in the menu.
3422:filter FILTER-FN
3423 FILTER-FN is a function of one argument,
3424 which will be REAL-BINDING.
3425 It should return a binding to use instead.
3426:keys DESCRIPTION
3427 DESCRIPTION is a string that describes an equivalent keyboard
3428 binding for for REAL-BINDING. DESCRIPTION is expanded with
3429 `substitute-command-keys' before it is used.
3430:key-sequence KEY-SEQUENCE
3431 KEY-SEQUENCE is a key-sequence for an equivalent
3432 keyboard binding.
3433:key-sequence nil
3434 This means that the command normally has no
3435 keyboard equivalent.
3436:help HELP HELP is the extra help string (not currently used).
3437:button (TYPE . SELECTED)
3438 TYPE is :toggle or :radio.
3439 SELECTED is a form, to be evaluated, and its
3440 value says whether this button is currently selected.
3441
3442Buttons are at the moment only simulated by prefixes in the menu.
3443Eventually ordinary X-buttons may be supported.
3444
3445(menu-item ITEM-NAME) defines unselectable item.
3446
3447** New event types
3448
3449*** The new event type `mouse-wheel' is generated by a wheel on a
3450mouse (such as the MS Intellimouse). The event contains a delta that
3451corresponds to the amount and direction that the wheel is rotated,
3452which is typically used to implement a scroll or zoom. The format is:
3453
3454 (mouse-wheel POSITION DELTA)
3455
3456where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3457same format as a mouse-click event, and DELTA is a signed number
3458indicating the number of increments by which the wheel was rotated. A
3459negative DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated backwards, towards
3460the user, and a positive DELTA indicates that the wheel was rotated
3461forward, away from the user.
3462
3463As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3464
3465*** The new event type `drag-n-drop' is generated when a group of
3466files is selected in an application outside of Emacs, and then dragged
3467and dropped onto an Emacs frame. The event contains a list of
3468filenames that were dragged and dropped, which are then typically
3469loaded into Emacs. The format is:
3470
3471 (drag-n-drop POSITION FILES)
3472
3473where POSITION is a list describing the position of the event in the
3474same format as a mouse-click event, and FILES is the list of filenames
3475that were dragged and dropped.
3476
3477As of now, this event type is generated only on MS Windows.
3478
3479** Changes relating to multibyte characters.
3480
3481*** The variable enable-multibyte-characters is now read-only;
3482any attempt to set it directly signals an error. The only way
3483to change this value in an existing buffer is with set-buffer-multibyte.
3484
3485*** In a string constant, `\ ' now stands for "nothing at all". You
3486can use it to terminate a hex escape which is followed by a character
3487that could otherwise be read as part of the hex escape.
3488
3489*** String indices are now measured in characters, as they were
3490in Emacs 19 and before.
3491
3492The function chars-in-string has been deleted.
3493The function concat-chars has been renamed to `string'.
3494
3495*** The function set-buffer-multibyte sets the flag in the current
3496buffer that says whether the buffer uses multibyte representation or
3497unibyte representation. If the argument is nil, it selects unibyte
3498representation. Otherwise it selects multibyte representation.
3499
3500This function does not change the contents of the buffer, viewed
3501as a sequence of bytes. However, it does change the contents
3502viewed as characters; a sequence of two bytes which is treated as
3503one character when the buffer uses multibyte representation
3504will count as two characters using unibyte representation.
3505
3506This function sets enable-multibyte-characters to record which
3507representation is in use. It also adjusts various data in the buffer
3508(including its markers, overlays and text properties) so that they are
3509consistent with the new representation.
3510
3511*** string-make-multibyte takes a string and converts it to multibyte
3512representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care
3513about the representation, because Emacs converts when necessary;
3514however, it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3515
3516The conversion of non-ASCII characters works by adding the value of
3517nonascii-insert-offset to each character, or by translating them
3518using the table nonascii-translation-table.
3519
3520*** string-make-unibyte takes a string and converts it to unibyte
3521representation. Most of the time, you don't need to care about the
3522representation, but it makes a difference when you compare strings.
3523
3524The conversion from multibyte to unibyte representation
3525loses information; the only time Emacs performs it automatically
3526is when inserting a multibyte string into a unibyte buffer.
3527
3528*** string-as-multibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3529which contains the same bytes, but treats them as multibyte.
3530
3531*** string-as-unibyte takes a string, and returns another string
3532which contains the same bytes, but treats them as unibyte.
3533
3534*** The new function compare-strings lets you compare
3535portions of two strings. Unibyte strings are converted to multibyte,
3536so that a unibyte string can match a multibyte string.
3537You can specify whether to ignore case or not.
3538
3539*** assoc-ignore-case now uses compare-strings so that
3540it can treat unibyte and multibyte strings as equal.
3541
3542*** Regular expression operations and buffer string searches now
3543convert the search pattern to multibyte or unibyte to accord with the
3544buffer or string being searched.
3545
3546One consequence is that you cannot always use \200-\377 inside of
3547[...] to match all non-ASCII characters. This does still work when
3548searching or matching a unibyte buffer or string, but not when
3549searching or matching a multibyte string. Unfortunately, there is no
3550obvious choice of syntax to use within [...] for that job. But, what
3551you want is just to match all non-ASCII characters, the regular
3552expression [^\0-\177] works for it.
3553
3554*** Structure of coding system changed.
3555
3556All coding systems (including aliases and subsidiaries) are named
3557by symbols; the symbol's `coding-system' property is a vector
3558which defines the coding system. Aliases share the same vector
3559as the principal name, so that altering the contents of this
3560vector affects the principal name and its aliases. You can define
3561your own alias name of a coding system by the function
3562define-coding-system-alias.
3563
3564The coding system definition includes a property list of its own. Use
3565the new functions `coding-system-get' and `coding-system-put' to
3566access such coding system properties as post-read-conversion,
3567pre-write-conversion, character-translation-table-for-decode,
3568character-translation-table-for-encode, mime-charset, and
3569safe-charsets. For instance, (coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1
3570'mime-charset) gives the corresponding MIME-charset parameter
3571`iso-8859-1'.
3572
3573Among the coding system properties listed above, safe-charsets is new.
3574The value of this property is a list of character sets which this
3575coding system can correctly encode and decode. For instance:
3576(coding-system-get 'iso-latin-1 'safe-charsets) => (ascii latin-iso8859-1)
3577
3578Here, "correctly encode" means that the encoded character sets can
3579also be handled safely by systems other than Emacs as far as they
3580are capable of that coding system. Though, Emacs itself can encode
3581the other character sets and read it back correctly.
3582
3583*** The new function select-safe-coding-system can be used to find a
3584proper coding system for encoding the specified region or string.
3585This function requires a user interaction.
3586
3587*** The new functions find-coding-systems-region and
3588find-coding-systems-string are helper functions used by
3589select-safe-coding-system. They return a list of all proper coding
3590systems to encode a text in some region or string. If you don't want
3591a user interaction, use one of these functions instead of
3592select-safe-coding-system.
3593
3594*** The explicit encoding and decoding functions, such as
3595decode-coding-region and encode-coding-string, now set
3596last-coding-system-used to reflect the actual way encoding or decoding
3597was done.
3598
3599*** The new function detect-coding-with-language-environment can be
3600used to detect a coding system of text according to priorities of
3601coding systems used by some specific language environment.
3602
3603*** The functions detect-coding-region and detect-coding-string always
3604return a list if the arg HIGHEST is nil. Thus, if only ASCII
3605characters are found, they now return a list of single element
3606`undecided' or its subsidiaries.
3607
3608*** The new functions coding-system-change-eol-conversion and
3609coding-system-change-text-conversion can be used to get a different
3610coding system than what specified only in how end-of-line or text is
3611converted.
3612
3613*** The new function set-selection-coding-system can be used to set a
3614coding system for communicating with other X clients.
3615
3616*** The function `map-char-table' now passes as argument only valid
3617character codes, plus generic characters that stand for entire
3618character sets or entire subrows of a character set. In other words,
3619each time `map-char-table' calls its FUNCTION argument, the key value
3620either will be a valid individual character code, or will stand for a
3621range of characters.
3622
3623*** The new function `char-valid-p' can be used for checking whether a
3624Lisp object is a valid character code or not.
3625
3626*** The new function `charset-after' returns a charset of a character
3627in the current buffer at position POS.
3628
3629*** Input methods are now implemented using the variable
3630input-method-function. If this is non-nil, its value should be a
3631function; then, whenever Emacs reads an input event that is a printing
3632character with no modifier bits, it calls that function, passing the
3633event as an argument. Often this function will read more input, first
3634binding input-method-function to nil.
3635
3636The return value should be a list of the events resulting from input
3637method processing. These events will be processed sequentially as
3638input, before resorting to unread-command-events. Events returned by
3639the input method function are not passed to the input method function,
3640not even if they are printing characters with no modifier bits.
3641
3642The input method function is not called when reading the second and
3643subsequent events of a key sequence.
3644
3645*** You can customize any language environment by using
3646set-language-environment-hook and exit-language-environment-hook.
3647
3648The hook `exit-language-environment-hook' should be used to undo
3649customizations that you made with set-language-environment-hook. For
3650instance, if you set up a special key binding for a specific language
3651environment by set-language-environment-hook, you should set up
3652exit-language-environment-hook to restore the normal key binding.
3653\f
3654* Changes in Emacs 20.1
3655
3656** Emacs has a new facility for customization of its many user
3657options. It is called M-x customize. With this facility you can look
3658at the many user options in an organized way; they are grouped into a
3659tree structure.
3660
3661M-x customize also knows what sorts of values are legitimate for each
3662user option and ensures that you don't use invalid values.
3663
3664With M-x customize, you can set options either for the present Emacs
3665session or permanently. (Permanent settings are stored automatically
3666in your .emacs file.)
3667
3668** Scroll bars are now on the left side of the window.
3669You can change this with M-x customize-option scroll-bar-mode.
3670
3671** The mode line no longer includes the string `Emacs'.
3672This makes more space in the mode line for other information.
3673
3674** When you select a region with the mouse, it is highlighted
3675immediately afterward. At that time, if you type the DELETE key, it
3676kills the region.
3677
3678The BACKSPACE key, and the ASCII character DEL, do not do this; they
3679delete the character before point, as usual.
3680
3681** In an incremental search the whole current match is highlighted
3682on terminals which support this. (You can disable this feature
3683by setting search-highlight to nil.)
3684
3685** In the minibuffer, in some cases, you can now use M-n to
3686insert the default value into the minibuffer as text. In effect,
3687the default value (if the minibuffer routines know it) is tacked
3688onto the history "in the future". (The more normal use of the
3689history list is to use M-p to insert minibuffer input used in the
3690past.)
3691
3692** In Text mode, now only blank lines separate paragraphs.
3693This makes it possible to get the full benefit of Adaptive Fill mode
3694in Text mode, and other modes derived from it (such as Mail mode).
3695TAB in Text mode now runs the command indent-relative; this
3696makes a practical difference only when you use indented paragraphs.
3697
3698As a result, the old Indented Text mode is now identical to Text mode,
3699and is an alias for it.
3700
3701If you want spaces at the beginning of a line to start a paragraph,
3702use the new mode, Paragraph Indent Text mode.
3703
3704** Scrolling changes
3705
3706*** Scroll commands to scroll a whole screen now preserve the screen
3707position of the cursor, if scroll-preserve-screen-position is non-nil.
3708
3709In this mode, if you scroll several screens back and forth, finishing
3710on the same screen where you started, the cursor goes back to the line
3711where it started.
3712
3713*** If you set scroll-conservatively to a small number, then when you
3714move point a short distance off the screen, Emacs will scroll the
3715screen just far enough to bring point back on screen, provided that
3716does not exceed `scroll-conservatively' lines.
3717
3718*** The new variable scroll-margin says how close point can come to the
3719top or bottom of a window. It is a number of screen lines; if point
3720comes within that many lines of the top or bottom of the window, Emacs
3721recenters the window.
3722
3723** International character set support (MULE)
3724
3725Emacs now supports a wide variety of international character sets,
3726including European variants of the Latin alphabet, as well as Chinese,
3727Devanagari (Hindi and Marathi), Ethiopian, Greek, IPA, Japanese,
3728Korean, Lao, Russian, Thai, Tibetan, and Vietnamese scripts. These
3729features have been merged from the modified version of Emacs known as
3730MULE (for "MULti-lingual Enhancement to GNU Emacs")
3731
3732Users of these scripts have established many more-or-less standard
3733coding systems for storing files. Emacs uses a single multibyte
3734character encoding within Emacs buffers; it can translate from a wide
3735variety of coding systems when reading a file and can translate back
3736into any of these coding systems when saving a file.
3737
3738Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
3739generally don't have keys for all the characters in them. So Emacs
3740supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
3741language, to make it possible to type them.
3742
3743The Emacs internal multibyte encoding represents a non-ASCII
3744character as a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.
3745
3746The new prefix key C-x RET is used for commands that pertain
3747to multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.
3748
3749You can disable multibyte character support as follows:
3750
3751 (setq-default enable-multibyte-characters nil)
3752
3753Calling the function standard-display-european turns off multibyte
3754characters, unless you specify a non-nil value for the second
3755argument, AUTO. This provides compatibility for people who are
3756already using standard-display-european to continue using unibyte
3757characters for their work until they want to change.
3758
3759*** Input methods
3760
3761An input method is a kind of character conversion which is designed
3762specifically for interactive input. In Emacs, typically each language
3763has its own input method (though sometimes several languages which use
3764the same characters can share one input method). Some languages
3765support several input methods.
3766
3767The simplest kind of input method works by mapping ASCII letters into
3768another alphabet. This is how the Greek and Russian input methods
3769work.
3770
3771A more powerful technique is composition: converting sequences of
3772characters into one letter. Many European input methods use
3773composition to produce a single non-ASCII letter from a sequence which
3774consists of a letter followed by diacritics. For example, a' is one
3775sequence of two characters that might be converted into a single
3776letter.
3777
3778The input methods for syllabic scripts typically use mapping followed
3779by conversion. The input methods for Thai and Korean work this way.
3780First, letters are mapped into symbols for particular sounds or tone
3781marks; then, sequences of these which make up a whole syllable are
3782mapped into one syllable sign--most often a "composite character".
3783
3784None of these methods works very well for Chinese and Japanese, so
3785they are handled specially. First you input a whole word using
3786phonetic spelling; then, after the word is in the buffer, Emacs
3787converts it into one or more characters using a large dictionary.
3788
3789Since there is more than one way to represent a phonetically spelled
3790word using Chinese characters, Emacs can only guess which one to use;
3791typically these input methods give you a way to say "guess again" if
3792the first guess is wrong.
3793
3794*** The command C-x RET m (toggle-enable-multibyte-characters)
3795turns multibyte character support on or off for the current buffer.
3796
3797If multibyte character support is turned off in a buffer, then each
3798byte is a single character, even codes 0200 through 0377--exactly as
3799they did in Emacs 19.34. This includes the features for support for
3800the European characters, ISO Latin-1 and ISO Latin-2.
3801
3802However, there is no need to turn off multibyte character support to
3803use ISO Latin-1 or ISO Latin-2; the Emacs multibyte character set
3804includes all the characters in these character sets, and Emacs can
3805translate automatically to and from either one.
3806
3807*** Visiting a file in unibyte mode.
3808
3809Turning off multibyte character support in the buffer after visiting a
3810file with multibyte code conversion will display the multibyte
3811sequences already in the buffer, byte by byte. This is probably not
3812what you want.
3813
3814If you want to edit a file of unibyte characters (Latin-1, for
3815example), you can do it by specifying `no-conversion' as the coding
3816system when reading the file. This coding system also turns off
3817multibyte characters in that buffer.
3818
3819If you turn off multibyte character support entirely, this turns off
3820character conversion as well.
3821
3822*** Displaying international characters on X Windows.
3823
3824A font for X typically displays just one alphabet or script.
3825Therefore, displaying the entire range of characters Emacs supports
3826requires using many fonts.
3827
3828Therefore, Emacs now supports "fontsets". Each fontset is a
3829collection of fonts, each assigned to a range of character codes.
3830
3831A fontset has a name, like a font. Individual fonts are defined by
3832the X server; fontsets are defined within Emacs itself. But once you
3833have defined a fontset, you can use it in a face or a frame just as
3834you would use a font.
3835
3836If a fontset specifies no font for a certain character, or if it
3837specifies a font that does not exist on your system, then it cannot
3838display that character. It will display an empty box instead.
3839
3840The fontset height and width are determined by the ASCII characters
3841(that is, by the font in the fontset which is used for ASCII
3842characters). If another font in the fontset has a different height,
3843or the wrong width, then characters assigned to that font are clipped,
3844and displayed within a box if highlight-wrong-size-font is non-nil.
3845
3846*** Defining fontsets.
3847
3848Emacs does not use any fontset by default. Its default font is still
3849chosen as in previous versions. You can tell Emacs to use a fontset
3850with the `-fn' option or the `Font' X resource.
3851
3852Emacs creates a standard fontset automatically according to the value
3853of standard-fontset-spec. This fontset's short name is
3854`fontset-standard'. Bold, italic, and bold-italic variants of the
3855standard fontset are created automatically.
3856
3857If you specify a default ASCII font with the `Font' resource or `-fn'
3858argument, a fontset is generated from it. This works by replacing the
3859FOUNDARY, FAMILY, ADD_STYLE, and AVERAGE_WIDTH fields of the font name
3860with `*' then using this to specify a fontset. This fontset's short
3861name is `fontset-startup'.
3862
3863Emacs checks resources of the form Fontset-N where N is 0, 1, 2...
3864The resource value should have this form:
3865 FONTSET-NAME, [CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME]...
3866FONTSET-NAME should have the form of a standard X font name, except:
3867 * most fields should be just the wild card "*".
3868 * the CHARSET_REGISTRY field should be "fontset"
3869 * the CHARSET_ENCODING field can be any nickname of the fontset.
3870The construct CHARSET-NAME:FONT-NAME can be repeated any number
3871of times; each time specifies the font for one character set.
3872CHARSET-NAME should be the name name of a character set, and
3873FONT-NAME should specify an actual font to use for that character set.
3874
3875Each of these fontsets has an alias which is made from the
3876last two font name fields, CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING.
3877You can refer to the fontset by that alias or by its full name.
3878
3879For any character sets that you don't mention, Emacs tries to choose a
3880font by substituting into FONTSET-NAME. For instance, with the
3881following resource,
3882 Emacs*Fontset-0: -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
3883the font for ASCII is generated as below:
3884 -*-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-ISO8859-1
3885Here is the substitution rule:
3886 Change CHARSET_REGISTRY and CHARSET_ENCODING to that of the charset
3887 defined in the variable x-charset-registries. For instance, ASCII has
3888 the entry (ascii . "ISO8859-1") in this variable. Then, reduce
3889 sequences of wild cards -*-...-*- with a single wildcard -*-.
3890 (This is to prevent use of auto-scaled fonts.)
3891
3892The function which processes the fontset resource value to create the
3893fontset is called create-fontset-from-fontset-spec. You can also call
3894that function explicitly to create a fontset.
3895
3896With the X resource Emacs.Font, you can specify a fontset name just
3897like an actual font name. But be careful not to specify a fontset
3898name in a wildcard resource like Emacs*Font--that tries to specify the
3899fontset for other purposes including menus, and they cannot handle
3900fontsets.
3901
3902*** The command M-x set-language-environment sets certain global Emacs
3903defaults for a particular choice of language.
3904
3905Selecting a language environment typically specifies a default input
3906method and which coding systems to recognize automatically when
3907visiting files. However, it does not try to reread files you have
3908already visited; the text in those buffers is not affected. The
3909language environment may also specify a default choice of coding
3910system for new files that you create.
3911
3912It makes no difference which buffer is current when you use
3913set-language-environment, because these defaults apply globally to the
3914whole Emacs session.
3915
3916For example, M-x set-language-environment RET Latin-1 RET
3917chooses the Latin-1 character set. In the .emacs file, you can do this
3918with (set-language-environment "Latin-1").
3919
3920*** The command C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system)
3921specifies the file coding system for the current buffer. This
3922specifies what sort of character code translation to do when saving
3923the file. As an argument, you must specify the name of one of the
3924coding systems that Emacs supports.
3925
3926*** The command C-x RET c (universal-coding-system-argument)
3927lets you specify a coding system when you read or write a file.
3928This command uses the minibuffer to read a coding system name.
3929After you exit the minibuffer, the specified coding system
3930is used for *the immediately following command*.
3931
3932So if the immediately following command is a command to read or
3933write a file, it uses the specified coding system for that file.
3934
3935If the immediately following command does not use the coding system,
3936then C-x RET c ultimately has no effect.
3937
3938For example, C-x RET c iso-8859-1 RET C-x C-f temp RET
3939visits the file `temp' treating it as ISO Latin-1.
3940
3941*** You can specify the coding system for a file using the -*-
3942construct. Include `coding: CODINGSYSTEM;' inside the -*-...-*-
3943to specify use of coding system CODINGSYSTEM. You can also
3944specify the coding system in a local variable list at the end
3945of the file.
3946
3947*** The command C-x RET t (set-terminal-coding-system) specifies
3948the coding system for terminal output. If you specify a character
3949code for terminal output, all characters output to the terminal are
3950translated into that character code.
3951
3952This feature is useful for certain character-only terminals built in
3953various countries to support the languages of those countries.
3954
3955By default, output to the terminal is not translated at all.
3956
3957*** The command C-x RET k (set-keyboard-coding-system) specifies
3958the coding system for keyboard input.
3959
3960Character code translation of keyboard input is useful for terminals
3961with keys that send non-ASCII graphic characters--for example,
3962some terminals designed for ISO Latin-1 or subsets of it.
3963
3964By default, keyboard input is not translated at all.
3965
3966Character code translation of keyboard input is similar to using an
3967input method, in that both define sequences of keyboard input that
3968translate into single characters. However, input methods are designed
3969to be convenient for interactive use, while the code translations are
3970designed to work with terminals.
3971
3972*** The command C-x RET p (set-buffer-process-coding-system)
3973specifies the coding system for input and output to a subprocess.
3974This command applies to the current buffer; normally, each subprocess
3975has its own buffer, and thus you can use this command to specify
3976translation to and from a particular subprocess by giving the command
3977in the corresponding buffer.
3978
3979By default, process input and output are not translated at all.
3980
3981*** The variable file-name-coding-system specifies the coding system
3982to use for encoding file names before operating on them.
3983It is also used for decoding file names obtained from the system.
3984
3985*** The command C-\ (toggle-input-method) activates or deactivates
3986an input method. If no input method has been selected before, the
3987command prompts for you to specify the language and input method you
3988want to use.
3989
3990C-u C-\ (select-input-method) lets you switch to a different input
3991method. C-h C-\ (or C-h I) describes the current input method.
3992
3993*** Some input methods remap the keyboard to emulate various keyboard
3994layouts commonly used for particular scripts. How to do this
3995remapping properly depends on your actual keyboard layout. To specify
3996which layout your keyboard has, use M-x quail-set-keyboard-layout.
3997
3998*** The command C-h C (describe-coding-system) displays
3999the coding systems currently selected for various purposes, plus
4000related information.
4001
4002*** The command C-h h (view-hello-file) displays a file called
4003HELLO, which has examples of text in many languages, using various
4004scripts.
4005
4006*** The command C-h L (describe-language-support) displays
4007information about the support for a particular language.
4008You specify the language as an argument.
4009
4010*** The mode line now contains a letter or character that identifies
4011the coding system used in the visited file. It normally follows the
4012first dash.
4013
4014A dash indicates the default state of affairs: no code conversion
4015(except CRLF => newline if appropriate). `=' means no conversion
4016whatsoever. The ISO 8859 coding systems are represented by digits
40171 through 9. Other coding systems are represented by letters:
4018
4019 A alternativnyj (Russian)
4020 B big5 (Chinese)
4021 C cn-gb-2312 (Chinese)
4022 C iso-2022-cn (Chinese)
4023 D in-is13194-devanagari (Indian languages)
4024 E euc-japan (Japanese)
4025 I iso-2022-cjk or iso-2022-ss2 (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4026 J junet (iso-2022-7) or old-jis (iso-2022-jp-1978-irv) (Japanese)
4027 K euc-korea (Korean)
4028 R koi8 (Russian)
4029 Q tibetan
4030 S shift_jis (Japanese)
4031 T lao
4032 T tis620 (Thai)
4033 V viscii or vscii (Vietnamese)
4034 i iso-2022-lock (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
4035 k iso-2022-kr (Korean)
4036 v viqr (Vietnamese)
4037 z hz (Chinese)
4038
4039When you are using a character-only terminal (not a window system),
4040two additional characters appear in between the dash and the file
4041coding system. These two characters describe the coding system for
4042keyboard input, and the coding system for terminal output.
4043
4044*** The new variable rmail-file-coding-system specifies the code
4045conversion to use for RMAIL files. The default value is nil.
4046
4047When you read mail with Rmail, each message is decoded automatically
4048into Emacs' internal format. This has nothing to do with
4049rmail-file-coding-system. That variable controls reading and writing
4050Rmail files themselves.
4051
4052*** The new variable sendmail-coding-system specifies the code
4053conversion for outgoing mail. The default value is nil.
4054
4055Actually, there are three different ways of specifying the coding system
4056for sending mail:
4057
4058- If you use C-x RET f in the mail buffer, that takes priority.
4059- Otherwise, if you set sendmail-coding-system non-nil, that specifies it.
4060- Otherwise, the default coding system for new files is used,
4061 if that is non-nil. That comes from your language environment.
4062- Otherwise, Latin-1 is used.
4063
4064*** The command C-h t (help-with-tutorial) accepts a prefix argument
4065to specify the language for the tutorial file. Currently, English,
4066Japanese, Korean and Thai are supported. We welcome additional
4067translations.
4068
4069** An easy new way to visit a file with no code or format conversion
4070of any kind: Use M-x find-file-literally. There is also a command
4071insert-file-literally which inserts a file into the current buffer
4072without any conversion.
4073
4074** C-q's handling of octal character codes is changed.
4075You can now specify any number of octal digits.
4076RET terminates the digits and is discarded;
4077any other non-digit terminates the digits and is then used as input.
4078
4079** There are new commands for looking up Info documentation for
4080functions, variables and file names used in your programs.
4081
4082Type M-x info-lookup-symbol to look up a symbol in the buffer at point.
4083Type M-x info-lookup-file to look up a file in the buffer at point.
4084
4085Precisely which Info files are used to look it up depends on the major
4086mode. For example, in C mode, the GNU libc manual is used.
4087
4088** M-TAB in most programming language modes now runs the command
4089complete-symbol. This command performs completion on the symbol name
4090in the buffer before point.
4091
4092With a numeric argument, it performs completion based on the set of
4093symbols documented in the Info files for the programming language that
4094you are using.
4095
4096With no argument, it does completion based on the current tags tables,
4097just like the old binding of M-TAB (complete-tag).
4098
4099** File locking works with NFS now.
4100
4101The lock file for FILENAME is now a symbolic link named .#FILENAME,
4102in the same directory as FILENAME.
4103
4104This means that collision detection between two different machines now
4105works reasonably well; it also means that no file server or directory
4106can become a bottleneck.
4107
4108The new method does have drawbacks. It means that collision detection
4109does not operate when you edit a file in a directory where you cannot
4110create new files. Collision detection also doesn't operate when the
4111file server does not support symbolic links. But these conditions are
4112rare, and the ability to have collision detection while using NFS is
4113so useful that the change is worth while.
4114
4115When Emacs or a system crashes, this may leave behind lock files which
4116are stale. So you may occasionally get warnings about spurious
4117collisions. When you determine that the collision is spurious, just
4118tell Emacs to go ahead anyway.
4119
4120** If you wish to use Show Paren mode to display matching parentheses,
4121it is no longer sufficient to load paren.el. Instead you must call
4122show-paren-mode.
4123
4124** If you wish to use Delete Selection mode to replace a highlighted
4125selection when you insert new text, it is no longer sufficient to load
4126delsel.el. Instead you must call the function delete-selection-mode.
4127
4128** If you wish to use Partial Completion mode to complete partial words
4129within symbols or filenames, it is no longer sufficient to load
4130complete.el. Instead you must call the function partial-completion-mode.
4131
4132** If you wish to use uniquify to rename buffers for you,
4133it is no longer sufficient to load uniquify.el. You must also
4134set uniquify-buffer-name-style to one of the non-nil legitimate values.
4135
4136** Changes in View mode.
4137
4138*** Several new commands are available in View mode.
4139Do H in view mode for a list of commands.
4140
4141*** There are two new commands for entering View mode:
4142view-file-other-frame and view-buffer-other-frame.
4143
4144*** Exiting View mode does a better job of restoring windows to their
4145previous state.
4146
4147*** New customization variable view-scroll-auto-exit. If non-nil,
4148scrolling past end of buffer makes view mode exit.
4149
4150*** New customization variable view-exits-all-viewing-windows. If
4151non-nil, view-mode will at exit restore all windows viewing buffer,
4152not just the selected window.
4153
4154*** New customization variable view-read-only. If non-nil, visiting a
4155read-only file automatically enters View mode, and toggle-read-only
4156turns View mode on or off.
4157
4158*** New customization variable view-remove-frame-by-deleting controls
4159how to remove a not needed frame at view mode exit. If non-nil,
4160delete the frame, if nil make an icon of it.
4161
4162** C-x v l, the command to print a file's version control log,
4163now positions point at the entry for the file's current branch version.
4164
4165** C-x v =, the command to compare a file with the last checked-in version,
4166has a new feature. If the file is currently not locked, so that it is
4167presumably identical to the last checked-in version, the command now asks
4168which version to compare with.
4169
4170** When using hideshow.el, incremental search can temporarily show hidden
4171blocks if a match is inside the block.
4172
4173The block is hidden again if the search is continued and the next match
4174is outside the block. By customizing the variable
4175isearch-hide-immediately you can choose to hide all the temporarily
4176shown blocks only when exiting from incremental search.
4177
4178By customizing the variable hs-isearch-open you can choose what kind
4179of blocks to temporarily show during isearch: comment blocks, code
4180blocks, all of them or none.
4181
4182** The new command C-x 4 0 (kill-buffer-and-window) kills the
4183current buffer and deletes the selected window. It asks for
4184confirmation first.
4185
4186** C-x C-w, which saves the buffer into a specified file name,
4187now changes the major mode according to that file name.
4188However, the mode will not be changed if
4189(1) a local variables list or the `-*-' line specifies a major mode, or
4190(2) the current major mode is a "special" mode,
4191 not suitable for ordinary files, or
4192(3) the new file name does not particularly specify any mode.
4193
4194This applies to M-x set-visited-file-name as well.
4195
4196However, if you set change-major-mode-with-file-name to nil, then
4197these commands do not change the major mode.
4198
4199** M-x occur changes.
4200
4201*** If the argument to M-x occur contains upper case letters,
4202it performs a case-sensitive search.
4203
4204*** In the *Occur* buffer made by M-x occur,
4205if you type g or M-x revert-buffer, this repeats the search
4206using the same regular expression and the same buffer as before.
4207
4208** In Transient Mark mode, the region in any one buffer is highlighted
4209in just one window at a time. At first, it is highlighted in the
4210window where you set the mark. The buffer's highlighting remains in
4211that window unless you select to another window which shows the same
4212buffer--then the highlighting moves to that window.
4213
4214** The feature to suggest key bindings when you use M-x now operates
4215after the command finishes. The message suggesting key bindings
4216appears temporarily in the echo area. The previous echo area contents
4217come back after a few seconds, in case they contain useful information.
4218
4219** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
4220selected buffers, so that the default for C-x b is now based on the
4221buffers recently selected in the selected frame.
4222
4223** Outline mode changes.
4224
4225*** Outline mode now uses overlays (this is the former noutline.el).
4226
4227*** Incremental searches skip over invisible text in Outline mode.
4228
4229** When a minibuffer window is active but not the selected window, if
4230you try to use the minibuffer, you used to get a nested minibuffer.
4231Now, this not only gives an error, it also cancels the minibuffer that
4232was already active.
4233
4234The motive for this change is so that beginning users do not
4235unknowingly move away from minibuffers, leaving them active, and then
4236get confused by it.
4237
4238If you want to be able to have recursive minibuffers, you must
4239set enable-recursive-minibuffers to non-nil.
4240
4241** Changes in dynamic abbrevs.
4242
4243*** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
4244conversion. If the expansion has mixed case not counting the first
4245character, and the abbreviation matches the beginning of the expansion
4246including case, then the expansion is copied verbatim.
4247
4248The expansion is also copied verbatim if the abbreviation itself has
4249mixed case. And using SPC M-/ to copy an additional word always
4250copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is all caps.
4251
4252*** The values of `dabbrev-case-replace' and `dabbrev-case-fold-search'
4253are no longer Lisp expressions. They have simply three possible
4254values.
4255
4256`dabbrev-case-replace' has these three values: nil (don't preserve
4257case), t (do), or `case-replace' (do like M-x query-replace).
4258`dabbrev-case-fold-search' has these three values: nil (don't ignore
4259case), t (do), or `case-fold-search' (do like search).
4260
4261** Minibuffer history lists are truncated automatically now to a
4262certain length. The variable history-length specifies how long they
4263can be. The default value is 30.
4264
4265** Changes in Mail mode.
4266
4267*** The key C-x m no longer runs the `mail' command directly.
4268Instead, it runs the command `compose-mail', which invokes the mail
4269composition mechanism you have selected with the variable
4270`mail-user-agent'. The default choice of user agent is
4271`sendmail-user-agent', which gives behavior compatible with the old
4272behavior.
4273
4274C-x 4 m now runs compose-mail-other-window, and C-x 5 m runs
4275compose-mail-other-frame.
4276
4277*** While composing a reply to a mail message, from Rmail, you can use
4278the command C-c C-r to cite just the region from the message you are
4279replying to. This copies the text which is the selected region in the
4280buffer that shows the original message.
4281
4282*** The command C-c C-i inserts a file at the end of the message,
4283with separator lines around the contents.
4284
4285*** The command M-x expand-mail-aliases expands all mail aliases
4286in suitable mail headers. Emacs automatically extracts mail alias
4287definitions from your mail alias file (e.g., ~/.mailrc). You do not
4288need to expand mail aliases yourself before sending mail.
4289
4290*** New features in the mail-complete command.
4291
4292**** The mail-complete command now inserts the user's full name,
4293for local users or if that is known. The variable mail-complete-style
4294controls the style to use, and whether to do this at all.
4295Its values are like those of mail-from-style.
4296
4297**** The variable mail-passwd-command lets you specify a shell command
4298to run to fetch a set of password-entries that add to the ones in
4299/etc/passwd.
4300
4301**** The variable mail-passwd-file now specifies a list of files to read
4302to get the list of user ids. By default, one file is used:
4303/etc/passwd.
4304
4305** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of
4306special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a
4307directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a
4308reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'.
4309
4310Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as
4311when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise
4312be taken to be magic.
4313
4314** There is a new command M-x grep-find which uses find to select
4315files to search through, and grep to scan them. The output is
4316available in a Compile mode buffer, as with M-x grep.
4317
4318M-x grep now uses the -e option if the grep program supports that.
4319(-e prevents problems if the search pattern starts with a dash.)
4320
4321** In Dired, the & command now flags for deletion the files whose names
4322suggest they are probably not needed in the long run.
4323
4324In Dired, * is now a prefix key for mark-related commands.
4325
4326new key dired.el binding old key
4327------- ---------------- -------
4328 * c dired-change-marks c
4329 * m dired-mark m
4330 * * dired-mark-executables * (binding deleted)
4331 * / dired-mark-directories / (binding deleted)
4332 * @ dired-mark-symlinks @ (binding deleted)
4333 * u dired-unmark u
4334 * DEL dired-unmark-backward DEL
4335 * ? dired-unmark-all-files M-C-?
4336 * ! dired-unmark-all-marks
4337 * % dired-mark-files-regexp % m
4338 * C-n dired-next-marked-file M-}
4339 * C-p dired-prev-marked-file M-{
4340
4341** Rmail changes.
4342
4343*** When Rmail cannot convert your incoming mail into Babyl format, it
4344saves the new mail in the file RMAILOSE.n, where n is an integer
4345chosen to make a unique name. This way, Rmail will not keep crashing
4346each time you run it.
4347
4348*** In Rmail, the variable rmail-summary-line-count-flag now controls
4349whether to include the line count in the summary. Non-nil means yes.
4350
4351*** In Rmail summary buffers, d and C-d (the commands to delete
4352messages) now take repeat counts as arguments. A negative argument
4353means to move in the opposite direction.
4354
4355*** In Rmail, the t command now takes an optional argument which lets
4356you specify whether to show the message headers in full or pruned.
4357
4358*** In Rmail, the new command w (rmail-output-body-to-file) writes
4359just the body of the current message into a file, without the headers.
4360It takes the file name from the message subject, by default, but you
4361can edit that file name in the minibuffer before it is actually used
4362for output.
4363
4364** Gnus changes.
4365
4366*** nntp.el has been totally rewritten in an asynchronous fashion.
4367
4368*** Article prefetching functionality has been moved up into
4369Gnus.
4370
4371*** Scoring can now be performed with logical operators like
4372`and', `or', `not', and parent redirection.
4373
4374*** Article washing status can be displayed in the
4375article mode line.
4376
4377*** gnus.el has been split into many smaller files.
4378
4379*** Suppression of duplicate articles based on Message-ID.
4380
4381(setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
4382
4383*** New variables for specifying what score and adapt files
4384are to be considered home score and adapt files. See
4385`gnus-home-score-file' and `gnus-home-adapt-files'.
4386
4387*** Groups can inherit group parameters from parent topics.
4388
4389*** Article editing has been revamped and is now usable.
4390
4391*** Signatures can be recognized in more intelligent fashions.
4392See `gnus-signature-separator' and `gnus-signature-limit'.
4393
4394*** Summary pick mode has been made to look more nn-like.
4395Line numbers are displayed and the `.' command can be
4396used to pick articles.
4397
4398*** Commands for moving the .newsrc.eld from one server to
4399another have been added.
4400
4401 `M-x gnus-change-server'
4402
4403*** A way to specify that "uninteresting" fields be suppressed when
4404generating lines in buffers.
4405
4406*** Several commands in the group buffer can be undone with
4407`M-C-_'.
4408
4409*** Scoring can be done on words using the new score type `w'.
4410
4411*** Adaptive scoring can be done on a Subject word-by-word basis:
4412
4413 (setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
4414
4415*** Scores can be decayed.
4416
4417 (setq gnus-decay-scores t)
4418
4419*** Scoring can be performed using a regexp on the Date header. The
4420Date is normalized to compact ISO 8601 format first.
4421
4422*** A new command has been added to remove all data on articles from
4423the native server.
4424
4425 `M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups'
4426
4427*** A new command for reading collections of documents
4428(nndoc with nnvirtual on top) has been added -- `M-C-d'.
4429
4430*** Process mark sets can be pushed and popped.
4431
4432*** A new mail-to-news backend makes it possible to post
4433even when the NNTP server doesn't allow posting.
4434
4435*** A new backend for reading searches from Web search engines
4436(DejaNews, Alta Vista, InReference) has been added.
4437
4438 Use the `G w' command in the group buffer to create such
4439 a group.
4440
4441*** Groups inside topics can now be sorted using the standard
4442sorting functions, and each topic can be sorted independently.
4443
4444 See the commands under the `T S' submap.
4445
4446*** Subsets of the groups can be sorted independently.
4447
4448 See the commands under the `G P' submap.
4449
4450*** Cached articles can be pulled into the groups.
4451
4452 Use the `Y c' command.
4453
4454*** Score files are now applied in a more reliable order.
4455
4456*** Reports on where mail messages end up can be generated.
4457
4458 `M-x nnmail-split-history'
4459
4460*** More hooks and functions have been added to remove junk
4461from incoming mail before saving the mail.
4462
4463 See `nnmail-prepare-incoming-header-hook'.
4464
4465*** The nnml mail backend now understands compressed article files.
4466
4467*** To enable Gnus to read/post multi-lingual articles, you must execute
4468the following code, for instance, in your .emacs.
4469
4470 (add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook 'gnus-mule-initialize)
4471
4472Then, when you start Gnus, it will decode non-ASCII text automatically
4473and show appropriate characters. (Note: if you are using gnus-mime
4474from the SEMI package, formerly known as TM, you should NOT add this
4475hook to gnus-startup-hook; gnus-mime has its own method of handling
4476this issue.)
4477
4478Since it is impossible to distinguish all coding systems
4479automatically, you may need to specify a choice of coding system for a
4480particular news group. This can be done by:
4481
4482 (gnus-mule-add-group NEWSGROUP 'CODING-SYSTEM)
4483
4484Here NEWSGROUP should be a string which names a newsgroup or a tree
4485of newsgroups. If NEWSGROUP is "XXX.YYY", all news groups under
4486"XXX.YYY" (including "XXX.YYY.ZZZ") will use the specified coding
4487system. CODING-SYSTEM specifies which coding system to use (for both
4488for reading and posting).
4489
4490CODING-SYSTEM can also be a cons cell of the form
4491 (READ-CODING-SYSTEM . POST-CODING-SYSTEM)
4492Then READ-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you read messages from the
4493newsgroups, while POST-CODING-SYSTEM is used when you post messages
4494there.
4495
4496Emacs knows the right coding systems for certain newsgroups by
4497default. Here are some of these default settings:
4498
4499 (gnus-mule-add-group "fj" 'iso-2022-7)
4500 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text" 'hz-gb-2312)
4501 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.hk" 'hz-gb-2312)
4502 (gnus-mule-add-group "alt.chinese.text.big5" 'cn-big5)
4503 (gnus-mule-add-group "soc.culture.vietnamese" '(nil . viqr))
4504
4505When you reply by mail to an article, these settings are ignored;
4506the mail is encoded according to sendmail-coding-system, as usual.
4507
4508** CC mode changes.
4509
4510*** If you edit primarily one style of C (or C++, Objective-C, Java)
4511code, you may want to make the CC Mode style variables have global
4512values so that you can set them directly in your .emacs file. To do
4513this, set c-style-variables-are-local-p to nil in your .emacs file.
4514Note that this only takes effect if you do it *before* cc-mode.el is
4515loaded.
4516
4517If you typically edit more than one style of C (or C++, Objective-C,
4518Java) code in a single Emacs session, you may want to make the CC Mode
4519style variables have buffer local values. By default, all buffers
4520share the same style variable settings; to make them buffer local, set
4521c-style-variables-are-local-p to t in your .emacs file. Note that you
4522must do this *before* CC Mode is loaded.
4523
4524*** The new variable c-indentation-style holds the C style name
4525of the current buffer.
4526
4527*** The variable c-block-comments-indent-p has been deleted, because
4528it is no longer necessary. C mode now handles all the supported styles
4529of block comments, with no need to say which one you will use.
4530
4531*** There is a new indentation style "python", which specifies the C
4532style that the Python developers like.
4533
4534*** There is a new c-cleanup-list option: brace-elseif-brace.
4535This says to put ...} else if (...) {... on one line,
4536just as brace-else-brace says to put ...} else {... on one line.
4537
4538** VC Changes [new]
4539
4540** In vc-retrieve-snapshot (C-x v r), if you don't specify a snapshot
4541name, it retrieves the *latest* versions of all files in the current
4542directory and its subdirectories (aside from files already locked).
4543
4544This feature is useful if your RCS directory is a link to a common
4545master directory, and you want to pick up changes made by other
4546developers.
4547
4548You can do the same thing for an individual file by typing C-u C-x C-q
4549RET in a buffer visiting that file.
4550
4551*** VC can now handle files under CVS that are being "watched" by
4552other developers. Such files are made read-only by CVS. To get a
4553writable copy, type C-x C-q in a buffer visiting such a file. VC then
4554calls "cvs edit", which notifies the other developers of it.
4555
4556*** vc-version-diff (C-u C-x v =) now suggests reasonable defaults for
4557version numbers, based on the current state of the file.
4558
4559** Calendar changes.
4560
4561A new function, list-holidays, allows you list holidays or subclasses
4562of holidays for ranges of years. Related menu items allow you do this
4563for the year of the selected date, or the following/previous years.
4564
4565** ps-print changes
4566
4567There are some new user variables for customizing the page layout.
4568
4569*** Paper size, paper orientation, columns
4570
4571The variable `ps-paper-type' determines the size of paper ps-print
4572formats for; it should contain one of the symbols:
4573`a4' `a3' `letter' `legal' `letter-small' `tabloid'
4574`ledger' `statement' `executive' `a4small' `b4' `b5'
4575It defaults to `letter'.
4576If you need other sizes, see the variable `ps-page-dimensions-database'.
4577
4578The variable `ps-landscape-mode' determines the orientation
4579of the printing on the page. nil, the default, means "portrait" mode,
4580non-nil means "landscape" mode.
4581
4582The variable `ps-number-of-columns' must be a positive integer.
4583It determines the number of columns both in landscape and portrait mode.
4584It defaults to 1.
4585
4586*** Horizontal layout
4587
4588The horizontal layout is determined by the variables
4589`ps-left-margin', `ps-inter-column', and `ps-right-margin'.
4590All are measured in points.
4591
4592*** Vertical layout
4593
4594The vertical layout is determined by the variables
4595`ps-bottom-margin', `ps-top-margin', and `ps-header-offset'.
4596All are measured in points.
4597
4598*** Headers
4599
4600If the variable `ps-print-header' is nil, no header is printed. Then
4601`ps-header-offset' is not relevant and `ps-top-margin' represents the
4602margin above the text.
4603
4604If the variable `ps-print-header-frame' is non-nil, a gaudy
4605framing box is printed around the header.
4606
4607The contents of the header are determined by `ps-header-lines',
4608`ps-show-n-of-n', `ps-left-header' and `ps-right-header'.
4609
4610The height of the header is determined by `ps-header-line-pad',
4611`ps-header-font-family', `ps-header-title-font-size' and
4612`ps-header-font-size'.
4613
4614*** Font managing
4615
4616The variable `ps-font-family' determines which font family is to be
4617used for ordinary text. Its value must be a key symbol in the alist
4618`ps-font-info-database'. You can add other font families by adding
4619elements to this alist.
4620
4621The variable `ps-font-size' determines the size of the font
4622for ordinary text. It defaults to 8.5 points.
4623
4624** hideshow changes.
4625
4626*** now supports hiding of blocks of single line comments (like // for
4627C++, ; for lisp).
4628
4629*** Support for java-mode added.
4630
4631*** When doing `hs-hide-all' it is now possible to also hide the comments
4632in the file if `hs-hide-comments-when-hiding-all' is set.
4633
4634*** The new function `hs-hide-initial-comment' hides the the comments at
4635the beginning of the files. Finally those huge RCS logs don't stay in your
4636way! This is run by default when entering the `hs-minor-mode'.
4637
4638*** Now uses overlays instead of `selective-display', so is more
4639robust and a lot faster.
4640
4641*** A block beginning can span multiple lines.
4642
4643*** The new variable `hs-show-hidden-short-form' if t, directs hideshow
4644to show only the beginning of a block when it is hidden. See the
4645documentation for more details.
4646
4647** Changes in Enriched mode.
4648
4649*** When you visit a file in enriched-mode, Emacs will make sure it is
4650filled to the current fill-column. This behavior is now independent
4651of the size of the window. When you save the file, the fill-column in
4652use is stored as well, so that the whole buffer need not be refilled
4653the next time unless the fill-column is different.
4654
4655*** use-hard-newlines is now a minor mode. When it is enabled, Emacs
4656distinguishes between hard and soft newlines, and treats hard newlines
4657as paragraph boundaries. Otherwise all newlines inserted are marked
4658as soft, and paragraph boundaries are determined solely from the text.
4659
4660** Font Lock mode
4661
4662*** Custom support
4663
4664The variables font-lock-face-attributes, font-lock-display-type and
4665font-lock-background-mode are now obsolete; the recommended way to specify the
4666faces to use for Font Lock mode is with M-x customize-group on the new custom
4667group font-lock-highlighting-faces. If you set font-lock-face-attributes in
4668your ~/.emacs file, Font Lock mode will respect its value. However, you should
4669consider converting from setting that variable to using M-x customize.
4670
4671You can still use X resources to specify Font Lock face appearances.
4672
4673*** Maximum decoration
4674
4675Fontification now uses the maximum level of decoration supported by
4676default. Previously, fontification used a mode-specific default level
4677of decoration, which is typically the minimum level of decoration
4678supported. You can set font-lock-maximum-decoration to nil
4679to get the old behavior.
4680
4681*** New support
4682
4683Support is now provided for Java, Objective-C, AWK and SIMULA modes.
4684
4685Note that Font Lock mode can be turned on without knowing exactly what modes
4686support Font Lock mode, via the command global-font-lock-mode.
4687
4688*** Configurable support
4689
4690Support for C, C++, Objective-C and Java can be more easily configured for
4691additional types and classes via the new variables c-font-lock-extra-types,
4692c++-font-lock-extra-types, objc-font-lock-extra-types and, you guessed it,
4693java-font-lock-extra-types. These value of each of these variables should be a
4694list of regexps matching the extra type names. For example, the default value
4695of c-font-lock-extra-types is ("\\sw+_t") which means fontification follows the
4696convention that C type names end in _t. This results in slower fontification.
4697
4698Of course, you can change the variables that specify fontification in whatever
4699way you wish, typically by adding regexps. However, these new variables make
4700it easier to make specific and common changes for the fontification of types.
4701
4702*** Adding highlighting patterns to existing support
4703
4704You can use the new function font-lock-add-keywords to add your own
4705highlighting patterns, such as for project-local or user-specific constructs,
4706for any mode.
4707
4708For example, to highlight `FIXME:' words in C comments, put:
4709
4710 (font-lock-add-keywords 'c-mode '(("\\<FIXME:" 0 font-lock-warning-face t)))
4711
4712in your ~/.emacs.
4713
4714*** New faces
4715
4716Font Lock now defines two new faces, font-lock-builtin-face and
4717font-lock-warning-face. These are intended to highlight builtin keywords,
4718distinct from a language's normal keywords, and objects that should be brought
4719to user attention, respectively. Various modes now use these new faces.
4720
4721*** Changes to fast-lock support mode
4722
4723The fast-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now process
4724cache files silently. You can use the new variable fast-lock-verbose, in the
4725same way as font-lock-verbose, to control this feature.
4726
4727*** Changes to lazy-lock support mode
4728
4729The lazy-lock package, one of the two Font Lock support modes, can now fontify
4730according to the true syntactic context relative to other lines. You can use
4731the new variable lazy-lock-defer-contextually to control this feature. If
4732non-nil, changes to the buffer will cause subsequent lines in the buffer to be
4733refontified after lazy-lock-defer-time seconds of idle time. If nil, then only
4734the modified lines will be refontified; this is the same as the previous Lazy
4735Lock mode behaviour and the behaviour of Font Lock mode.
4736
4737This feature is useful in modes where strings or comments can span lines.
4738For example, if a string or comment terminating character is deleted, then if
4739this feature is enabled subsequent lines in the buffer will be correctly
4740refontified to reflect their new syntactic context. Previously, only the line
4741containing the deleted character would be refontified and you would have to use
4742the command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block) to refontify some lines.
4743
4744As a consequence of this new feature, two other variables have changed:
4745
4746Variable `lazy-lock-defer-driven' is renamed `lazy-lock-defer-on-scrolling'.
4747Variable `lazy-lock-defer-time' can now only be a time, i.e., a number.
4748Buffer modes for which on-the-fly deferral applies can be specified via the
4749new variable `lazy-lock-defer-on-the-fly'.
4750
4751If you set these variables in your ~/.emacs, then you may have to change those
4752settings.
4753
4754** Ada mode changes.
4755
4756*** There is now better support for using find-file.el with Ada mode.
4757If you switch between spec and body, the cursor stays in the same
4758procedure (modulo overloading). If a spec has no body file yet, but
4759you try to switch to its body file, Ada mode now generates procedure
4760stubs.
4761
4762*** There are two new commands:
4763 - `ada-make-local' : invokes gnatmake on the current buffer
4764 - `ada-check-syntax' : check syntax of current buffer.
4765
4766The user options `ada-compiler-make', `ada-make-options',
4767`ada-language-version', `ada-compiler-syntax-check', and
4768`ada-compile-options' are used within these commands.
4769
4770*** Ada mode can now work with Outline minor mode. The outline level
4771is calculated from the indenting, not from syntactic constructs.
4772Outlining does not work if your code is not correctly indented.
4773
4774*** The new function `ada-gnat-style' converts the buffer to the style of
4775formatting used in GNAT. It places two blanks after a comment start,
4776places one blank between a word end and an opening '(', and puts one
4777space between a comma and the beginning of a word.
4778
4779** Scheme mode changes.
4780
4781*** Scheme mode indentation now uses many of the facilities of Lisp
4782mode; therefore, the variables to customize it are the variables used
4783for Lisp mode which have names starting with `lisp-'. The variables
4784with names starting with `scheme-' which used to do this no longer
4785have any effect.
4786
4787If you want to use different indentation for Scheme and Lisp, this is
4788still possible, but now you must do it by adding a hook to
4789scheme-mode-hook, which could work by setting the `lisp-' indentation
4790variables as buffer-local variables.
4791
4792*** DSSSL mode is a variant of Scheme mode, for editing DSSSL scripts.
4793Use M-x dsssl-mode.
4794
4795** The emacsclient program now accepts an option --no-wait which tells
4796it to return immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the
4797buffer in Emacs.
4798
4799** M-x eldoc-mode enables a minor mode in which the echo area
4800constantly shows the parameter list for function being called at point
4801(in Emacs Lisp and Lisp Interaction modes only).
4802
4803** C-x n d now runs the new command narrow-to-defun,
4804which narrows the accessible parts of the buffer to just
4805the current defun.
4806
4807** Emacs now handles the `--' argument in the standard way; all
4808following arguments are treated as ordinary file names.
4809
4810** On MSDOS and Windows, the bookmark file is now called _emacs.bmk,
4811and the saved desktop file is now called _emacs.desktop (truncated if
4812necessary).
4813
4814** When you kill a buffer that visits a file,
4815if there are any registers that save positions in the file,
4816these register values no longer become completely useless.
4817If you try to go to such a register with C-x j, then you are
4818asked whether to visit the file again. If you say yes,
4819it visits the file and then goes to the same position.
4820
4821** When you visit a file that changes frequently outside Emacs--for
4822example, a log of output from a process that continues to run--it may
4823be useful for Emacs to revert the file without querying you whenever
4824you visit the file afresh with C-x C-f.
4825
4826You can request this behavior for certain files by setting the
4827variable revert-without-query to a list of regular expressions. If a
4828file's name matches any of these regular expressions, find-file and
4829revert-buffer revert the buffer without asking for permission--but
4830only if you have not edited the buffer text yourself.
4831
4832** set-default-font has been renamed to set-frame-font
4833since it applies only to the current frame.
4834
4835** In TeX mode, you can use the variable tex-main-file to specify the
4836file for tex-file to run TeX on. (By default, tex-main-file is nil,
4837and tex-file runs TeX on the current visited file.)
4838
4839This is useful when you are editing a document that consists of
4840multiple files. In each of the included files, you can set up a local
4841variable list which specifies the top-level file of your document for
4842tex-main-file. Then tex-file will run TeX on the whole document
4843instead of just the file you are editing.
4844
4845** RefTeX mode
4846
4847RefTeX mode is a new minor mode with special support for \label, \ref
4848and \cite macros in LaTeX documents. RefTeX distinguishes labels of
4849different environments (equation, figure, ...) and has full support for
4850multifile documents. To use it, select a buffer with a LaTeX document and
4851turn the mode on with M-x reftex-mode. Here are the main user commands:
4852
4853C-c ( reftex-label
4854 Creates a label semi-automatically. RefTeX is context sensitive and
4855 knows which kind of label is needed.
4856
4857C-c ) reftex-reference
4858 Offers in a menu all labels in the document, along with context of the
4859 label definition. The selected label is referenced as \ref{LABEL}.
4860
4861C-c [ reftex-citation
4862 Prompts for a regular expression and displays a list of matching BibTeX
4863 database entries. The selected entry is cited with a \cite{KEY} macro.
4864
4865C-c & reftex-view-crossref
4866 Views the cross reference of a \ref or \cite command near point.
4867
4868C-c = reftex-toc
4869 Shows a table of contents of the (multifile) document. From there you
4870 can quickly jump to every section.
4871
4872Under X, RefTeX installs a "Ref" menu in the menu bar, with additional
4873commands. Press `?' to get help when a prompt mentions this feature.
4874Full documentation and customization examples are in the file
4875reftex.el. You can use the finder to view the file documentation:
4876C-h p --> tex --> reftex.el
4877
4878** Changes in BibTeX mode.
4879
4880*** Info documentation is now available.
4881
4882*** Don't allow parentheses in string constants anymore. This confused
4883both the BibTeX program and Emacs BibTeX mode.
4884
4885*** Renamed variable bibtex-mode-user-optional-fields to
4886bibtex-user-optional-fields.
4887
4888*** Removed variable bibtex-include-OPTannote
4889(use bibtex-user-optional-fields instead).
4890
4891*** New interactive functions to copy and kill fields and complete
4892entries to the BibTeX kill ring, from where they can be yanked back by
4893appropriate functions.
4894
4895*** New interactive functions for repositioning and marking of
4896entries. They are bound by default to M-C-l and M-C-h.
4897
4898*** New hook bibtex-clean-entry-hook. It is called after entry has
4899been cleaned.
4900
4901*** New variable bibtex-field-delimiters, which replaces variables
4902bibtex-field-{left|right}-delimiter.
4903
4904*** New variable bibtex-entry-delimiters to determine how entries
4905shall be delimited.
4906
4907*** Allow preinitialization of fields. See documentation of
4908bibtex-user-optional-fields, bibtex-entry-field-alist, and
4909bibtex-include-OPTkey for details.
4910
4911*** Book and InBook entries require either an author or an editor
4912field. This is now supported by bibtex.el. Alternative fields are
4913prefixed with `ALT'.
4914
4915*** New variable bibtex-entry-format, which replaces variable
4916bibtex-clean-entry-zap-empty-opts and allows specification of many
4917formatting options performed on cleaning an entry (see variable
4918documentation).
4919
4920*** Even more control on how automatic keys are generated. See
4921documentation of bibtex-generate-autokey for details. Transcriptions
4922for foreign languages other than German are now handled, too.
4923
4924*** New boolean user option bibtex-comma-after-last-field to decide if
4925comma should be inserted at end of last field.
4926
4927*** New boolean user option bibtex-align-at-equal-sign to determine if
4928alignment should be made at left side of field contents or at equal
4929signs. New user options to control entry layout (e.g. indentation).
4930
4931*** New function bibtex-fill-entry to realign entries.
4932
4933*** New function bibtex-reformat to reformat region or buffer.
4934
4935*** New function bibtex-convert-alien to convert a BibTeX database
4936from alien sources.
4937
4938*** New function bibtex-complete-key (similar to bibtex-complete-string)
4939to complete prefix to a key defined in buffer. Mainly useful in
4940crossref entries.
4941
4942*** New function bibtex-count-entries to count entries in buffer or
4943region.
4944
4945*** Added support for imenu.
4946
4947*** The function `bibtex-validate' now checks current region instead
4948of buffer if mark is active. Now it shows all errors of buffer in a
4949`compilation mode' buffer. You can use the normal commands (e.g.
4950`next-error') for compilation modes to jump to errors.
4951
4952*** New variable `bibtex-string-file-path' to determine where the files
4953from `bibtex-string-files' are searched.
4954
4955** Iso Accents mode now supports Latin-3 as an alternative.
4956
4957** The function using-unix-filesystems has been replaced by the
4958functions add-untranslated-filesystem and remove-untranslated-filesystem.
4959Each of these functions takes the name of a drive letter or directory
4960as an argument.
4961
4962When a filesystem is added as untranslated, all files on it are read
4963and written in binary mode (no cr/lf translation is performed).
4964
4965** browse-url changes
4966
4967*** New methods for: Grail (browse-url-generic), MMM (browse-url-mmm),
4968Lynx in a separate xterm (browse-url-lynx-xterm) or in an Emacs window
4969(browse-url-lynx-emacs), remote W3 (browse-url-w3-gnudoit), generic
4970non-remote-controlled browsers (browse-url-generic) and associated
4971customization variables.
4972
4973*** New commands `browse-url-of-region' and `browse-url'.
4974
4975*** URLs marked up with <URL:...> (RFC1738) work if broken across
4976lines. Browsing methods can be associated with URL regexps
4977(e.g. mailto: URLs) via `browse-url-browser-function'.
4978
4979** Changes in Ediff
4980
4981*** Clicking Mouse-2 on a brief command description in Ediff control panel
4982pops up the Info file for this command.
4983
4984*** There is now a variable, ediff-autostore-merges, which controls whether
4985the result of a merge is saved in a file. By default, this is done only when
4986merge is done from a session group (eg, when merging files in two different
4987directories).
4988
4989*** Since Emacs 19.31 (this hasn't been announced before), Ediff can compare
4990and merge groups of files residing in different directories, or revisions of
4991files in the same directory.
4992
4993*** Since Emacs 19.31, Ediff can apply multi-file patches interactively.
4994The patches must be in the context format or GNU unified format. (The bug
4995related to the GNU format has now been fixed.)
4996
4997** Changes in Viper
4998
4999*** The startup file is now .viper instead of .vip
5000*** All variable/function names have been changed to start with viper-
5001 instead of vip-.
5002*** C-\ now simulates the meta-key in all Viper states.
5003*** C-z in Insert state now escapes to Vi for the duration of the next
5004Viper command. In Vi and Insert states, C-z behaves as before.
5005*** C-c \ escapes to Vi for one command if Viper is in Insert or Emacs states.
5006*** _ is no longer the meta-key in Vi state.
5007*** The variable viper-insert-state-cursor-color can be used to change cursor
5008color when Viper is in insert state.
5009*** If search lands the cursor near the top or the bottom of the window,
5010Viper pulls the window up or down to expose more context. The variable
5011viper-adjust-window-after-search controls this behavior.
5012
5013** Etags changes.
5014
5015*** In C, C++, Objective C and Java, Etags tags global variables by
5016default. The resulting tags files are inflated by 30% on average.
5017Use --no-globals to turn this feature off. Etags can also tag
5018variables which are members of structure-like constructs, but it does
5019not by default. Use --members to turn this feature on.
5020
5021*** C++ member functions are now recognized as tags.
5022
5023*** Java is tagged like C++. In addition, "extends" and "implements"
5024constructs are tagged. Files are recognised by the extension .java.
5025
5026*** Etags can now handle programs written in Postscript. Files are
5027recognised by the extensions .ps and .pdb (Postscript with C syntax).
5028In Postscript, tags are lines that start with a slash.
5029
5030*** Etags now handles Objective C and Objective C++ code. The usual C and
5031C++ tags are recognized in these languages; in addition, etags
5032recognizes special Objective C syntax for classes, class categories,
5033methods and protocols.
5034
5035*** Etags also handles Cobol. Files are recognised by the extension
5036.cobol. The tagged lines are those containing a word that begins in
5037column 8 and ends in a full stop, i.e. anything that could be a
5038paragraph name.
5039
5040*** Regexps in Etags now support intervals, as in ed or grep. The syntax of
5041an interval is \{M,N\}, and it means to match the preceding expression
5042at least M times and as many as N times.
5043
5044** The format for specifying a custom format for time-stamp to insert
5045in files has changed slightly.
5046
5047With the new enhancements to the functionality of format-time-string,
5048time-stamp-format will change to be eventually compatible with it.
5049This conversion is being done in two steps to maintain compatibility
5050with old time-stamp-format values.
5051
5052In the new scheme, alternate case is signified by the number-sign
5053(`#') modifier, rather than changing the case of the format character.
5054This feature is as yet incompletely implemented for compatibility
5055reasons.
5056
5057In the old time-stamp-format, all numeric fields defaulted to their
5058natural width. (With format-time-string, each format has a
5059fixed-width default.) In this version, you can specify the colon
5060(`:') modifier to a numeric conversion to mean "give me the historical
5061time-stamp-format width default." Do not use colon if you are
5062specifying an explicit width, as in "%02d".
5063
5064Numbers are no longer truncated to the requested width, except in the
5065case of "%02y", which continues to give a two-digit year. Digit
5066truncation probably wasn't being used for anything else anyway.
5067
5068The new formats will work with old versions of Emacs. New formats are
5069being recommended now to allow time-stamp-format to change in the
5070future to be compatible with format-time-string. The new forms being
5071recommended now will continue to work then.
5072
5073See the documentation string for the variable time-stamp-format for
5074details.
5075
5076** There are some additional major modes:
5077
5078dcl-mode, for editing VMS DCL files.
5079m4-mode, for editing files of m4 input.
5080meta-mode, for editing MetaFont and MetaPost source files.
5081
5082** In Shell mode, the command shell-copy-environment-variable lets you
5083copy the value of a specified environment variable from the subshell
5084into Emacs.
5085
5086** New Lisp packages include:
5087
5088*** battery.el displays battery status for laptops.
5089
5090*** M-x bruce (named after Lenny Bruce) is a program that might
5091be used for adding some indecent words to your email.
5092
5093*** M-x crisp-mode enables an emulation for the CRiSP editor.
5094
5095*** M-x dirtrack arranges for better tracking of directory changes
5096in shell buffers.
5097
5098*** The new library elint.el provides for linting of Emacs Lisp code.
5099See the documentation for `elint-initialize', `elint-current-buffer'
5100and `elint-defun'.
5101
5102*** M-x expand-add-abbrevs defines a special kind of abbrev which is
5103meant for programming constructs. These abbrevs expand like ordinary
5104ones, when you type SPC, but only at the end of a line and not within
5105strings or comments.
5106
5107These abbrevs can act as templates: you can define places within an
5108abbrev for insertion of additional text. Once you expand the abbrev,
5109you can then use C-x a p and C-x a n to move back and forth to these
5110insertion points. Thus you can conveniently insert additional text
5111at these points.
5112
5113*** filecache.el remembers the location of files so that you
5114can visit them by short forms of their names.
5115
5116*** find-func.el lets you find the definition of the user-loaded
5117Emacs Lisp function at point.
5118
5119*** M-x handwrite converts text to a "handwritten" picture.
5120
5121*** M-x iswitchb-buffer is a command for switching to a buffer, much like
5122switch-buffer, but it reads the argument in a more helpful way.
5123
5124*** M-x landmark implements a neural network for landmark learning.
5125
5126*** M-x locate provides a convenient interface to the `locate' program.
5127
5128*** M4 mode is a new mode for editing files of m4 input.
5129
5130*** mantemp.el creates C++ manual template instantiations
5131from the GCC error messages which indicate which instantiations are needed.
5132
5133*** mouse-copy.el provides a one-click copy and move feature.
5134You can drag a region with M-mouse-1, and it is automatically
5135inserted at point. M-Shift-mouse-1 deletes the text from its
5136original place after inserting the copy.
5137
5138*** mouse-drag.el lets you do scrolling by dragging Mouse-2
5139on the buffer.
5140
5141You click the mouse and move; that distance either translates into the
5142velocity to scroll (with mouse-drag-throw) or the distance to scroll
5143(with mouse-drag-drag). Horizontal scrolling is enabled when needed.
5144
5145Enable mouse-drag with:
5146 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-throw)
5147-or-
5148 (global-set-key [down-mouse-2] 'mouse-drag-drag)
5149
5150*** mspools.el is useful for determining which mail folders have
5151mail waiting to be read in them. It works with procmail.
5152
5153*** Octave mode is a major mode for editing files of input for Octave.
5154It comes with a facility for communicating with an Octave subprocess.
5155
5156*** ogonek
5157
5158The ogonek package provides functions for changing the coding of
5159Polish diacritic characters in buffers. Codings known from various
5160platforms are supported such as ISO8859-2, Mazovia, IBM Latin2, and
5161TeX. For example, you can change the coding from Mazovia to
5162ISO8859-2. Another example is a change of coding from ISO8859-2 to
5163prefix notation (in which `/a' stands for the aogonek character, for
5164instance) and vice versa.
5165
5166To use this package load it using
5167 M-x load-library [enter] ogonek
5168Then, you may get an explanation by calling one of
5169 M-x ogonek-jak -- in Polish
5170 M-x ogonek-how -- in English
5171The info specifies the commands and variables provided as well as the
5172ways of customization in `.emacs'.
5173
5174*** Interface to ph.
5175
5176Emacs provides a client interface to CCSO Nameservers (ph/qi)
5177
5178The CCSO nameserver is used in many universities to provide directory
5179services about people. ph.el provides a convenient Emacs interface to
5180these servers.
5181
5182*** uce.el is useful for replying to unsolicited commercial email.
5183
5184*** vcursor.el implements a "virtual cursor" feature.
5185You can move the virtual cursor with special commands
5186while the real cursor does not move.
5187
5188*** webjump.el is a "hot list" package which you can set up
5189for visiting your favorite web sites.
5190
5191*** M-x winner-mode is a minor mode which saves window configurations,
5192so you can move back to other configurations that you have recently used.
5193
5194** movemail change
5195
5196Movemail no longer needs to be installed setuid root in order for POP
5197mail retrieval to function properly. This is because it no longer
5198supports the RPOP (reserved-port POP) protocol; instead, it uses the
5199user's POP password to authenticate to the mail server.
5200
5201This change was made earlier, but not reported in NEWS before.
5202\f
5203* Emacs 20.1 changes for MS-DOS and MS-Windows.
5204
5205** Changes in handling MS-DOS/MS-Windows text files.
5206
5207Emacs handles three different conventions for representing
5208end-of-line: CRLF for MSDOS, LF for Unix and GNU, and CR (used on the
5209Macintosh). Emacs determines which convention is used in a specific
5210file based on the contents of that file (except for certain special
5211file names), and when it saves the file, it uses the same convention.
5212
5213To save the file and change the end-of-line convention, you can use
5214C-x RET f (set-buffer-file-coding-system) to specify a different
5215coding system for the buffer. Then, when you save the file, the newly
5216specified coding system will take effect. For example, to save with
5217LF, specify undecided-unix (or some other ...-unix coding system); to
5218save with CRLF, specify undecided-dos.
5219\f
5220* Lisp Changes in Emacs 20.1
5221
5222** Byte-compiled files made with Emacs 20 will, in general, work in
5223Emacs 19 as well, as long as the source code runs in Emacs 19. And
5224vice versa: byte-compiled files made with Emacs 19 should also run in
5225Emacs 20, as long as the program itself works in Emacs 20.
5226
5227** Windows-specific functions and variables have been renamed
5228to start with w32- instead of win32-.
5229
5230In hacker language, calling something a "win" is a form of praise. We
5231don't want to praise a non-free Microsoft system, so we don't call it
5232"win".
5233
5234** Basic Lisp changes
5235
5236*** A symbol whose name starts with a colon now automatically
5237evaluates to itself. Therefore such a symbol can be used as a constant.
5238
5239*** The defined purpose of `defconst' has been changed. It should now
5240be used only for values that should not be changed whether by a program
5241or by the user.
5242
5243The actual behavior of defconst has not been changed.
5244
5245*** There are new macros `when' and `unless'
5246
5247(when CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION (progn BODY...))
5248(unless CONDITION BODY...) is short for (if CONDITION nil BODY...)
5249
5250*** Emacs now defines functions caar, cadr, cdar and cddr with their
5251usual Lisp meanings. For example, caar returns the car of the car of
5252its argument.
5253
5254*** equal, when comparing strings, now ignores their text properties.
5255
5256*** The new function `functionp' tests whether an object is a function.
5257
5258*** arrayp now returns t for char-tables and bool-vectors.
5259
5260*** Certain primitives which use characters (as integers) now get an
5261error if the integer is not a valid character code. These primitives
5262include insert-char, char-to-string, and the %c construct in the
5263`format' function.
5264
5265*** The `require' function now insists on adding a suffix, either .el
5266or .elc, to the file name. Thus, (require 'foo) will not use a file
5267whose name is just foo. It insists on foo.el or foo.elc.
5268
5269*** The `autoload' function, when the file name does not contain
5270either a directory name or the suffix .el or .elc, insists on
5271adding one of these suffixes.
5272
5273*** string-to-number now takes an optional second argument BASE
5274which specifies the base to use when converting an integer.
5275If BASE is omitted, base 10 is used.
5276
5277We have not implemented other radices for floating point numbers,
5278because that would be much more work and does not seem useful.
5279
5280*** substring now handles vectors as well as strings.
5281
5282*** The Common Lisp function eql is no longer defined normally.
5283You must load the `cl' library to define it.
5284
5285*** The new macro `with-current-buffer' lets you evaluate an expression
5286conveniently with a different current buffer. It looks like this:
5287
5288 (with-current-buffer BUFFER BODY-FORMS...)
5289
5290BUFFER is the expression that says which buffer to use.
5291BODY-FORMS say what to do in that buffer.
5292
5293*** The new primitive `save-current-buffer' saves and restores the
5294choice of current buffer, like `save-excursion', but without saving or
5295restoring the value of point or the mark. `with-current-buffer'
5296works using `save-current-buffer'.
5297
5298*** The new macro `with-temp-file' lets you do some work in a new buffer and
5299write the output to a specified file. Like `progn', it returns the value
5300of the last form.
5301
5302*** The new macro `with-temp-buffer' lets you do some work in a new buffer,
5303which is discarded after use. Like `progn', it returns the value of the
5304last form. If you wish to return the buffer contents, use (buffer-string)
5305as the last form.
5306
5307*** The new function split-string takes a string, splits it at certain
5308characters, and returns a list of the substrings in between the
5309matches.
5310
5311For example, (split-string "foo bar lose" " +") returns ("foo" "bar" "lose").
5312
5313*** The new macro with-output-to-string executes some Lisp expressions
5314with standard-output set up so that all output feeds into a string.
5315Then it returns that string.
5316
5317For example, if the current buffer name is `foo',
5318
5319(with-output-to-string
5320 (princ "The buffer is ")
5321 (princ (buffer-name)))
5322
5323returns "The buffer is foo".
5324
5325** Non-ASCII characters are now supported, if enable-multibyte-characters
5326is non-nil.
5327
5328These characters have character codes above 256. When inserted in the
5329buffer or stored in a string, they are represented as multibyte
5330characters that occupy several buffer positions each.
5331
5332*** When enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, a single character in
5333a buffer or string can be two or more bytes (as many as four).
5334
5335Buffers and strings are still made up of unibyte elements;
5336character positions and string indices are always measured in bytes.
5337Therefore, moving forward one character can increase the buffer
5338position by 2, 3 or 4. The function forward-char moves by whole
5339characters, and therefore is no longer equivalent to
5340 (lambda (n) (goto-char (+ (point) n))).
5341
5342ASCII characters (codes 0 through 127) are still single bytes, always.
5343Sequences of byte values 128 through 255 are used to represent
5344non-ASCII characters. These sequences are called "multibyte
5345characters".
5346
5347The first byte of a multibyte character is always in the range 128
5348through 159 (octal 0200 through 0237). These values are called
5349"leading codes". The second and subsequent bytes are always in the
5350range 160 through 255 (octal 0240 through 0377). The first byte, the
5351leading code, determines how many bytes long the sequence is.
5352
5353*** The function forward-char moves over characters, and therefore
5354(forward-char 1) may increase point by more than 1 if it moves over a
5355multibyte character. Likewise, delete-char always deletes a
5356character, which may be more than one buffer position.
5357
5358This means that some Lisp programs, which assume that a character is
5359always one buffer position, need to be changed.
5360
5361However, all ASCII characters are always one buffer position.
5362
5363*** The regexp [\200-\377] no longer matches all non-ASCII characters,
5364because when enable-multibyte-characters is non-nil, these characters
5365have codes that are not in the range octal 200 to octal 377. However,
5366the regexp [^\000-\177] does match all non-ASCII characters,
5367guaranteed.
5368
5369*** The function char-boundary-p returns non-nil if position POS is
5370between two characters in the buffer (not in the middle of a
5371character).
5372
5373When the value is non-nil, it says what kind of character follows POS:
5374
5375 0 if POS is at an ASCII character or at the end of range,
5376 1 if POS is before a 2-byte length multi-byte form,
5377 2 if POS is at a head of 3-byte length multi-byte form,
5378 3 if POS is at a head of 4-byte length multi-byte form,
5379 4 if POS is at a head of multi-byte form of a composite character.
5380
5381*** The function char-bytes returns how many bytes the character CHAR uses.
5382
5383*** Strings can contain multibyte characters. The function
5384`length' returns the string length counting bytes, which may be
5385more than the number of characters.
5386
5387You can include a multibyte character in a string constant by writing
5388it literally. You can also represent it with a hex escape,
5389\xNNNNNNN..., using as many digits as necessary. Any character which
5390is not a valid hex digit terminates this construct. If you want to
5391follow it with a character that is a hex digit, write backslash and
5392newline in between; that will terminate the hex escape.
5393
5394*** The function concat-chars takes arguments which are characters
5395and returns a string containing those characters.
5396
5397*** The function sref access a multibyte character in a string.
5398(sref STRING INDX) returns the character in STRING at INDEX. INDEX
5399counts from zero. If INDEX is at a position in the middle of a
5400character, sref signals an error.
5401
5402*** The function chars-in-string returns the number of characters
5403in a string. This is less than the length of the string, if the
5404string contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5405
5406*** The function chars-in-region returns the number of characters
5407in a region from BEG to END. This is less than (- END BEG) if the
5408region contains multibyte characters (the length counts bytes).
5409
5410*** The function string-to-list converts a string to a list of
5411the characters in it. string-to-vector converts a string
5412to a vector of the characters in it.
5413
5414*** The function store-substring alters part of the contents
5415of a string. You call it as follows:
5416
5417 (store-substring STRING IDX OBJ)
5418
5419This says to alter STRING, by storing OBJ starting at index IDX in
5420STRING. OBJ may be either a character or a (smaller) string.
5421This function really does alter the contents of STRING.
5422Since it is impossible to change the length of an existing string,
5423it is an error if OBJ doesn't fit within STRING's actual length.
5424
5425*** char-width returns the width (in columns) of the character CHAR,
5426if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5427
5428*** string-width returns the width (in columns) of the text in STRING,
5429if it were displayed in the current buffer and the selected window.
5430
5431*** truncate-string-to-width shortens a string, if necessary,
5432to fit within a certain number of columns. (Of course, it does
5433not alter the string that you give it; it returns a new string
5434which contains all or just part of the existing string.)
5435
5436(truncate-string-to-width STR END-COLUMN &optional START-COLUMN PADDING)
5437
5438This returns the part of STR up to column END-COLUMN.
5439
5440The optional argument START-COLUMN specifies the starting column.
5441If this is non-nil, then the first START-COLUMN columns of the string
5442are not included in the resulting value.
5443
5444The optional argument PADDING, if non-nil, is a padding character to be added
5445at the beginning and end the resulting string, to extend it to exactly
5446WIDTH columns. If PADDING is nil, that means do not pad; then, if STRING
5447is narrower than WIDTH, the value is equal to STRING.
5448
5449If PADDING and START-COLUMN are both non-nil, and if there is no clean
5450place in STRING that corresponds to START-COLUMN (because one
5451character extends across that column), then the padding character
5452PADDING is added one or more times at the beginning of the result
5453string, so that its columns line up as if it really did start at
5454column START-COLUMN.
5455
5456*** When the functions in the list after-change-functions are called,
5457the third argument is the number of bytes in the pre-change text, not
5458necessarily the number of characters. It is, in effect, the
5459difference in buffer position between the beginning and the end of the
5460changed text, before the change.
5461
5462*** The characters Emacs uses are classified in various character
5463sets, each of which has a name which is a symbol. In general there is
5464one character set for each script, not for each language.
5465
5466**** The function charsetp tests whether an object is a character set name.
5467
5468**** The variable charset-list holds a list of character set names.
5469
5470**** char-charset, given a character code, returns the name of the character
5471set that the character belongs to. (The value is a symbol.)
5472
5473**** split-char, given a character code, returns a list containing the
5474name of the character set, followed by one or two byte-values
5475which identify the character within that character set.
5476
5477**** make-char, given a character set name and one or two subsequent
5478byte-values, constructs a character code. This is roughly the
5479opposite of split-char.
5480
5481**** find-charset-region returns a list of the character sets
5482of all the characters between BEG and END.
5483
5484**** find-charset-string returns a list of the character sets
5485of all the characters in a string.
5486
5487*** Here are the Lisp facilities for working with coding systems
5488and specifying coding systems.
5489
5490**** The function coding-system-list returns a list of all coding
5491system names (symbols). With optional argument t, it returns a list
5492of all distinct base coding systems, not including variants.
5493(Variant coding systems are those like latin-1-dos, latin-1-unix
5494and latin-1-mac which specify the end-of-line conversion as well
5495as what to do about code conversion.)
5496
5497**** coding-system-p tests a symbol to see if it is a coding system
5498name. It returns t if so, nil if not.
5499
5500**** file-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5501for certain file names. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5502except that the PATTERN is matched against the file name.
5503
5504Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5505which file names the element applies to. PATTERN should be a regexp
5506to match against a file name.
5507
5508VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5509a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5510decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5511to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5512systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5513specifies the coding system for encoding.
5514
5515If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5516or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5517
5518**** The variable network-coding-system-alist specifies
5519the coding system to use for network sockets.
5520
5521Each element has the format (PATTERN . VAL), where PATTERN determines
5522which network sockets the element applies to. PATTERN should be
5523either a port number or a regular expression matching some network
5524service names.
5525
5526VAL is a coding system, a cons cell containing two coding systems, or
5527a function symbol. If VAL is a coding system, it is used for both
5528decoding what received from the network stream and encoding what sent
5529to the network stream. If VAL is a cons cell containing two coding
5530systems, the car specifies the coding system for decoding, and the cdr
5531specifies the coding system for encoding.
5532
5533If VAL is a function symbol, the function must return a coding system
5534or a cons cell containing two coding systems, which is used as above.
5535
5536**** process-coding-system-alist specifies which coding systems to use
5537for certain subprocess. It works like network-coding-system-alist,
5538except that the PATTERN is matched against the program name used to
5539start the subprocess.
5540
5541**** The variable default-process-coding-system specifies the coding
5542systems to use for subprocess (and net connection) input and output,
5543when nothing else specifies what to do. The value is a cons cell
5544(OUTPUT-CODING . INPUT-CODING). OUTPUT-CODING applies to output
5545to the subprocess, and INPUT-CODING applies to input from it.
5546
5547**** The variable coding-system-for-write, if non-nil, specifies the
5548coding system to use for writing a file, or for output to a synchronous
5549subprocess.
5550
5551It also applies to any asynchronous subprocess or network connection,
5552but in a different way: the value of coding-system-for-write when you
5553start the subprocess or connection affects that subprocess or
5554connection permanently or until overridden.
5555
5556The variable coding-system-for-write takes precedence over
5557file-coding-system-alist, process-coding-system-alist and
5558network-coding-system-alist, and all other methods of specifying a
5559coding system for output. But most of the time this variable is nil.
5560It exists so that Lisp programs can bind it to a specific coding
5561system for one operation at a time.
5562
5563**** coding-system-for-read applies similarly to input from
5564files, subprocesses or network connections.
5565
5566**** The function process-coding-system tells you what
5567coding systems(s) an existing subprocess is using.
5568The value is a cons cell,
5569 (DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM . ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM)
5570where DECODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for decoding output from
5571the subprocess, and ENCODING-CODING-SYSTEM is used for encoding
5572input to the subprocess.
5573
5574**** The function set-process-coding-system can be used to
5575change the coding systems in use for an existing subprocess.
5576
5577** Emacs has a new facility to help users manage the many
5578customization options. To make a Lisp program work with this facility,
5579you need to use the new macros defgroup and defcustom.
5580
5581You use defcustom instead of defvar, for defining a user option
5582variable. The difference is that you specify two additional pieces of
5583information (usually): the "type" which says what values are
5584legitimate, and the "group" which specifies the hierarchy for
5585customization.
5586
5587Thus, instead of writing
5588
5589 (defvar foo-blurgoze nil
5590 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely.")
5591
5592you would now write this:
5593
5594 (defcustom foo-blurgoze nil
5595 "*Non-nil means that foo will act very blurgozely."
5596 :type 'boolean
5597 :group foo)
5598
5599The type `boolean' means that this variable has only
5600two meaningful states: nil and non-nil. Other type values
5601describe other possibilities; see the manual for Custom
5602for a description of them.
5603
5604The "group" argument is used to specify a group which the option
5605should belong to. You define a new group like this:
5606
5607 (defgroup ispell nil
5608 "Spell checking using Ispell."
5609 :group 'processes)
5610
5611The "group" argument in defgroup specifies the parent group. The root
5612group is called `emacs'; it should not contain any variables itself,
5613but only other groups. The immediate subgroups of `emacs' correspond
5614to the keywords used by C-h p. Under these subgroups come
5615second-level subgroups that belong to individual packages.
5616
5617Each Emacs package should have its own set of groups. A simple
5618package should have just one group; a more complex package should
5619have a hierarchy of its own groups. The sole or root group of a
5620package should be a subgroup of one or more of the "keyword"
5621first-level subgroups.
5622
5623** New `widget' library for inserting UI components in buffers.
5624
5625This library, used by the new custom library, is documented in a
5626separate manual that accompanies Emacs.
5627
5628** easy-mmode
5629
5630The easy-mmode package provides macros and functions that make
5631developing minor modes easier. Roughly, the programmer has to code
5632only the functionality of the minor mode. All the rest--toggles,
5633predicate, and documentation--can be done in one call to the macro
5634`easy-mmode-define-minor-mode' (see the documentation). See also
5635`easy-mmode-define-keymap'.
5636
5637** Text property changes
5638
5639*** The `intangible' property now works on overlays as well as on a
5640text property.
5641
5642*** The new functions next-char-property-change and
5643previous-char-property-change scan through the buffer looking for a
5644place where either a text property or an overlay might change. The
5645functions take two arguments, POSITION and LIMIT. POSITION is the
5646starting position for the scan. LIMIT says where to stop the scan.
5647
5648If no property change is found before LIMIT, the value is LIMIT. If
5649LIMIT is nil, scan goes to the beginning or end of the accessible part
5650of the buffer. If no property change is found, the value is the
5651position of the beginning or end of the buffer.
5652
5653*** In the `local-map' text property or overlay property, the property
5654value can now be a symbol whose function definition is a keymap. This
5655is an alternative to using the keymap itself.
5656
5657** Changes in invisibility features
5658
5659*** Isearch can now temporarily show parts of the buffer which are
5660hidden by an overlay with a invisible property, when the search match
5661is inside that portion of the buffer. To enable this the overlay
5662should have a isearch-open-invisible property which is a function that
5663would be called having the overlay as an argument, the function should
5664make the overlay visible.
5665
5666During incremental search the overlays are shown by modifying the
5667invisible and intangible properties, if beside this more actions are
5668needed the overlay should have a isearch-open-invisible-temporary
5669which is a function. The function is called with 2 arguments: one is
5670the overlay and the second is nil when it should show the overlay and
5671t when it should hide it.
5672
5673*** add-to-invisibility-spec, remove-from-invisibility-spec
5674
5675Modes that use overlays to hide portions of a buffer should set the
5676invisible property of the overlay to the mode's name (or another symbol)
5677and modify the `buffer-invisibility-spec' to include that symbol.
5678Use `add-to-invisibility-spec' and `remove-from-invisibility-spec' to
5679manipulate the `buffer-invisibility-spec'.
5680Here is an example of how to do this:
5681
5682 ;; If we want to display an ellipsis:
5683 (add-to-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5684 ;; If you don't want ellipsis:
5685 (add-to-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5686
5687 ...
5688 (overlay-put (make-overlay beginning end) 'invisible 'my-symbol)
5689
5690 ...
5691 ;; When done with the overlays:
5692 (remove-from-invisibility-spec '(my-symbol . t))
5693 ;; Or respectively:
5694 (remove-from-invisibility-spec 'my-symbol)
5695
5696** Changes in syntax parsing.
5697
5698*** The syntax-directed buffer-scan functions (such as
5699`parse-partial-sexp', `forward-word' and similar functions) can now
5700obey syntax information specified by text properties, if the variable
5701`parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil.
5702
5703If the value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is nil, the behavior
5704is as before: the syntax-table of the current buffer is always
5705used to determine the syntax of the character at the position.
5706
5707When `parse-sexp-lookup-properties' is non-nil, the syntax of a
5708character in the buffer is calculated thus:
5709
5710 a) if the `syntax-table' text-property of that character
5711 is a cons, this cons becomes the syntax-type;
5712
5713 Valid values of `syntax-table' text-property are: nil, a valid
5714 syntax-table, and a valid syntax-table element, i.e.,
5715 a cons cell of the form (SYNTAX-CODE . MATCHING-CHAR).
5716
5717 b) if the character's `syntax-table' text-property
5718 is a syntax table, this syntax table is used
5719 (instead of the syntax-table of the current buffer) to
5720 determine the syntax type of the character.
5721
5722 c) otherwise the syntax-type is determined by the syntax-table
5723 of the current buffer.
5724
5725*** The meaning of \s in regular expressions is also affected by the
5726value of `parse-sexp-lookup-properties'. The details are the same as
5727for the syntax-directed buffer-scan functions.
5728
5729*** There are two new syntax-codes, `!' and `|' (numeric values 14
5730and 15). A character with a code `!' starts a comment which is ended
5731only by another character with the same code (unless quoted). A
5732character with a code `|' starts a string which is ended only by
5733another character with the same code (unless quoted).
5734
5735These codes are mainly meant for use as values of the `syntax-table'
5736text property.
5737
5738*** The function `parse-partial-sexp' has new semantics for the sixth
5739arg COMMENTSTOP. If it is `syntax-table', parse stops after the start
5740of a comment or a string, or after end of a comment or a string.
5741
5742*** The state-list which the return value from `parse-partial-sexp'
5743(and can also be used as an argument) now has an optional ninth
5744element: the character address of the start of last comment or string;
5745nil if none. The fourth and eighth elements have special values if the
5746string/comment is started by a "!" or "|" syntax-code.
5747
5748*** Since new features of `parse-partial-sexp' allow a complete
5749syntactic parsing, `font-lock' no longer supports
5750`font-lock-comment-start-regexp'.
5751
5752** Changes in face features
5753
5754*** The face functions are now unconditionally defined in Emacs, even
5755if it does not support displaying on a device that supports faces.
5756
5757*** The function face-documentation returns the documentation string
5758of a face (or nil if it doesn't have one).
5759
5760*** The function face-bold-p returns t if a face should be bold.
5761set-face-bold-p sets that flag.
5762
5763*** The function face-italic-p returns t if a face should be italic.
5764set-face-italic-p sets that flag.
5765
5766*** You can now specify foreground and background colors for text
5767by adding elements of the form (foreground-color . COLOR-NAME)
5768and (background-color . COLOR-NAME) to the list of faces in
5769the `face' property (either the character's text property or an
5770overlay property).
5771
5772This means that you no longer need to create named faces to use
5773arbitrary colors in a Lisp package.
5774
5775** Changes in file-handling functions
5776
5777*** File-access primitive functions no longer discard an extra redundant
5778directory name from the beginning of the file name. In other words,
5779they no longer do anything special with // or /~. That conversion
5780is now done only in substitute-in-file-name.
5781
5782This makes it possible for a Lisp program to open a file whose name
5783begins with ~.
5784
5785*** If copy-file is unable to set the date of the output file,
5786it now signals an error with the condition file-date-error.
5787
5788*** The inode number returned by file-attributes may be an integer (if
5789the number fits in a Lisp integer) or a list of integers.
5790
5791*** insert-file-contents can now read from a special file,
5792as long as the arguments VISIT and REPLACE are nil.
5793
5794*** The RAWFILE arg to find-file-noselect, if non-nil, now suppresses
5795character code conversion as well as other things.
5796
5797Meanwhile, this feature does work with remote file names
5798(formerly it did not).
5799
5800*** Lisp packages which create temporary files should use the TMPDIR
5801environment variable to decide which directory to put them in.
5802
5803*** interpreter-mode-alist elements now specify regexps
5804instead of constant strings.
5805
5806*** expand-file-name no longer treats `//' or `/~' specially. It used
5807to delete all the text of a file name up through the first slash of
5808any `//' or `/~' sequence. Now it passes them straight through.
5809
5810substitute-in-file-name continues to treat those sequences specially,
5811in the same way as before.
5812
5813*** The variable `format-alist' is more general now.
5814The FROM-FN and TO-FN in a format definition can now be strings
5815which specify shell commands to use as filters to perform conversion.
5816
5817*** The new function access-file tries to open a file, and signals an
5818error if that fails. If the open succeeds, access-file does nothing
5819else, and returns nil.
5820
5821*** The function insert-directory now signals an error if the specified
5822directory cannot be listed.
5823
5824** Changes in minibuffer input
5825
5826*** The functions read-buffer, read-variable, read-command, read-string
5827read-file-name, read-from-minibuffer and completing-read now take an
5828additional argument which specifies the default value. If this
5829argument is non-nil, it should be a string; that string is used in two
5830ways:
5831
5832 It is returned if the user enters empty input.
5833 It is available through the history command M-n.
5834
5835*** The functions read-string, read-from-minibuffer,
5836read-no-blanks-input and completing-read now take an additional
5837argument INHERIT-INPUT-METHOD. If this is non-nil, then the
5838minibuffer inherits the current input method and the setting of
5839enable-multibyte-characters from the previously current buffer.
5840
5841In an interactive spec, you can use M instead of s to read an
5842argument in this way.
5843
5844*** All minibuffer input functions discard text properties
5845from the text you enter in the minibuffer, unless the variable
5846minibuffer-allow-text-properties is non-nil.
5847
5848** Echo area features
5849
5850*** Clearing the echo area now runs the normal hook
5851echo-area-clear-hook. Note that the echo area can be used while the
5852minibuffer is active; in that case, the minibuffer is still active
5853after the echo area is cleared.
5854
5855*** The function current-message returns the message currently displayed
5856in the echo area, or nil if there is none.
5857
5858** Keyboard input features
5859
5860*** tty-erase-char is a new variable that reports which character was
5861set up as the terminal's erase character when time Emacs was started.
5862
5863*** num-nonmacro-input-events is the total number of input events
5864received so far from the terminal. It does not count those generated
5865by keyboard macros.
5866
5867** Frame-related changes
5868
5869*** make-frame runs the normal hook before-make-frame-hook just before
5870creating a frame, and just after creating a frame it runs the abnormal
5871hook after-make-frame-functions with the new frame as arg.
5872
5873*** The new hook window-configuration-change-hook is now run every time
5874the window configuration has changed. The frame whose configuration
5875has changed is the selected frame when the hook is run.
5876
5877*** Each frame now independently records the order for recently
5878selected buffers, in its buffer-list frame parameter, so that the
5879value of other-buffer is now based on the buffers recently displayed
5880in the selected frame.
5881
5882*** The value of the frame parameter vertical-scroll-bars
5883is now `left', `right' or nil. A non-nil value specifies
5884which side of the window to put the scroll bars on.
5885
5886** X Windows features
5887
5888*** You can examine X resources for other applications by binding
5889x-resource-class around a call to x-get-resource. The usual value of
5890x-resource-class is "Emacs", which is the correct value for Emacs.
5891
5892*** In menus, checkboxes and radio buttons now actually work.
5893The menu displays the current status of the box or button.
5894
5895*** The function x-list-fonts now takes an optional fourth argument
5896MAXIMUM which sets a limit on how many matching fonts to return.
5897A smaller value of MAXIMUM makes the function faster.
5898
5899If the only question is whether *any* font matches the pattern,
5900it is good to supply 1 for this argument.
5901
5902** Subprocess features
5903
5904*** A reminder: it is no longer necessary for subprocess filter
5905functions and sentinels to do save-match-data, because Emacs does this
5906automatically.
5907
5908*** The new function shell-command-to-string executes a shell command
5909and returns the output from the command as a string.
5910
5911*** The new function process-contact returns t for a child process,
5912and (HOSTNAME SERVICE) for a net connection.
5913
5914** An error in running pre-command-hook or post-command-hook
5915does clear the variable to nil. The documentation was wrong before.
5916
5917** In define-key-after, if AFTER is t, the new binding now always goes
5918at the end of the keymap. If the keymap is a menu, this means it
5919goes after the other menu items.
5920
5921** If you have a program that makes several changes in the same area
5922of the buffer, you can use the macro combine-after-change-calls
5923around that Lisp code to make it faster when after-change hooks
5924are in use.
5925
5926The macro arranges to call the after-change functions just once for a
5927series of several changes--if that seems safe.
5928
5929Don't alter the variables after-change-functions and
5930after-change-function within the body of a combine-after-change-calls
5931form.
5932
5933** If you define an abbrev (with define-abbrev) whose EXPANSION
5934is not a string, then the abbrev does not expand in the usual sense,
5935but its hook is still run.
5936
5937** Normally, the Lisp debugger is not used (even if you have enabled it)
5938for errors that are handled by condition-case.
5939
5940If you set debug-on-signal to a non-nil value, then the debugger is called
5941regardless of whether there is a handler for the condition. This is
5942useful for debugging problems that happen inside of a condition-case.
5943
5944This mode of operation seems to be unreliable in other ways. Errors that
5945are normal and ought to be handled, perhaps in timers or process
5946filters, will instead invoke the debugger. So don't say you weren't
5947warned.
5948
5949** The new variable ring-bell-function lets you specify your own
5950way for Emacs to "ring the bell".
5951
5952** If run-at-time's TIME argument is t, the action is repeated at
5953integral multiples of REPEAT from the epoch; this is useful for
5954functions like display-time.
5955
5956** You can use the function locate-library to find the precise file
5957name of a Lisp library. This isn't new, but wasn't documented before.
5958
5959** Commands for entering view mode have new optional arguments that
5960can be used from Lisp. Low-level entrance to and exit from view mode
5961is done by functions view-mode-enter and view-mode-exit.
5962
5963** batch-byte-compile-file now makes Emacs return a nonzero status code
5964if there is an error in compilation.
5965
5966** pop-to-buffer, switch-to-buffer-other-window and
5967switch-to-buffer-other-frame now accept an additional optional
5968argument NORECORD, much like switch-to-buffer. If it is non-nil,
5969they don't put the buffer at the front of the buffer list.
5970
5971** If your .emacs file leaves the *scratch* buffer non-empty,
5972Emacs does not display the startup message, so as to avoid changing
5973the *scratch* buffer.
5974
5975** The new function regexp-opt returns an efficient regexp to match a string.
5976The arguments are STRINGS and (optionally) PAREN. This function can be used
5977where regexp matching or searching is intensively used and speed is important,
5978e.g., in Font Lock mode.
5979
5980** The variable buffer-display-count is local to each buffer,
5981and is incremented each time the buffer is displayed in a window.
5982It starts at 0 when the buffer is created.
5983
5984** The new function compose-mail starts composing a mail message
5985using the user's chosen mail composition agent (specified with the
5986variable mail-user-agent). It has variants compose-mail-other-window
5987and compose-mail-other-frame.
5988
5989** The `user-full-name' function now takes an optional parameter which
5990can either be a number (the UID) or a string (the login name). The
5991full name of the specified user will be returned.
5992
5993** Lisp packages that load files of customizations, or any other sort
5994of user profile, should obey the variable init-file-user in deciding
5995where to find it. They should load the profile of the user name found
5996in that variable. If init-file-user is nil, meaning that the -q
5997option was used, then Lisp packages should not load the customization
5998files at all.
5999
6000** format-time-string now allows you to specify the field width
6001and type of padding. This works as in printf: you write the field
6002width as digits in the middle of a %-construct. If you start
6003the field width with 0, it means to pad with zeros.
6004
6005For example, %S normally specifies the number of seconds since the
6006minute; %03S means to pad this with zeros to 3 positions, %_3S to pad
6007with spaces to 3 positions. Plain %3S pads with zeros, because that
6008is how %S normally pads to two positions.
6009
6010** thing-at-point now supports a new kind of "thing": url.
6011
6012** imenu.el changes.
6013
6014You can now specify a function to be run when selecting an
6015item from menu created by imenu.
6016
6017An example of using this feature: if we define imenu items for the
6018#include directives in a C file, we can open the included file when we
6019select one of those items.
6020\f
6021* Emacs 19.34 is a bug-fix release with no user-visible changes.
6022\f
6023* Changes in Emacs 19.33.
6024
6025** Bibtex mode no longer turns on Auto Fill automatically. (No major
6026mode should do that--it is the user's choice.)
6027
6028** The variable normal-auto-fill-function specifies the function to
6029use for auto-fill-function, if and when Auto Fill is turned on.
6030Major modes can set this locally to alter how Auto Fill works.
6031\f
6032* Editing Changes in Emacs 19.32
6033
6034** C-x f with no argument now signals an error.
6035To set the fill column at the current column, use C-u C-x f.
6036
6037** Expanding dynamic abbrevs with M-/ is now smarter about case
6038conversion. If you type the abbreviation with mixed case, and it
6039matches the beginning of the expansion including case, then the
6040expansion is copied verbatim. Using SPC M-/ to copy an additional
6041word always copies it verbatim except when the previous copied word is
6042all caps.
6043
6044** On a non-windowing terminal, which can display only one Emacs frame
6045at a time, creating a new frame with C-x 5 2 also selects that frame.
6046
6047When using a display that can show multiple frames at once, C-x 5 2
6048does make the frame visible, but does not select it. This is the same
6049as in previous Emacs versions.
6050
6051** You can use C-x 5 2 to create multiple frames on MSDOS, just as on a
6052non-X terminal on Unix. Of course, only one frame is visible at any
6053time, since your terminal doesn't have the ability to display multiple
6054frames.
6055
6056** On Windows, set win32-pass-alt-to-system to a non-nil value
6057if you would like tapping the Alt key to invoke the Windows menu.
6058This feature is not enabled by default; since the Alt key is also the
6059Meta key, it is too easy and painful to activate this feature by
6060accident.
6061
6062** The command apply-macro-to-region-lines repeats the last defined
6063keyboard macro once for each complete line within the current region.
6064It does this line by line, by moving point to the beginning of that
6065line and then executing the macro.
6066
6067This command is not new, but was never documented before.
6068
6069** You can now use Mouse-1 to place the region around a string constant
6070(something surrounded by doublequote characters or other delimiter
6071characters of like syntax) by double-clicking on one of the delimiting
6072characters.
6073
6074** Font Lock mode
6075
6076*** Font Lock support modes
6077
6078Font Lock can be configured to use Fast Lock mode and Lazy Lock mode (see
6079below) in a flexible way. Rather than adding the appropriate function to the
6080hook font-lock-mode-hook, you can use the new variable font-lock-support-mode
6081to control which modes have Fast Lock mode or Lazy Lock mode turned on when
6082Font Lock mode is enabled.
6083
6084For example, to use Fast Lock mode when Font Lock mode is turned on, put:
6085
6086 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'fast-lock-mode)
6087
6088in your ~/.emacs.
6089
6090*** lazy-lock
6091
6092The lazy-lock package speeds up Font Lock mode by making fontification occur
6093only when necessary, such as when a previously unfontified part of the buffer
6094becomes visible in a window. When you create a buffer with Font Lock mode and
6095Lazy Lock mode turned on, the buffer is not fontified. When certain events
6096occur (such as scrolling), Lazy Lock makes sure that the visible parts of the
6097buffer are fontified. Lazy Lock also defers on-the-fly fontification until
6098Emacs has been idle for a given amount of time.
6099
6100To use this package, put in your ~/.emacs:
6101
6102 (setq font-lock-support-mode 'lazy-lock-mode)
6103
6104To control the package behaviour, see the documentation for `lazy-lock-mode'.
6105
6106** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6107
6108*** For all entries allow spaces and tabs between opening brace or
6109paren and key.
6110
6111*** Non-escaped double-quoted characters (as in `Sch"of') are now
6112supported.
6113
6114** Gnus changes.
6115
6116Gnus, the Emacs news reader, has undergone further rewriting. Many new
6117commands and variables have been added. There should be no
6118significant incompatibilities between this Gnus version and the
6119previously released version, except in the message composition area.
6120
6121Below is a list of the more user-visible changes. Coding changes
6122between Gnus 5.1 and 5.2 are more extensive.
6123
6124*** A new message composition mode is used. All old customization
6125variables for mail-mode, rnews-reply-mode and gnus-msg are now
6126obsolete.
6127
6128*** Gnus is now able to generate "sparse" threads -- threads where
6129missing articles are represented by empty nodes.
6130
6131 (setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
6132
6133*** Outgoing articles are stored on a special archive server.
6134
6135 To disable this: (setq gnus-message-archive-group nil)
6136
6137*** Partial thread regeneration now happens when articles are
6138referred.
6139
6140*** Gnus can make use of GroupLens predictions:
6141
6142 (setq gnus-use-grouplens t)
6143
6144*** A trn-line tree buffer can be displayed.
6145
6146 (setq gnus-use-trees t)
6147
6148*** An nn-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
6149buffers.
6150
6151 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
6152
6153*** In binary groups you can use a special binary minor mode:
6154
6155 `M-x gnus-binary-mode'
6156
6157*** Groups can be grouped in a folding topic hierarchy.
6158
6159 (add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
6160
6161*** Gnus can re-send and bounce mail.
6162
6163 Use the `S D r' and `S D b'.
6164
6165*** Groups can now have a score, and bubbling based on entry frequency
6166is possible.
6167
6168 (add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
6169
6170*** Groups can be process-marked, and commands can be performed on
6171groups of groups.
6172
6173*** Caching is possible in virtual groups.
6174
6175*** nndoc now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews news
6176batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything else.
6177
6178*** Gnus has a new backend (nnsoup) to create/read SOUP packets.
6179
6180*** The Gnus cache is much faster.
6181
6182*** Groups can be sorted according to many criteria.
6183
6184 For instance: (setq gnus-group-sort-function 'gnus-group-sort-by-rank)
6185
6186*** New group parameters have been introduced to set list-address and
6187expiration times.
6188
6189*** All formatting specs allow specifying faces to be used.
6190
6191*** There are several more commands for setting/removing/acting on
6192process marked articles on the `M P' submap.
6193
6194*** The summary buffer can be limited to show parts of the available
6195articles based on a wide range of criteria. These commands have been
6196bound to keys on the `/' submap.
6197
6198*** Articles can be made persistent -- as an alternative to saving
6199articles with the `*' command.
6200
6201*** All functions for hiding article elements are now toggles.
6202
6203*** Article headers can be buttonized.
6204
6205 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
6206
6207*** All mail backends support fetching articles by Message-ID.
6208
6209*** Duplicate mail can now be treated properly. See the
6210`nnmail-treat-duplicates' variable.
6211
6212*** All summary mode commands are available directly from the article
6213buffer.
6214
6215*** Frames can be part of `gnus-buffer-configuration'.
6216
6217*** Mail can be re-scanned by a daemonic process.
6218
6219*** Gnus can make use of NoCeM files to filter spam.
6220
6221 (setq gnus-use-nocem t)
6222
6223*** Groups can be made permanently visible.
6224
6225 (setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
6226
6227*** Many new hooks have been introduced to make customizing easier.
6228
6229*** Gnus respects the Mail-Copies-To header.
6230
6231*** Threads can be gathered by looking at the References header.
6232
6233 (setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
6234 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
6235
6236*** Read articles can be stored in a special backlog buffer to avoid
6237refetching.
6238
6239 (setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
6240
6241*** A clean copy of the current article is always stored in a separate
6242buffer to allow easier treatment.
6243
6244*** Gnus can suggest where to save articles. See `gnus-split-methods'.
6245
6246*** Gnus doesn't have to do as much prompting when saving.
6247
6248 (setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
6249
6250*** gnus-uu can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
6251articles.
6252
6253 (setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
6254
6255*** Filling in the article buffer now works properly on cited text.
6256
6257*** Hiding cited text adds buttons to toggle hiding, and how much
6258cited text to hide is now customizable.
6259
6260 (setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
6261
6262*** Boring headers can be hidden.
6263
6264 (add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers)
6265
6266*** Default scoring values can now be set from the menu bar.
6267
6268*** Further syntax checking of outgoing articles have been added.
6269
6270The Gnus manual has been expanded. It explains all these new features
6271in greater detail.
6272\f
6273* Lisp Changes in Emacs 19.32
6274
6275** The function set-visited-file-name now accepts an optional
6276second argument NO-QUERY. If it is non-nil, then the user is not
6277asked for confirmation in the case where the specified file already
6278exists.
6279
6280** The variable print-length applies to printing vectors and bitvectors,
6281as well as lists.
6282
6283** The new function keymap-parent returns the parent keymap
6284of a given keymap.
6285
6286** The new function set-keymap-parent specifies a new parent for a
6287given keymap. The arguments are KEYMAP and PARENT. PARENT must be a
6288keymap or nil.
6289
6290** Sometimes menu keymaps use a command name, a symbol, which is really
6291an automatically generated alias for some other command, the "real"
6292name. In such a case, you should give that alias symbol a non-nil
6293menu-alias property. That property tells the menu system to look for
6294equivalent keys for the real name instead of equivalent keys for the
6295alias.
6296\f
6297* Editing Changes in Emacs 19.31
6298
6299** Freedom of the press restricted in the United States.
6300
6301Emacs has been censored in accord with the Communications Decency Act.
6302This includes removing some features of the doctor program. That law
6303was described by its supporters as a ban on pornography, but it bans
6304far more than that. The Emacs distribution has never contained any
6305pornography, but parts of it were nonetheless prohibited.
6306
6307For information on US government censorship of the Internet, and what
6308you can do to bring back freedom of the press, see the web site
6309`http://www.vtw.org/'.
6310
6311** A note about C mode indentation customization.
6312
6313The old (Emacs 19.29) ways of specifying a C indentation style
6314do not normally work in the new implementation of C mode.
6315It has its own methods of customizing indentation, which are
6316much more powerful than the old C mode. See the Editing Programs
6317chapter of the manual for details.
6318
6319However, you can load the library cc-compat to make the old
6320customization variables take effect.
6321
6322** Marking with the mouse.
6323
6324When you mark a region with the mouse, the region now remains
6325highlighted until the next input event, regardless of whether you are
6326using M-x transient-mark-mode.
6327
6328** Improved Windows NT/95 support.
6329
6330*** Emacs now supports scroll bars on Windows NT and Windows 95.
6331
6332*** Emacs now supports subprocesses on Windows 95. (Subprocesses used
6333to work on NT only and not on 95.)
6334
6335*** There are difficulties with subprocesses, though, due to problems
6336in Windows, beyond the control of Emacs. They work fine as long as
6337you run Windows applications. The problems arise when you run a DOS
6338application in a subprocesses. Since current shells run as DOS
6339applications, these problems are significant.
6340
6341If you run a DOS application in a subprocess, then the application is
6342likely to busy-wait, which means that your machine will be 100% busy.
6343However, if you don't mind the temporary heavy load, the subprocess
6344will work OK as long as you tell it to terminate before you start any
6345other DOS application as a subprocess.
6346
6347Emacs is unable to terminate or interrupt a DOS subprocess.
6348You have to do this by providing input directly to the subprocess.
6349
6350If you run two DOS applications at the same time in two separate
6351subprocesses, even if one of them is asynchronous, you will probably
6352have to reboot your machine--until then, it will remain 100% busy.
6353Windows simply does not cope when one Windows process tries to run two
6354separate DOS subprocesses. Typing CTL-ALT-DEL and then choosing
6355Shutdown seems to work although it may take a few minutes.
6356
6357** M-x resize-minibuffer-mode.
6358
6359This command, not previously mentioned in NEWS, toggles a mode in
6360which the minibuffer window expands to show as many lines as the
6361minibuffer contains.
6362
6363** `title' frame parameter and resource.
6364
6365The `title' X resource now specifies just the frame title, nothing else.
6366It does not affect the name used for looking up other X resources.
6367It works by setting the new `title' frame parameter, which likewise
6368affects just the displayed title of the frame.
6369
6370The `name' parameter continues to do what it used to do:
6371it specifies the frame name for looking up X resources,
6372and also serves as the default for the displayed title
6373when the `title' parameter is unspecified or nil.
6374
6375** Emacs now uses the X toolkit by default, if you have a new
6376enough version of X installed (X11R5 or newer).
6377
6378** When you compile Emacs with the Motif widget set, Motif handles the
6379F10 key by activating the menu bar. To avoid confusion, the usual
6380Emacs binding of F10 is replaced with a no-op when using Motif.
6381
6382If you want to be able to use F10 in Emacs, you can rebind the Motif
6383menubar to some other key which you don't use. To do so, add
6384something like this to your X resources file. This example rebinds
6385the Motif menu bar activation key to S-F12:
6386
6387 Emacs*defaultVirtualBindings: osfMenuBar : Shift<Key>F12
6388
6389** In overwrite mode, DEL now inserts spaces in most cases
6390to replace the characters it "deletes".
6391
6392** The Rmail summary now shows the number of lines in each message.
6393
6394** Rmail has a new command M-x unforward-rmail-message, which extracts
6395a forwarded message from the message that forwarded it. To use it,
6396select a message which contains a forwarded message and then type the command.
6397It inserts the forwarded message as a separate Rmail message
6398immediately after the selected one.
6399
6400This command also undoes the textual modifications that are standardly
6401made, as part of forwarding, by Rmail and other mail reader programs.
6402
6403** Turning off saving of .saves-... files in your home directory.
6404
6405Each Emacs session writes a file named .saves-... in your home
6406directory to record which files M-x recover-session should recover.
6407If you exit Emacs normally with C-x C-c, it deletes that file. If
6408Emacs or the operating system crashes, the file remains for M-x
6409recover-session.
6410
6411You can turn off the writing of these files by setting
6412auto-save-list-file-name to nil. If you do this, M-x recover-session
6413will not work.
6414
6415Some previous Emacs versions failed to delete these files even on
6416normal exit. This is fixed now. If you are thinking of turning off
6417this feature because of past experiences with versions that had this
6418bug, it would make sense to check whether you still want to do so
6419now that the bug is fixed.
6420
6421** Changes to Version Control (VC)
6422
6423There is a new variable, vc-follow-symlinks. It indicates what to do
6424when you visit a link to a file that is under version control.
6425Editing the file through the link bypasses the version control system,
6426which is dangerous and probably not what you want.
6427
6428If this variable is t, VC follows the link and visits the real file,
6429telling you about it in the echo area. If it is `ask' (the default),
6430VC asks for confirmation whether it should follow the link. If nil,
6431the link is visited and a warning displayed.
6432
6433** iso-acc.el now lets you specify a choice of language.
6434Languages include "latin-1" (the default) and "latin-2" (which
6435is designed for entering ISO Latin-2 characters).
6436
6437There are also choices for specific human languages such as French and
6438Portuguese. These are subsets of Latin-1, which differ in that they
6439enable only the accent characters needed for particular language.
6440The other accent characters, not needed for the chosen language,
6441remain normal.
6442
6443** Posting articles and sending mail now has M-TAB completion on various
6444header fields (Newsgroups, To, CC, ...).
6445
6446Completion in the Newsgroups header depends on the list of groups
6447known to your news reader. Completion in the Followup-To header
6448offers those groups which are in the Newsgroups header, since
6449Followup-To usually just holds one of those.
6450
6451Completion in fields that hold mail addresses works based on the list
6452of local users plus your aliases. Additionally, if your site provides
6453a mail directory or a specific host to use for any unrecognized user
6454name, you can arrange to query that host for completion also. (See the
6455documentation of variables `mail-directory-process' and
6456`mail-directory-stream'.)
6457
6458** A greatly extended sgml-mode offers new features such as (to be configured)
6459skeletons with completing read for tags and attributes, typing named
6460characters including optionally all 8bit characters, making tags invisible
6461with optional alternate display text, skipping and deleting tag(pair)s.
6462
6463Note: since Emacs' syntax feature cannot limit the special meaning of ', " and
6464- to inside <>, for some texts the result, especially of font locking, may be
6465wrong (see `sgml-specials' if you get wrong results).
6466
6467The derived html-mode configures this with tags and attributes more or
6468less HTML3ish. It also offers optional quick keys like C-c 1 for
6469headline or C-c u for unordered list (see `html-quick-keys'). Edit /
6470Text Properties / Face or M-g combinations create tags as applicable.
6471Outline minor mode is supported and level 1 font-locking tries to
6472fontify tag contents (which only works when they fit on one line, due
6473to a limitation in font-lock).
6474
6475External viewing via browse-url can occur automatically upon saving.
6476
6477** M-x imenu-add-to-menubar now adds to the menu bar for the current
6478buffer only. If you want to put an Imenu item in the menu bar for all
6479buffers that use a particular major mode, use the mode hook, as in
6480this example:
6481
6482 (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
6483 '(lambda () (imenu-add-to-menubar "Index")))
6484
6485** Changes in BibTeX mode.
6486
6487*** Field names may now contain digits, hyphens, and underscores.
6488
6489*** Font Lock mode is now supported.
6490
6491*** bibtex-make-optional-field is no longer interactive.
6492
6493*** If bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is non-nil, inserting new
6494entries is now done with a faster algorithm. However, inserting
6495will fail in this case if the buffer contains invalid entries or
6496isn't in sorted order, so you should finish each entry with C-c C-c
6497(bibtex-close-entry) after you have inserted or modified it.
6498The default value of bibtex-maintain-sorted-entries is nil.
6499
6500*** Function `show-all' is no longer bound to a key, since C-u C-c C-q
6501does the same job.
6502
6503*** Entries with quotes inside quote-delimited fields (as `author =
6504"Stefan Sch{\"o}f"') are now supported.
6505
6506*** Case in field names doesn't matter anymore when searching for help
6507text.
6508
6509** Font Lock mode
6510
6511*** Global Font Lock mode
6512
6513Font Lock mode can be turned on globally, in buffers that support it, by the
6514new command global-font-lock-mode. You can use the new variable
6515font-lock-global-modes to control which modes have Font Lock mode automagically
6516turned on. By default, this variable is set so that Font Lock mode is turned
6517on globally where the buffer mode supports it.
6518
6519For example, to automagically turn on Font Lock mode where supported, put:
6520
6521 (global-font-lock-mode t)
6522
6523in your ~/.emacs.
6524
6525*** Local Refontification
6526
6527In Font Lock mode, editing a line automatically refontifies that line only.
6528However, if your change alters the syntactic context for following lines,
6529those lines remain incorrectly fontified. To refontify them, use the new
6530command M-g M-g (font-lock-fontify-block).
6531
6532In certain major modes, M-g M-g refontifies the entire current function.
6533(The variable font-lock-mark-block-function controls how to find the
6534current function.) In other major modes, M-g M-g refontifies 16 lines
6535above and below point.
6536
6537With a prefix argument N, M-g M-g refontifies N lines above and below point.
6538
6539** Follow mode
6540
6541Follow mode is a new minor mode combining windows showing the same
6542buffer into one tall "virtual window". The windows are typically two
6543side-by-side windows. Follow mode makes them scroll together as if
6544they were a unit. To use it, go to a frame with just one window,
6545split it into two side-by-side windows using C-x 3, and then type M-x
6546follow-mode.
6547
6548M-x follow-mode turns off Follow mode if it is already enabled.
6549
6550To display two side-by-side windows and activate Follow mode, use the
6551command M-x follow-delete-other-windows-and-split.
6552
6553** hide-show changes.
6554
6555The hooks hs-hide-hooks and hs-show-hooks have been renamed
6556to hs-hide-hook and hs-show-hook, to follow the convention for
6557normal hooks.
6558
6559** Simula mode now has a menu containing the most important commands.
6560The new command simula-indent-exp is bound to C-M-q.
6561
6562** etags can now handle programs written in Erlang. Files are
6563recognised by the extensions .erl and .hrl. The tagged lines are
6564those that begin a function, record, or macro.
6565
6566** MSDOS Changes
6567
6568*** It is now possible to compile Emacs with the version 2 of DJGPP.
6569Compilation with DJGPP version 1 also still works.
6570
6571*** The documentation of DOS-specific aspects of Emacs was rewritten
6572and expanded; see the ``MS-DOS'' node in the on-line docs.
6573
6574*** Emacs now uses ~ for backup file names, not .bak.
6575
6576*** You can simulate mouse-3 on two-button mice by simultaneously
6577pressing both mouse buttons.
6578
6579*** A number of packages and commands which previously failed or had
6580restricted functionality on MS-DOS, now work. The most important ones
6581are:
6582
6583**** Printing (both with `M-x lpr-buffer' and with `ps-print' package)
6584now works.
6585
6586**** `Ediff' works (in a single-frame mode).
6587
6588**** `M-x display-time' can be used on MS-DOS (due to the new
6589implementation of Emacs timers, see below).
6590
6591**** `Dired' supports Unix-style shell wildcards.
6592
6593**** The `c-macro-expand' command now works as on other platforms.
6594
6595**** `M-x recover-session' works.
6596
6597**** `M-x list-colors-display' displays all the available colors.
6598
6599**** The `TPU-EDT' package works.
6600\f
6601* Lisp changes in Emacs 19.31.
6602
6603** The function using-unix-filesystems on Windows NT and Windows 95
6604tells Emacs to read and write files assuming that they reside on a
6605remote Unix filesystem. No CR/LF translation is done on any files in
6606this case. Invoking using-unix-filesystems with t activates this
6607behavior, and invoking it with any other value deactivates it.
6608
6609** Change in system-type and system-configuration values.
6610
6611The value of system-type on a Linux-based GNU system is now `lignux',
6612not `linux'. This means that some programs which use `system-type'
6613need to be changed. The value of `system-configuration' will also
6614be different.
6615
6616It is generally recommended to use `system-configuration' rather
6617than `system-type'.
6618
6619See the file LINUX-GNU in this directory for more about this.
6620
6621** The functions shell-command and dired-call-process
6622now run file name handlers for default-directory, if it has them.
6623
6624** Undoing the deletion of text now restores the positions of markers
6625that pointed into or next to the deleted text.
6626
6627** Timers created with run-at-time now work internally to Emacs, and
6628no longer use a separate process. Therefore, they now work more
6629reliably and can be used for shorter time delays.
6630
6631The new function run-with-timer is a convenient way to set up a timer
6632to run a specified amount of time after the present. A call looks
6633like this:
6634
6635 (run-with-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6636
6637SECS says how many seconds should elapse before the timer happens.
6638It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the timer
6639becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments ARGS.
6640
6641REPEAT gives the interval for repeating the timer (measured in
6642seconds). It may be an integer or a floating point number. nil or 0
6643means don't repeat at all--call FUNCTION just once.
6644
6645*** with-timeout provides an easy way to do something but give
6646up if too much time passes.
6647
6648 (with-timeout (SECONDS TIMEOUT-FORMS...) BODY...)
6649
6650This executes BODY, but gives up after SECONDS seconds.
6651If it gives up, it runs the TIMEOUT-FORMS and returns the value
6652of the last one of them. Normally it returns the value of the last
6653form in BODY.
6654
6655*** You can now arrange to call a function whenever Emacs is idle for
6656a certain length of time. To do this, call run-with-idle-timer. A
6657call looks like this:
6658
6659 (run-with-idle-timer SECS REPEAT FUNCTION ARGS...)
6660
6661SECS says how many seconds of idleness should elapse before the timer
6662runs. It may be an integer or a floating point number. When the
6663timer becomes ripe, the action is to call FUNCTION with arguments
6664ARGS.
6665
6666Emacs becomes idle whenever it finishes executing a keyboard or mouse
6667command. It remains idle until it receives another keyboard or mouse
6668command.
6669
6670REPEAT, if non-nil, means this timer should be activated again each
6671time Emacs becomes idle and remains idle for SECS seconds The timer
6672does not repeat if Emacs *remains* idle; it runs at most once after
6673each time Emacs becomes idle.
6674
6675If REPEAT is nil, the timer runs just once, the first time Emacs is
6676idle for SECS seconds.
6677
6678*** post-command-idle-hook is now obsolete; you shouldn't use it at
6679all, because it interferes with the idle timer mechanism. If your
6680programs use post-command-idle-hook, convert them to use idle timers
6681instead.
6682
6683*** y-or-n-p-with-timeout lets you ask a question but give up if
6684there is no answer within a certain time.
6685
6686 (y-or-n-p-with-timeout PROMPT SECONDS DEFAULT-VALUE)
6687
6688asks the question PROMPT (just like y-or-n-p). If the user answers
6689within SECONDS seconds, it returns the answer that the user gave.
6690Otherwise it gives up after SECONDS seconds, and returns DEFAULT-VALUE.
6691
6692** Minor change to `encode-time': you can now pass more than seven
6693arguments. If you do that, the first six arguments have the usual
6694meaning, the last argument is interpreted as the time zone, and the
6695arguments in between are ignored.
6696
6697This means that it works to use the list returned by `decode-time' as
6698the list of arguments for `encode-time'.
6699
6700** The default value of load-path now includes the directory
6701/usr/local/share/emacs/VERSION/site-lisp In addition to
6702/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp. You can use this new directory for
6703site-specific Lisp packages that belong with a particular Emacs
6704version.
6705
6706It is not unusual for a Lisp package that works well in one Emacs
6707version to cause trouble in another. Sometimes packages need updating
6708for incompatible changes; sometimes they look at internal data that
6709has changed; sometimes the package has been installed in Emacs itself
6710and the installed version should be used. Whatever the reason for the
6711problem, this new feature makes it easier to solve.
6712
6713** When your program contains a fixed file name (like .completions or
6714.abbrev.defs), the file name usually needs to be different on operating
6715systems with limited file name syntax.
6716
6717Now you can avoid ad-hoc conditionals by using the function
6718convert-standard-filename to convert the file name to a proper form
6719for each operating system. Here is an example of use, from the file
6720completions.el:
6721
6722(defvar save-completions-file-name
6723 (convert-standard-filename "~/.completions")
6724 "*The filename to save completions to.")
6725
6726This sets the variable save-completions-file-name to a value that
6727depends on the operating system, because the definition of
6728convert-standard-filename depends on the operating system. On
6729Unix-like systems, it returns the specified file name unchanged. On
6730MS-DOS, it adapts the name to fit the limitations of that system.
6731
6732** The interactive spec N now returns the numeric prefix argument
6733rather than the raw prefix argument. (It still reads a number using the
6734minibuffer if there is no prefix argument at all.)
6735
6736** When a process is deleted, this no longer disconnects the process
6737marker from its buffer position.
6738
6739** The variable garbage-collection-messages now controls whether
6740Emacs displays a message at the beginning and end of garbage collection.
6741The default is nil, meaning there are no messages.
6742
6743** The variable debug-ignored-errors specifies certain kinds of errors
6744that should not enter the debugger. Its value is a list of error
6745condition symbols and/or regular expressions. If the error has any
6746of the condition symbols listed, or if any of the regular expressions
6747matches the error message, then that error does not enter the debugger,
6748regardless of the value of debug-on-error.
6749
6750This variable is initialized to match certain common but uninteresting
6751errors that happen often during editing.
6752
6753** The new function error-message-string converts an error datum
6754into its error message. The error datum is what condition-case
6755puts into the variable, to describe the error that happened.
6756
6757** Anything that changes which buffer appears in a given window
6758now runs the window-scroll-functions for that window.
6759
6760** The new function get-buffer-window-list returns a list of windows displaying
6761a buffer. The function is called with the buffer (a buffer object or a buffer
6762name) and two optional arguments specifying the minibuffer windows and frames
6763to search. Therefore this function takes optional args like next-window etc.,
6764and not get-buffer-window.
6765
6766** buffer-substring now runs the hook buffer-access-fontify-functions,
6767calling each function with two arguments--the range of the buffer
6768being accessed. buffer-substring-no-properties does not call them.
6769
6770If you use this feature, you should set the variable
6771buffer-access-fontified-property to a non-nil symbol, which is a
6772property name. Then, if all the characters in the buffer range have a
6773non-nil value for that property, the buffer-access-fontify-functions
6774are not called. When called, these functions should put a non-nil
6775property on the text that they fontify, so that they won't get called
6776over and over for the same text.
6777
6778** Changes in lisp-mnt.el
6779
6780*** The lisp-mnt package can now recognize file headers that are written
6781in the formats used by the `what' command and the RCS `ident' command:
6782
6783;; @(#) HEADER: text
6784;; $HEADER: text $
6785
6786in addition to the normal
6787
6788;; HEADER: text
6789
6790*** The commands lm-verify and lm-synopsis are now interactive. lm-verify
6791checks that the library file has proper sections and headers, and
6792lm-synopsis extracts first line "synopsis'"information.
6793\f
6794* For older news, see the file ONEWS.
6795
6796----------------------------------------------------------------------
6797Copyright information:
6798
6799Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
6800
6801 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
6802 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
6803 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
6804 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
6805
6806 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
6807 of this document, or of portions of it,
6808 under the above conditions, provided also that they
6809 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
6810\f
6811Local variables:
6812mode: outline
6813paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
6814end: