etc/NEWS

   1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
   2
   3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   5
   6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
   7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
   8
   9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
  10
  11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
  12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
  13
  14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
  15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
  16
  17
  18 Temporary note:
  19  +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
  20  --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
  21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
  22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
  23
  24 \f
  25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
  26
  27 ---
  28 ** There are new configure options:
  29 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
  30 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
  31 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
  32
  33 ---
  34 ** There is a new configure option --with-crt-dir.
  35 This is only useful if your crt*.o files are in a non-standard location.
  36
  37 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
  38 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
  39
  40 \f
  41 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
  42
  43 \f
  44 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
  45
  46 ** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID can be used to open a
  47 client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed.  This works like the
  48 --parent-id argument to Emacs.
  49
  50 ** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
  51
  52 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
  53
  54 +++
  55 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
  56
  57 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
  58 initial documentation.
  59
  60 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
  61 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value.  The default is nil.
  62
  63 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
  64 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
  65 according to the value of this variable.  Possible values are
  66 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'.  If the value is nil (the
  67 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
  68 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
  69
  70 The function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction' returns the actual
  71 value of paragraph base direction at point.
  72
  73 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
  74 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
  75 Algorithm.
  76
  77 Note that some advanced display features, such as overlay strings and
  78 `display' text properties, do not yet work correctly when
  79 bidirectional text is reordered for display.
  80
  81 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
  82 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
  83
  84 ** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
  85 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style.  On a Gnome desktop, the default
  86 is taken from the desktop settings.
  87
  88 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
  89 with Xft.
  90
  91 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
  92 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
  93
  94 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
  95 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
  96 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
  97 context in their return values.
  98
  99 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
 100 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
 101
 102 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
 103 for remote machines which support SELinux.
 104
 105 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
 106 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
 107 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer)
 108 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
 109
 110 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
 111 scroll a line instead of full screen.
 112
 113 ** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
 114 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position.
 115
 116 ** Trash changes
 117
 118 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
 119 trashing.  This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
 120
 121 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
 122 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
 123
 124 \f
 125 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
 126
 127 ** completion-at-point is now an alias for complete-symbol.
 128
 129 ** mouse-region-delete-keys has been deleted.
 130 \f
 131 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
 132
 133 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse 7z archives.
 134
 135 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
 136 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
 137
 138 ** partial-completion-mode is now obsolete.
 139 You can get a comparable behavior with:
 140 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
 141 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
 142
 143 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
 144 ** Customize
 145
 146 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
 147 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
 148 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
 149
 150 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
 151 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
 152
 153 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
 154
 155 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
 156 choose a color via list-colors-display.
 157
 158 ** Dired-x
 159
 160 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
 161 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
 162
 163 ** VC and related modes
 164
 165 *** New VC commands: vc-log-incoming, vc-log-outgoing, vc-find-conflicted-file.
 166
 167 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
 168
 169 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
 170 The log-edit buffers are expected to have a format similar to email messages
 171 with headers of the form:
 172   Author: <author of this change>
 173   Summary: <one line summary of this change>
 174   Fixes: <reference to the bug fixed by this change>
 175 Some backends handle some of those headers specially, but any unknown header
 176 is just left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
 177
 178 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
 179 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
 180 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers.
 181
 182 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
 183
 184 *** Several variables have been marked as safe local variables.
 185 The variables `sql-product', `sql-user', `sql-server', and
 186 `sql-database' can now be safely used as local variables.
 187
 188 *** Added ability to login with a port on MySQL.
 189 The custom variable `sql-port' can be specified for connection to
 190 MySQL servers.
 191
 192 *** Custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
 193 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params'
 194 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
 195 connection is established.
 196
 197 *** Added option `sql-send-terminator'.
 198 When set makes sure that each command sent with `sql-send-*' commands
 199 are properly terminated and submitted to the SQL processor.
 200
 201 *** Added option `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
 202 When set commands sent to Oracle's SQL*Plus are scanned for strings
 203 starting with an ampersand and the user is asked for replacement
 204 text.  In general, the SQL*Plus option SCAN should be set OFF under
 205 SQL interactive mode.
 206
 207 *** SQL interactive mode will replace tabs with spaces.
 208 This prevents the comand interpretter for MySQL and Postgres from
 209 listing object name completions when being sent text via
 210 `sql-send-*' functions.
 211
 212 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
 213
 214 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
 215 enabled by default in 23.1.
 216
 217 ** gdb-mi
 218
 219 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
 220 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
 221 threads simultaneously.
 222
 223 \f
 224 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
 225
 226 ** smie.el is a package providing a simple generic indentation engine.
 227
 228 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
 229 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet.  The
 230 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication.  The command
 231 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
 232 secrets.
 233
 234 \f
 235 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
 236
 237 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
 238
 239 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
 240    ON unconditionally.
 241 \f
 242 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
 243
 244 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
 245 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
 246 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
 247
 248 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory now accept optional arg TRASH.
 249 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
 250 both non-nil.  Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
 251 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
 252
 253 ** buffer-substring-filters is obsoleted by filter-buffer-substring-functions.
 254
 255 ** New completion style `substring'.
 256
 257 ** Image API
 258
 259 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
 260 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
 261 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
 262 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
 263 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
 264 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
 265
 266 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
 267
 268 ** Isearch
 269
 270 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
 271
 272 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
 273 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
 274 now be nil, or omitted.  This makes a "non-numeric" reporter.  Each
 275 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
 276 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
 277 displayed with a "spinning bar".
 278
 279 \f
 280 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
 281
 282 \f
 283 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 284 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 285
 286 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 287 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 288 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 289 (at your option) any later version.
 290
 291 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 292 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 293 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 294 GNU General Public License for more details.
 295
 296 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 297 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 298
 299 \f
 300 Local variables:
 301 mode: outline
 302 paragraph-separate: "[  \f]*$"
 303 end: