[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS

GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.

Copyright (C) 2010-2011  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
See the end of the file for license conditions.

Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.

This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.

See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.

You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.


Temporary note:
 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
so we will look at it and add it to the manual.

\f
* Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1

** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
You can disable this by using --without-selinux.

---
** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.

---
** There are new configure options:
--with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.

---
** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
to configure.  Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
also depend on Gtk+.  You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
--without-gconf.

** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.

---
** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available.
Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
automatically select it.

\f
* Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1

** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
longer have any effect.  (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)

** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
from load-path.  -Q now implies this.

** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used,
and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.

\f
* Changes in Emacs 24.1

** emacsclient changes

*** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed.  This works like the
--parent-id argument to Emacs.

+++
*** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.

*** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
error, its exit status is 1.

** Completion
*** Many packages have been changed to use completion-at-point rather than
their own completion code.

*** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.

*** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.

*** New completion style `substring'.

*** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
`completing-read-function'.

** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.

** Internationalization changes

+++
*** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.

See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
initial documentation.

To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
`bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value.  The default is nil.

The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
according to the value of this variable.  Possible values are
`right-to-left' and `left-to-right'.  If the value is nil (the
default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.

The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
value of paragraph base direction at point.

Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
Algorithm.

Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
`display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
bidirectional text is reordered for display.

+++
*** Enhanced support for characters that have no glyphs in available fonts.
If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs by
default will display it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
thin 1-pixel space.  In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
them at all.  To change how these characters are displayed, customize
the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.

On character terminals these methods are used for characters that
cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.

*** There are two new input methods for Persian/Farsi: farsi and farsi-translit.

** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.

** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style.  On a Gnome desktop, the default
is taken from the desktop settings.

** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this.  It takes the values
top, left, right or bottom.  The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
for this.

** ImageMagick support.
It is now possible to use the ImageMagick library to load many new
image formats in Emacs.  By default, Emacs links with the ImageMagick
libraries if they are present at build time.  This needs ImageMagick
6.2.8 or newer (versions newer than 6.0.7 _may_ work but have not been
tested).  To disable ImageMagick support, use the configure option
`--without-imagemagick'.

The new function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image file
extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports.  The
function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.

See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.

** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
theme when Emacs is built with GTK.

** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK.  You can turn that
off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.

** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
with Xft.  To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
Emacs.pane.menubar.font:  Courier-12

** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.

** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.

** Basic SELinux support has been added.
This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.

*** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
context in their return values.

*** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
get and set the SELinux context of a file.

*** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
for remote machines which support SELinux.

+++
** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
higher-resolution time stamps.

** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals SIGTERM
and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.

** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.

** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
(bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.

** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
scroll a line instead of full screen.

** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.

+++
** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
`scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.

---
** ``Aggressive'' scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
`scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
margin.

** Trash changes

*** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
trashing.  This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.

*** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.

** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
for `list-colors-display'.

** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
from a package repository at elpa.gnu.org.

*** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
selected for installation.

*** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.

*** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
automatically when Emacs starts up.  To disable this, set
`package-enable-at-startup' to nil.  To change which packages are
loaded, customize `package-load-list'.

** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
their code.  See the ERT info manual for details.

** Custom Themes

*** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.

*** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'.  The default
is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.

*** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically.  By
default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.

** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
the remote file-name cache is used for read access.

+++
** The use of a "mode: minor" specification in a file local variables section
to enable a minor-mode is deprecated.  Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode)".

** The standalone programs lib-src/digest-doc and sorted-doc have been
replaced with Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.

---
** The standalone program `fakemail' has been removed.
If you need it, feedmail.el ought to provide a superset of the functionality.

** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.

** Function `sha1' is now implemented in C for speed.
The elisp implementation sha1.el is removed. Feature sha1 is provided
by default.

\f
* Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1

** Search changes

+++
*** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
isearch-yank-line.

---
*** M-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-pop, instead of
isearch-yank-kill.

+++
*** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.

+++
** There is a new command `count-words-region', which does what you expect.

** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.

** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.

** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
also deletes newlines around point.

** Deletion changes

*** New option `delete-active-region'.
If non-nil, C-d, [delete], and DEL delete the region if it is active
and no prefix argument is given.  If set to `kill', these commands
kill instead.

*** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to C-d and [delete].
This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.

*** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.

*** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.

** Selection changes.

The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
to conform with modern X applications.  In short, most commands for
killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
use the primary selection.

In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.

*** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
*** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
the kill-ring.  The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).

**** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
"ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
point motion, do not alter the primary selection.

*** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.

*** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
*** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.

**** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.

**** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
between applications.

*** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:

**** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
**** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
**** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
**** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
**** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.

*** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.

** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
the lines in the current rectangle.  With an prefix argument, this
prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.

** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
$ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.

\f
* Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1

** comint and modes derived from it use the generic completion code.

** Compilation mode

*** Compilation mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
`compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.

*** `compilation-filter-start' is let-bound to the start of the text
inserted by the compilation filter function, when calling
compilation-filter-hook.

** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.

** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.

** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.

** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.

** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.

** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.

** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.

** browse-url has gotten a new variable that is used for mailto: URLs,
`browse-url-mailto-function', which defaults to `browse-url-mail'.

** `url-queue-retrieve' downloads web pages asynchronously, but allow
controlling the degree of parallelism.

** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers, in certain modes
(eg dired, vc-dir, log-edit).  For example, adding
"(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your .dir-locals.el file,
will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.  Modes should
call `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.

+++
** You can prevent directory local variables from applying to subdirectories.
Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
settings to indicate said section should not be applied to subdirectories.

** ERC changes

*** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
seconds.  The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
after connecting.

*** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.

** Eshell changes

*** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
"eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'.  If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
exists, that is used instead.

** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.

** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
You can get a comparable behavior with:
(setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
(setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)

** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.

** server can listen on a specific port using the server-port option.

** Calendar, Diary, and Appt

+++
*** Diary entries can contain non-printing `comments'.
See the variable `diary-comment-start'.

+++
*** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.

+++
*** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.

---
*** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.

---
*** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed.  Use appt-activate.

---
*** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)

---
*** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries

** Customize

*** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.

*** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.

*** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.

*** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
choose a color via list-colors-display.

** Dired-x

*** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.

+++
*** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.

** SQL Mode enhancements.

*** `sql-dialect' is a synonym for `sql-product'.

*** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL and Postgres.
The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
MySQL or Postgres servers.  By default, the port is not listed in
either login parameter, but will be added to the command line if set
to a non-zero value.

*** Dynamic selection of product in an SQL interactive session.
If you use `sql-product-interactive' to start an SQL interactive
session it uses the current value of `sql-product'.  Preceding the
invocation with C-u will force it to ask for the product before
creating the session.

*** Renaming a SQL interactive buffer when it is created.
Prefixing the SQL interactive commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres',
`sql-mysql', etc.) with C-u will force a new interactive session to be
started and will prompt for the new name.  This will reduce the need
for `sql-rename-buffer' is most common use cases.

*** Command continuation prompts in SQL interactive mode are suppressed.
Multiple line commands in SQL interactive mode, generate command
continuation prompts which needlessly confuse the output.  These
prompts are now filtered out from the output.  This change impacts
multiple line SQL statements entered with C-j between each line,
statements yanked into the buffer and statements sent with
`sql-send-*' functions.

*** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
connection is established.

The lists consist of the following five tokens: `user', `password',
`database', `server', and `port'.  The order in which they appear is
the order in which they are prompted.  The tokens symbols can be
replaced by a sublist starting with the token and followed by a plist
which control the prompting for values.  The tokens `user',
`database', and `server' each can take a property of :default which
specifies the value to be used if no value is entered.  The
`database', `server', and `port' tokens handle the :completion
property which restricts the entry to either one of the values in the
list or to one of the values returned by the function provided as the
property value.  The `database' and `server' tokens also accept the
:file property whose value is a regexp to identify useful file names.

  (user :default DEF)
  (database :default DEF
            :file FILEPAT
            :completion COMPLETE)
  (server :default DEF
          :file FILEPAT
          :completion COMPLETE)

The FILEPAT when :file is specified is a regexp that will match valid
file names (without the directory portion).  Generally these strings
will be of the form ".+\.SUF" where SUF is the desired file suffix.

When :completion is specified, the COMPLETE corresponds to the
PREDICATE argument to the `completing-read' function (a list of
possible values or a function returning such a list).

*** Added `sql-connection-alist' to record login parameter values.
An alist for recording different username, database and server
values.  If there are multiple databases that you connect to the
parameters needed can be stored in this alist.

For example, the following might be set in the user's init.el:

  (setq sql-connection-alist
        '((dev (sql-product 'sqlite)
               (sql-database "/home/mmaug/dev.db"))
          (prd (sql-product 'oracle)
               (sql-user "mmaug")
               (sql-database "iprd2a"))))

This defines two connections named "dev" and "prd".

*** Added `sql-connect' to use predefined connections.
Sets the login parameters based on the values in the
`sql-connection-alist' and start a SQL interactive session.  Any
values specified in the connection will not be prompted for.

In the example above, if the user were to invoke M-x sql-connect, they
would be prompted for the connection.  The user can respond with
either "dev" or "prd".  The "dev" connection would connect to the
SQLite database without prompting; the "prd" connection would prompt
for the users password and then connect to the Oracle database.

**** Added SQL->Start... submenu when connections are defined.
When connections have been defined, there is a submenu available that
allows the user to select one to start a SQLi session.  The "Start
SQLi Session" item moves to the "Start..." submenu when cnnections
have been defined.

**** Added "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
When a SQLi session is not started by a connection then
`sql-save-connection' will gather the login params specified for the
session and save them as a new connection.

*** List database objects and details.
Once a SQL interactive session has been started, you can get a list of
the objects in the database and see details of those objects.  The
objects shown and the details available are product specific.

**** List all objects.
Using `M-x sql-list-all', `C-c C-l a' or selecting "SQL->List all
objects" will list all the objects in the database.  At a minimum it
lists the tables and views in the database.  Preceding the command by
universal argument may provide additional details or extend the
listing to include other schemas objects.  The list will appear in a
separate window in view-mode.

**** List Table details.
Using `M-x sql-list-table', `C-c C-l t' or selecting "SQL->List Table
details" will ask for the name of a database table or view and display
the list of columns in the relation.  Preceding the command with the
universal argument may provide additional details about each column.
The list will appear in a separate window in view-mode.

*** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.

*** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement text.
In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should always be set OFF under
SQL interactive mode and this option used in its place.

*** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
This prevents the command interpreter for MySQL and Postgres from
listing object name completions when being sent text via
`sql-send-*' functions.

*** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.

** sregex.el is now obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.

** s-region.el and pc-select are now declared obsolete,
superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
** pc-mode.el is also declared obsolete.
** gdb-mi

*** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
threads simultaneously.

** D-Bus

*** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
system or session bus.

*** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
names anymore.

The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.

** Tramp

*** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).

*** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
"ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".

*** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
default value to "".

** VC and related modes

*** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
This updates the current branch from upstream.  A prefix argument
means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.

**** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.

**** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.

*** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
This merges another branch into the current one.  This command prompts
the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.

**** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.

*** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.

**** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.

**** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.

*** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.

** Miscellaneous

---
*** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.

*** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.

*** The new command `info-display-manual' will display an Info manual
specified by its name.  If that manual is already visited in some Info
buffer within the current session, the command will display that
buffer.  Otherwise, it will load the manual and display it.  This is
handy if you have many manuals in many Info buffers, and don't
remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual you want to
consult.

\f
* New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1

** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
and electric-layout-mode.

** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
from which other modes can be derived.

** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.

** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet.  The
Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication.  The command
`secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
secrets.

** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
Notifications API.  It requires D-Bus for communication.

** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.

** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.

\f
* Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1

---
** `char-direction-table' and the associated function `char-direction'
were deleted.  They were buggy and inferior to the new support of
bidirectional editing introduced in Emacs 24.  If you need the
bidirectional properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property'
with the last argument `bidi-class'.

** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory.  The
new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.

** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
passes it to the mail user agent function.  This argument specifies an
action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.

** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
area, excluding any header line.  Previously, it counted from the top
of the header line.

** Remove obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).

** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.

** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
programmer-visible consequences.

** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
ON unconditionally.

** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively.  If the alist entries are added,
they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.

** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
similar to the ones created by shift-selection.  In previous Emacs
versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
has now been removed.

** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.

** The following functions and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
have been removed:
comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
make-local-hook

** The following variables and aliases, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1,
have been removed:
checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char,
font-lock-defaults-alist

** The following files, obsolete since at least Emacs 21.1, have been removed:
sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el

** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.

\f
* Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1

** Completion
*** New variable completion-extra-properties used to specify extra properties
of the current completion:
- :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
- :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.

*** Functions on completion-at-point-functions can return any of the properties
valid for completion-extra-properties.

*** completion-annotate-function is obsolete.

** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.

** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
connection, directly or via STARTTLS.  To do STARTTLS, additional
parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
must also be supplied.

** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
The `lexical-binding' variable lets code use lexical scoping for local
variables.  It is typically set via file-local variables, in which case it
applies to all the code in that file.

*** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.

*** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).

*** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.

*** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
declared as dynamically bound.

** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
Instead, the offending function is removed.

** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.

** `server-eval-at' is provided to allow evaluating forms on different
Emacs server instances.

** `call-process' allows a `(:file "file")' spec to redirect STDOUT to
a file.

** byte-compile-disable-print-circle is obsolete.
** deferred-action-list and deferred-action-function are obsolete.
** Removed the stack-trace-on-error variable.
Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
jumping all the way to the top-level.

** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
discarding any inputs not inside the set.

** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
not just image libraries.  The previous name is still available as an
obsolete alias.

** New variable syntax-propertize-function to set syntax-table properties.
Replaces font-lock-syntactic-keywords which are now obsolete.
This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
Together with this new variable come a new hook
syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
syntactic rules.

** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.

+++
** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.

** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
both non-nil.  Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).

** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.

** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
input.

** Tool-bars can display separators.
Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.

** Image API

*** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
`image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.

*** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.

** XML and HTML parsing

*** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
`libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML).  Both return an
Emacs Lisp parse tree.

FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.

** GnuTLS

*** Emacs can be compiled with libgnutls support
This is the default.  You will then be able to use the functionality
in gnutls.el, namely the `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'
functions.  It's easiest to use these functions through
`open-network-stream' because it can upgrade connections through
STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain SSL, depending on your needs.

Only versions 2.8.x and higher or GnuTLS have been tested.

*** gnutls-log-level
Set `gnutls-log-level' higher than 0 to get debug output.  1 is for
important messages, 2 is for debug data, and higher numbers are as per
the GnuTLS logging conventions.  The output is in *Messages*.

** Isearch

*** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.

** Progress reporters can now "spin".
The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
now be nil, or omitted.  This makes a "non-numeric" reporter.  Each
time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
displayed with a "spinning bar".

** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.

** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook' allow
deferring warnings until the main command loop is executed.

+++
** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
as well as those in the -*- line.

\f
* Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems

** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
runtime checks.

** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
included in binary distribution.

** New configure.bat option --without-gnutls to disable automatic
GnuTLS detection.

** New configure.bat option --lib for general library linkage, works
with the USER_LIBS build variable.

** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.

\f
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This file is part of GNU Emacs.

GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

\f
Local variables:
mode: outline
paragraph-separate: "[ 	\f]*$"
end: