Merge changes from emacs-23 branch
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS.23
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007-2011 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 23.
10
11 See files NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18, and NEWS.1-17
12 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17 \f
18 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.3
19
20 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.3
21
22 * Changes in Emacs 23.3
23
24 +++
25 ** The last-resort backup file `%backup%~' is now written to
26 `user-emacs-directory', instead of the user's home directory.
27
28 \f
29 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.3
30
31 \f
32 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.3
33
34 ---
35 ** The appt-add command takes an optional argument for the warning time.
36 This can be used in place of the default appt-message-warning-time.
37
38 ---
39 ** You can allow inferior Python processes to load modules from the
40 current directory by setting `python-remove-cwd-from-path' to nil.
41
42 ** VC and related modes
43
44 *** New VC command `vc-log-incoming', bound to `C-x v I'.
45 This shows a log of changes to be received with a pull operation.
46 For Git, this runs "git fetch" to make the necessary data available
47 locally; this requires version 1.7 or newer.
48
49 *** New VC command `vc-log-outgoing', bound to `C-x v O'.
50 This shows a log of changes to be sent in the next commit.
51
52 *** New VC command vc-find-conflicted-file.
53
54 +++
55 *** The 'g' key in VC diff, log, log-incoming and log-outgoing buffers
56 reruns the corresponding VC command to compute an up to date version
57 of the buffer.
58
59 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
60
61 +++
62 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
63 You can add headers specifying additional information to be supplied
64 to the version control system. For example:
65
66 Author: J. R. Hacker <jrh@example.com>
67 Fixes: 4204
68 Actual text of log entry...
69
70 Bazaar recognizes the headers "Author", "Date" and "Fixes".
71 Git, Mercurial, and Monotone recognize "Author" and "Date".
72 Any unknown header is left as is in the message, so it is not lost.
73
74 ** Rmail
75
76 *** The default value of `rmail-enable-mime' is now t. Rmail decodes
77 MIME contents automatically. You can customize the variable
78 `rmail-enable-mime' back to `nil' to disable this automatic MIME
79 decoding.
80
81 *** The command `rmail-mime' change the displaying of a MIME message
82 between decoded presentation form and raw data if `rmail-enable-mime'
83 is non-nil. And, with prefix argument, it change only the displaying
84 of the MIME entity at point.
85
86 *** The new command `rmail-mime-next-item' (bound to TAB) moves point
87 to the next item of MIME message.
88
89 *** The new command `rmail-mime-previous-item' (bound to backtab) moves
90 point to the previous item of MIME message.
91
92 *** The new command `rmail-mime-toggle-hidden' (RET) hide or show the
93 body of the MIME entity at point.
94
95 ** Obsolete packages
96
97 +++
98 *** lmenu.el and cl-compat.el are now obsolete.
99
100 \f
101 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.3
102
103 ** smie.el is a generic navigation and indentation engine.
104 It takes a simple BNF description of the grammar, and provides both
105 sexp-style navigation (jumping over begin..end pairs) as well as
106 indentation, which can be adjusted via ad-hoc indentation rules.
107
108 \f
109 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.3
110
111 ** posn-col-row now excludes the header line from the row count
112 If the frame has a header line, posn-col-row will count row numbers
113 starting from the first line of text below the header line.
114
115 \f
116 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.3
117
118 +++
119 ** `e' and `pi' are now called `float-e' and `float-pi'.
120 The old names are obsolete.
121
122 +++
123 ** The use of unintern without an obarray arg is now obsolete.
124
125 ---
126 ** The function `princ-list' is now obsolete.
127
128 +++
129 ** The yank-handler argument to kill-region and friends is now obsolete.
130
131 +++
132 ** New function byte-to-string, like char-to-string but for bytes.
133
134 \f
135 * Changes in Emacs 23.3 on non-free operating systems
136
137 +++
138 ** The nextstep port can have different modifiers for the left and right
139 alt/option key by customizing the value for ns-right-alternate-modifier.
140
141 \f
142 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.2
143
144 ** New configure options for Emacs developers.
145 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
146
147 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
148 This might not work on all platforms.
149
150 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
151
152 ** `make install' now consistently ignores umask, creating a
153 world-readable install.
154
155 ** Emacs compiles with Gconf support, if it is detected.
156 Use the configure option --without-gconf to disable this.
157 This is used by the `font-use-system-font' feature (see below).
158
159 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.2
160
161 ** The command-line option -Q (--quick) also inhibits loading X resources.
162 However, if Emacs is compiled with the Lucid or Motif toolkit, X
163 resource settings for the graphical widgets are still applied.
164 On Windows, the -Q option causes Emacs to ignore Registry settings,
165 but environment variables set on the Registry are still honored.
166
167 *** The new variable `inhibit-x-resources' shows whether X resources
168 were loaded.
169
170 ** New command-line option -mm (--maximized) maximizes the initial frame.
171
172 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
173
174 ** The maximum size of buffers (and the largest fixnum) is doubled.
175 On typical 32bit systems, buffers can now be up to 512MB.
176
177 ** The default value of `trash-directory' is now nil.
178 This means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
179 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
180 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
181 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
182
183 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
184 Customize `make-pointer-invisible' to disable this feature.
185
186 ** Font changes
187
188 *** Emacs can use the system default monospaced font in Gnome.
189 To enable this feature, set `font-use-system-font' to non-nil (it is
190 nil by default). If the system default changes, Emacs changes also.
191 This feature requires Gconf support, which is automatically included
192 at compile-time if configure detects the gconf libraries (you can
193 disable this with the configure option --without-gconf).
194
195 *** On X11, Emacs reacts to Xft changes made by configuration tools,
196 via the XSETTINGS mechanism. This includes antialias, hinting,
197 hintstyle, RGBA, DPI and lcdfilter changes.
198
199 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks for confirmation.
200 To remove this query, remove `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from
201 `kill-buffer-query-functions', or set the appropriate process flag
202 with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
203
204 ** File-local variable changes
205
206 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
207 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
208 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
209
210 *** There are new commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
211 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
212 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
213 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
214
215 *** There are new commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
216 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
217 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
218 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
219 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
220 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
221
222 ** Internationalization changes
223
224 *** Unibyte sessions are now considered obsolete.
225 This refers to the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable as well as the
226 --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte command line
227 arguments. Customizing enable-multibyte-characters and setting
228 default-enable-multibyte-characters are also deprecated.
229
230 *** New coding system `utf-8-hfs'.
231 This is suitable for default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X; see
232 international/ucs-normalize.el.
233
234 ** Function arguments in *Help* buffers are now shown in upper-case.
235 Customize `help-downcase-arguments' to t to show them in lower-case.
236
237 ** New command `async-shell-command', bound globally to `M-&'.
238 This executes the command asynchronously, similar to calling `M-!' and
239 manually adding an ampersand to the end of the command. With `M-&',
240 you don't need the ampersand. The output appears in the buffer
241 `*Async Shell Command*'.
242
243 ** When running in a new enough xterm (newer than version 242), Emacs
244 asks xterm what the background color is and it sets up faces
245 accordingly for a dark background if needed (the current default is to
246 consider the background light).
247
248 \f
249 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
250
251 ** Kill-ring and selection changes
252
253 *** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
254 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
255 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
256 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
257
258 *** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, the kill
259 commands save the interprogram-paste selection into the kill ring
260 before doing anything else. This avoids losing the selection.
261
262 *** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical
263 subsequent kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
264
265 ** Completion changes
266
267 *** The new command `completion-at-point' provides mode-sensitive completion.
268
269 *** tab-always-indent set to `complete' lets TAB do completion as well.
270
271 *** The new completion-style `initials' is available.
272 For instance, this can complete M-x lch to list-command-history.
273
274 *** The new variable `completions-format' determines how completions
275 are displayed in the *Completions* buffer. If you set it to
276 `vertical', completions are sorted vertically in columns.
277
278 ** The default value of `blink-matching-paren-distance' is increased.
279
280 ** M-n provides more default values in the minibuffer for commands
281 that read file names. These include the file name at point (when ffap
282 is loaded without ffap-bindings), the file name on the current line
283 (in Dired buffers), and the directory names of adjacent Dired windows
284 (for Dired commands that operate on several directories, such as copy,
285 rename, or diff).
286
287 ** M-r is bound to the new `move-to-window-line-top-bottom'.
288 This moves point to the window center, top and bottom on successive
289 invocations, in the same spirit as the C-l (recenter-top-bottom)
290 command.
291
292 ** The new variable `recenter-positions' determines the default
293 cycling order of C-l (`recenter-top-bottom').
294
295 ** The abbrevs file is now a file named abbrev_defs in
296 user-emacs-directory; but the old location, ~/.abbrev_defs, is used if
297 that file exists.
298
299 \f
300 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
301
302 ** The bookmark menu has a narrowing search via bookmark-bmenu-search.
303
304 ** Calc
305
306 *** The Calc settings file is now a file named calc.el in
307 user-emacs-directory; but the old location, ~/.calc.el, is used if
308 that file exists.
309
310 *** Graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows, if you have
311 the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later installed.
312
313 ** Calendar and diary
314
315 *** Fancy diary display is now the default.
316 If you prefer the simple display, customize `diary-display-function'.
317
318 *** The diary's fancy display now enables view-mode.
319
320 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
321 giving an offset from today.
322
323 ** Desktop
324
325 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
326 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
327 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
328 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
329 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
330 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
331
332 ** Dired
333
334 *** The new variable `dired-auto-revert-buffer', if non-nil, causes
335 Dired buffers to be reverted automatically on revisiting them.
336
337 ** DocView
338
339 *** When `doc-view-continuous' is non-nil, scrolling a line
340 on the page edge advances to the next/previous page.
341
342 ** Elint
343
344 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode.
345
346 *** Elint can now scan individual files and whole directories,
347 and can be run in batch mode.
348
349 *** Elint does a more thorough initialization, and recognizes more built-in
350 functions and variables. Customize `elint-scan-preloaded' if you want
351 to sacrifice some accuracy for a faster startup.
352
353 *** Elint attempts some basic understanding of featurep and (f)boundp tests.
354
355 *** Customize `elint-ignored-warnings' to suppress some warnings.
356
357 ** GDB-UI
358
359 *** Toolbar functionality for reverse debugging. Display of STL
360 collections as watch expressions. These features require GDB 7.0 or later.
361
362 ** Grep
363
364 *** A new command `zrgrep' searches recursively in gzipped files.
365
366 ** Info
367
368 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
369 matched topics found in the index.
370
371 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
372 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
373 through a menu structure.
374
375 ** LaTeX mode now provides completion (via completion-at-point).
376
377 ** Message mode is now the default mode for composing mail.
378
379 The default for `mail-user-agent' is now message-user-agent, so the
380 C-x m (`compose-mail') command uses Message mode instead of Mail mode.
381
382 Message mode has been included in Emacs, as part of the Gnus package,
383 for several years. It provides several features that are absent in
384 Mail mode, such as MIME handling.
385
386 *** If the user has not customized mail-user-agent, `compose-mail'
387 checks for Mail mode customizations, and issues a warning if these
388 customizations are found. This alerts users who may otherwise be
389 unaware that their mail configuration has changed.
390
391 To disable this check, set compose-mail-user-agent-warnings to nil.
392
393 ** The default value of mail-interactive is t, since Emacs 23.1.
394 (This was not announced at the time.) It means that when sending mail,
395 Emacs will wait for the process sending mail to return. If you
396 experience delays when sending mail, you may wish to set this to nil.
397
398 ** nXML mode is now the default for editing XML files.
399
400 ** pcomplete provides a new command `pcomplete-std-completion' which
401 is similar to `pcomplete' but using the standard completion UI code.
402
403 ** Shell (and other comint modes)
404
405 *** M-s is no longer bound to `comint-next-matching-input'.
406
407 *** M-r is now bound to `comint-history-isearch-backward-regexp'.
408 This starts an incremental search of the comint/shell input history.
409
410 *** ansi-color is now enabled by default in Shell mode.
411 To disable it, set ansi-color-for-comint-mode to nil.
412
413 ** Tramp
414
415 *** New connection methods "rsyncc", "imap" and "imaps".
416 On systems which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new
417 connection methods "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
418
419 ** VC and related modes
420
421 *** When using C-x v v or C-x v i on a unregistered file that is in a
422 directory not controlled by any VCS, ask the user what VC backend to
423 use to create a repository, create a new repository and register the
424 file.
425
426 *** New command `vc-root-print-log', bound to `C-x v L'.
427 This displays a `*vc-change-log*' buffer showing the history of the
428 version-controlled directory tree as a whole.
429
430 *** New command `vc-root-diff', bound to `C-x v D'.
431 This is similar to `vc-diff', but compares the entire directory tree
432 of the current VC directory with its working revision.
433
434 *** `C-x v l' and `C-x v L' do not show the full log by default.
435 The number of entries shown can be chosen interactively with a prefix
436 argument, or by customizing vc-log-show-limit. The `*vc-change-log*'
437 buffer now contains buttons at the end of the buffer, which can be
438 used to increase the number of entries shown. RCS, SCCS, and CVS do
439 not support this feature.
440
441 *** vc-annotate supports annotations through file copies and renames,
442 it displays the old names for the files and it can show logs/diffs for
443 the corresponding lines. Currently only Git and Mercurial take
444 advantage of this feature.
445
446 *** The log command in vc-annotate can display a single log entry
447 instead of redisplaying the full log. The RCS, CVS and SCCS VC
448 backends do not support this.
449
450 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
451
452 *** Diff and log operations can be used from Dired buffers.
453
454 *** vc-git changes
455
456 **** The short log format for git makes use of the graph display,
457 so it's not supported on git versions earlier than 1.5.6.
458
459 **** vc-dir uses the --relative option of git, and so requires at least
460 git version 1.5.5.
461
462 **** Support for operating with stashes has been added to vc-dir:
463 the stash list is displayed in the *vc-dir* header, stashes can be
464 created, removed, applied and their content displayed.
465
466 *** vc-bzr supports operating with shelves: the shelve list is
467 displayed in the *vc-dir* header, shelves can be created, removed and applied.
468
469 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
470 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
471
472 ** Miscellaneous
473
474 *** Interactively `multi-isearch-buffers' and `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp'
475 read buffer names to search, one by one, ended with RET. With a prefix
476 argument, they ask for a regexp, and search in buffers whose names match
477 the specified regexp. Interactively `multi-isearch-files' and
478 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' read file names to search, one by one,
479 ended with RET. With a prefix argument, they ask for a wildcard, and
480 search in file buffers whose file names match the specified wildcard.
481
482 *** Autorevert Tail mode now works also for remote files.
483
484 *** The new eshell built-in commands `su' and `sudo' support Tramp.
485 Thus, they change `default-directory' to reflect the new user id, and
486 let commands run under that user's permissions. This works even when
487 `default-directory' is already remote. Calling the external commands
488 is possible via `*su' or `*sudo', respectively.
489
490 ** Obsolete packages
491
492 *** sym-comp.el is now obsolete, superseded by completion-at-point.
493
494 *** lucid.el and levents.el are now obsolete.
495
496 \f
497 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
498
499 ** CEDET (the Collection of Emacs Development Tools) is now in Emacs.
500 This is a collection of packages to aid with using Emacs as an IDE
501 (integrated development environment):
502
503 *** The Semantic package allows the use of parsers to intelligently
504 edit and navigate source code. Parsers for C/C++, Java, Javascript,
505 and several other languages are included by default, and Semantic can
506 also interface with external tools such as GNU Global and GNU Idutils.
507
508 To enable Semantic, use the global minor mode `semantic-mode'.
509 See the Semantic manual for details.
510
511 *** EDE (Emacs Development Environment) is a package for managing code
512 projects, including features such as automatic Makefile generation.
513
514 To enable EDE, use the minor mode `global-ede-mode'.
515 See the EDE manual for details.
516
517 *** SRecode is a library for recoding Semantic tags back into source
518 code. It is currently used by some parts of Semantic and EDE; in the
519 future, it may be used for code generation features.
520
521 *** The EIEIO library implements a subset of the Common Lisp Object
522 System (CLOS). It is used by the other CEDET packages.
523
524 ** mpc.el is a front end for the Music Player Daemon. Run it with M-x mpc.
525
526 ** htmlfontify.el turns a fontified Emacs buffer into an HTML page.
527
528 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
529
530 ** imap-hash.el is a new library to address IMAP mailboxes as hashtables.
531
532 \f
533 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.2
534
535 ** The Lisp reader turns integers that are too large/small into floats.
536 For instance, on machines where `536870911' is the largest integer,
537 reading `536870912' gives the floating-point object `536870912.0'.
538
539 This change only concerns the Lisp reader; it does not affect how
540 actual integer objects overflow.
541
542 ** Several obsolete functions removed.
543 The functions have been obsolete since Emacs 19, and are unlikely to
544 be in use:
545
546 time-stamp-month-dd-yyyy, time-stamp-dd/mm/yyyy, time-stamp-mon-dd-yyyy
547 time-stamp-dd-mon-yy, time-stamp-yy/mm/dd, time-stamp-yyyy/mm/dd,
548 time-stamp-yyyy-mm-dd, time-stamp-yymmdd, time-stamp-hh:mm:ss,
549 time-stamp-hhmm, baud-rate
550
551 ** Support for generating Emacs 18 compatible bytecode (by setting
552 the variable `byte-compile-compatibility') has been removed.
553
554 ** In image-mode.el `image-mode-maybe' is obsolete.
555 Instead, you can either use `image-mode' (which displays an image file
556 as the actual image initially), or `image-mode-as-text' (when you want
557 to display an image file as text initially). `image-mode-as-text' is a
558 combination of a non-image mode from `auto-mode-alist' (or Fundamental
559 mode) and `image-minor-mode'. `image-minor-mode' provides a `C-c C-c'
560 key binding to toggle image display.
561 `image-toggle-display-text' removes image properties.
562 `image-toggle-display-image' adds image properties.
563 `image-toggle-display' toggles between `image-mode-as-text' and `image-mode'.
564
565 \f
566 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
567
568 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
569 variable, are now declared obsolete.
570
571 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
572 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
573
574 ** Frame parameter changes
575
576 *** You can give the `fullscreen' frame parameter the value `maximized'.
577 This maximizes the frame.
578
579 *** The new frame parameter `sticky' makes Emacs frames sticky in
580 virtual desktops.
581
582 ** Completion changes
583
584 *** completion-base-size is obsoleted by completion-base-position.
585 This change causes a few backward incompatibilities, mostly with
586 choose-completion-string-functions where the `mini-p' argument has
587 been replaced by a `base-position' argument, and where the `base-size'
588 argument is now always nil.
589
590 *** New function `completion-in-region' to use the standard completion
591 facilities on a particular region of text.
592
593 *** The 4th arg to all-completions (aka hide-spaces) is declared obsolete.
594
595 *** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
596 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
597
598 ** Minibuffer changes
599
600 *** read-file-name-predicate is obsolete. It was used to pass the predicate
601 to read-file-name-internal because read-file-name-internal abused its `pred'
602 argument to pass the current directory, but this hack is not needed
603 any more.
604
605 ** Changes to file-manipulation functions
606
607 *** `delete-directory' has an optional parameter RECURSIVE.
608
609 *** New function `copy-directory', which copies a directory recursively.
610
611 ** called-interactively-p now takes one argument and replaces interactive-p
612 which is now marked obsolete.
613
614 ** New function set-advertised-calling-convention makes it possible
615 to obsolete arguments as well as make some arguments mandatory.
616
617 ** You can control which binding is preferentially shown in menus and
618 docstrings by adding a `:advertised-binding' property to the corresponding
619 command's symbol. That property can hold a single binding or a list
620 of bindings.
621
622 ** Network and process changes
623
624 *** start-process-shell-command and start-file-process-shell-command
625 now only take a single `command' argument.
626
627 *** The new variable `process-file-side-effects' should be set to nil
628 if a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. This allows
629 file name handlers such as Tramp to optimizations.
630
631 *** make-network-process can now also create `seqpacket' Unix sockets.
632
633 ** Loading changes
634
635 *** eval-next-after-load is obsolete.
636
637 *** New hook `after-load-functions' run after loading an Elisp file.
638
639 ** Byte compilation changes
640
641 *** Changing the file-names generated by byte-compilation by redefining
642 the function `byte-compile-dest-file' before loading bytecomp.el is obsolete.
643 Instead, customize byte-compile-dest-file-function.
644
645 *** `byte-compile-warnings' has new members, `constants' and `suspicious'.
646
647 ** New macro with-silent-modifications to tweak text properties without
648 affecting the buffer's modification state.
649
650 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
651 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
652 functionality.
653
654 ** New functions for performing Unicode normalization:
655 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
656 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
657 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
658 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
659 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
660 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
661
662 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
663 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
664
665 ** New function `window-full-height-p', analogous to the full-width version.
666
667 \f
668 * Changes in Emacs 23.2 on non-free operating systems
669
670 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
671 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
672
673 \f
674 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
675
676 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
677 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
678 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
679
680 ** New font code.
681 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
682 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
683
684 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
685 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
686
687 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
688 where Emacs is running).
689
690 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
691
692 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
693 OpenType fonts.
694
695 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
696
697 ** Changes to image support
698
699 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
700 a GIF library.
701
702 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
703
704 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
705
706 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port.
707 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
708 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
709
710 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
711 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
712 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
713 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
714
715 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
716 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
717
718 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
719 bindings for Emacs.
720
721 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
722 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
723
724 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
725
726 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
727
728 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
729
730 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
731 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
732 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
733
734 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
735
736 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
737 executable format.
738
739 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
740
741 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
742
743 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
744
745 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
746
747 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
748 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
749
750 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
751 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
752 you need control over which C compiler is used.
753
754 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
755
756 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
757 or any later version.
758
759 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
760 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
761 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
762 \f
763 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
764
765 ** Improved X Window System support
766
767 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
768 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
769 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
770 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
771 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
772 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
773 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
774
775 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
776 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
777
778 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
779 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
780 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
781 terminal frames using emacsclient.
782
783 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
784 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
785 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
786 emacs server.
787
788 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
789 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
790
791 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
792 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
793 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
794 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
795 for details about XEmbed.
796
797 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
798 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
799 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
800 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
801 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
802
803 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
804 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
805 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
806 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
807
808 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
809 opacity; the default is 20.
810
811 ** Internationalization changes
812
813 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
814 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
815
816 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
817 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
818 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
819 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
820 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
821
822 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
823 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
824 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
825 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
826 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
827 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
828 shared with older Emacsen.
829
830 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
831
832 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
833 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
834 as tables of unicodes.
835
836 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
837 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
838 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
839
840 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
841 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
842
843 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
844 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
845 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
846
847 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
848 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
849 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
850 and others.
851
852 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
853 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
854 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
855 the mode-line mouse menu.
856
857 ** Menu Bar changes
858
859 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
860 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
861 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
862 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
863 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
864
865 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
866 "Save Options" item is used.
867
868 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
869 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
870 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
871
872 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
873 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
874 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
875 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
876
877 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
878 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
879 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
880
881 ** Mode-line changes
882
883 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
884 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
885
886 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
887 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
888
889 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
890 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
891
892 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
893
894 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
895 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
896
897 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
898 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
899 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
900 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
901
902 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
903 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
904 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
905 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
906
907 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
908 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
909 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
910 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
911
912 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
913
914 \f
915 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
916
917 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
918 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
919 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
920 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
921 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
922
923 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
924 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
925 file or directory.
926
927 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
928 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
929 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
930 following arguments.
931
932 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
933
934 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
935 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
936 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
937 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
938 documented.)
939 \f
940 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
941
942 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
943 on the regexp command prefix map.
944
945 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
946 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
947 the history list.
948
949 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
950 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
951 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
952 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
953 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
954 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
955
956 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
957 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
958 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
959 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
960 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
961 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
962
963 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
964 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
965 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
966
967 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
968 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
969 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
970 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
971 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
972 identical.
973
974 \f
975 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
976
977 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
978 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
979 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
980 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
981 alone).
982
983 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
984 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
985 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
986
987 ** Mark changes
988
989 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
990
991 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
992
993 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
994 activating it.
995
996 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
997 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
998
999 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
1000 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
1001 word at point.
1002
1003 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
1004 region is active.
1005
1006 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
1007 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
1008 that empty region.
1009
1010 ** Temporarily active regions
1011
1012 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
1013 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
1014 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
1015 region, similar to mouse-selection.
1016
1017 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
1018 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
1019 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
1020 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
1021 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
1022 buffer).
1023
1024 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1025
1026 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
1027 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
1028 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
1029 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
1030 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
1031 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
1032 to create the file or buffer.
1033
1034 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
1035 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
1036 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
1037 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
1038
1039 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
1040 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
1041 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
1042 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
1043 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
1044 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
1045 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
1046 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
1047 performing completion.
1048
1049 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
1050 favorite completion style.
1051
1052 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
1053 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
1054 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
1055 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
1056 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
1057 searching minibuffer completion items.
1058
1059 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
1060
1061 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
1062 name of the current buffer.
1063
1064 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
1065 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
1066 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
1067 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
1068 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
1069
1070 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
1071 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
1072 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
1073 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
1074
1075 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
1076 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
1077 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
1078 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
1079 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
1080
1081 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
1082 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
1083 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
1084 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
1085 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
1086 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
1087 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
1088
1089 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
1090 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
1091
1092 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
1093 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
1094
1095 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
1096 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
1097
1098 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
1099 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
1100 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
1101
1102 ** Face changes
1103
1104 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
1105 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
1106 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
1107
1108 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
1109 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
1110 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
1111 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
1112
1113 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
1114 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
1115 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
1116 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
1117
1118 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
1119 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
1120 under New Modes and Packages.
1121
1122 ** Primary selection changes
1123
1124 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
1125 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
1126
1127 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
1128 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
1129 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
1130 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
1131 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
1132 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
1133 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
1134 New Modes and Packages, below.
1135
1136 ** Window management changes
1137
1138 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
1139 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
1140 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
1141
1142 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
1143 vertically and horizontally.
1144
1145 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
1146 is on a different frame.
1147
1148 ** Miscellaneous changes:
1149
1150 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
1151 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
1152 successive invocations.
1153
1154 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
1155
1156 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
1157 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
1158 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
1159
1160 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
1161 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
1162 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
1163
1164 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
1165 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
1166 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
1167 run processes remotely.
1168
1169 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
1170 matches a regexp.
1171
1172 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
1173 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
1174 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
1175
1176 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
1177 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
1178
1179 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
1180 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
1181 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
1182 convenience alias for this function.
1183
1184 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
1185 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
1186 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
1187
1188 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
1189 kill into the password.
1190
1191 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
1192 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
1193
1194 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
1195 \f
1196 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1197
1198 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
1199 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
1200 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
1201
1202 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
1203
1204 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
1205 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
1206 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
1207 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
1208 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
1209 description of face remapping.
1210
1211 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
1212 See http://xkcd.com/378/
1213
1214 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
1215
1216 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
1217 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
1218 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
1219
1220 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
1221 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
1222 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
1223
1224 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
1225
1226 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
1227 the postscript file.
1228
1229 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
1230 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
1231 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
1232 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
1233
1234 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
1235 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
1236
1237 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
1238 current buffer.
1239
1240 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
1241 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
1242 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
1243 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
1244 Maildir/MH setups.
1245
1246 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
1247
1248 ** nXML Mode
1249 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
1250 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
1251 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
1252
1253 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
1254 any invalid parts of your document.
1255
1256 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
1257 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
1258 allowed by the schema in that context.
1259
1260 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
1261 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
1262 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
1263 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
1264 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
1265 MS-Windows and Solaris.
1266
1267 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
1268 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
1269 Manual.
1270
1271 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
1272
1273 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
1274
1275 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
1276 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
1277 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
1278 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
1279 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
1280 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
1281
1282 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
1283 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
1284 requires D-Bus for communication.
1285
1286 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
1287 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
1288 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
1289 which have installed this software.
1290
1291 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
1292 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
1293 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
1294 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
1295 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
1296 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
1297 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
1298 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
1299 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
1300
1301 \f
1302 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1303
1304 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
1305
1306 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
1307 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
1308
1309 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
1310
1311 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
1312 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
1313
1314 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
1315
1316 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
1317
1318 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
1319 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
1320
1321 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
1322 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
1323 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
1324
1325 ** Apropos
1326
1327 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
1328
1329 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
1330
1331 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
1332 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
1333 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
1334
1335 ** BibTeX mode
1336
1337 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
1338
1339 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
1340 `string', disabled by default.
1341
1342 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
1343 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
1344
1345 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
1346
1347 ** Bookmarks
1348
1349 *** bookmark.el saves bookmarks in a pre-Emacs-23-incompatible file format
1350 bookmark.el can read a .emacs.bmk file saved by an older Emacs, but an
1351 older Emacs cannot read one saved by Emacs 23.
1352
1353 ** Calendar and diary
1354
1355 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
1356 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
1357 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
1358 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
1359
1360 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
1361 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
1362 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
1363 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
1364 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
1365 using the new names.
1366
1367 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
1368 See the variables:
1369 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
1370 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
1371
1372 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
1373 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
1374
1375 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
1376 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
1377
1378 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
1379 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
1380
1381 ** Change Log mode
1382
1383 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
1384 associated with the current log entry.
1385
1386 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
1387 source code associated with a log entry.
1388
1389 ** Compile and grep modes
1390
1391 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
1392 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
1393 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
1394
1395 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
1396 the first error encountered during compilations.
1397
1398 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
1399 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
1400
1401 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
1402 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
1403 C++ sources and headers.
1404
1405 ** Copyright
1406
1407 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
1408 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
1409 considered for update.
1410
1411 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
1412 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
1413
1414 ** Custom
1415
1416 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
1417 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
1418
1419 ** Diff mode
1420
1421 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
1422 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
1423 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
1424
1425 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
1426 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
1427 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
1428
1429 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
1430 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
1431
1432 ** Dired
1433
1434 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
1435 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
1436 saving changes.
1437
1438 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
1439 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
1440 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
1441 Command*'.
1442
1443 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
1444 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
1445 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
1446 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
1447 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
1448 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1449 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1450 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1451
1452 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1453 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1454 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1455
1456 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1457 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1458 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1459 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1460 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1461 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1462 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1463
1464 ** Fortran
1465
1466 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1467 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1468
1469 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1470 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1471
1472 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1473
1474 ** Gnus
1475
1476 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1477 There are many new features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1478 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1479
1480 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1481 saving articles, drafts, and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1482 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1483 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1484
1485 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1486 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1487 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1488 authentication respectively.
1489
1490 ** Help mode
1491
1492 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1493 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1494
1495 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1496 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1497
1498 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1499 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1500
1501 ** Isearch
1502
1503 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1504 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1505 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1506 while Isearch is active.
1507
1508 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1509 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1510 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1511 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1512 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1513
1514 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1515 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1516 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1517
1518 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1519 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1520 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1521 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1522 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1523
1524 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1525 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1526 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1527
1528 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1529 `isearch-fail' face.
1530
1531 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1532 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1533 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1534 documentation for Isearch mode. All the other Help commands exit
1535 Isearch mode and execute their global definitions.
1536
1537 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1538 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1539
1540 ** MH-E
1541
1542 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1543
1544 ** Python
1545 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1546 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1547
1548 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1549 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1550 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1551 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1552
1553 ** Recentf
1554
1555 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1556 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1557 corresponding remote host.
1558
1559 ** Rmail
1560
1561 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1562 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1563 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1564
1565 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1566 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1567 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1568 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1569 Rmail usage unaltered.
1570
1571 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1572 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1573 mbox-format file.
1574
1575 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1576 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1577 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1578 instead.
1579
1580 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1581 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1582 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1583 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1584 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1585 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1586 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1587 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1588 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1589 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1590
1591 You may find the following functions useful:
1592
1593 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1594 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1595
1596 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1597 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1598 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1599
1600 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1601 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1602 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1603 to save attachments.
1604
1605 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1606 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1607 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1608 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1609
1610 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1611 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1612 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1613 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1614 copies the full headers of the message.
1615
1616 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1617 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1618
1619 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1620 Previously, this information was hidden.
1621
1622 ** TeX modes
1623
1624 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1625 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1626 by escaped parens.
1627
1628 ** T-mouse Mode
1629
1630 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1631 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1632 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1633 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1634 minibuffer.
1635
1636 ** Tramp
1637
1638 *** New connection methods.
1639 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1640 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1641 "tunnel" and "socks".
1642
1643 *** IPv6 addresses.
1644 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1645 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1646
1647 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1648 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1649 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1650
1651 *** More default settings.
1652 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1653 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1654
1655 *** Connection information is cached.
1656 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1657 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1658 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1659
1660 *** Control of remote processes.
1661 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1662 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1663
1664 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1665 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1666 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1667
1668 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1669 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1670 necessary.
1671
1672 ** VC and related modes
1673
1674 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1675 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1676 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1677 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1678 a single changeset.
1679
1680 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1681 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1682 directory or a set of files/directories.
1683
1684 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1685 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1686 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1687 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1688 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1689 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1690 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1691
1692 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1693
1694 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1695
1696 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1697 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1698
1699 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1700 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1701 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1702 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1703
1704 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1705
1706 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1707 the current line.
1708
1709 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1710 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1711 active.
1712
1713 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1714 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1715 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1716
1717 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1718 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1719 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1720
1721 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1722
1723 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1724
1725 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1726 to update it to the new VC.
1727
1728 ** Miscellaneous
1729
1730 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1731 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1732 on the corresponding remote system.
1733
1734 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1735 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1736
1737 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1738 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1739 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1740
1741 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1742 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1743
1744 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1745 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1746
1747 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1748
1749 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1750 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1751
1752 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1753 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1754
1755 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1756
1757 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1758 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1759
1760 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1761 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1762
1763 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1764
1765 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1766
1767 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1768 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1769 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1770
1771 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1772
1773 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1774 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1775 several time zones.
1776
1777 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1778 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1779 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1780 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1781
1782 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1783 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1784
1785 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1786 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1787
1788 \f
1789 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1790
1791 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1792 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1793 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1794 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1795 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1796
1797 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1798 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1799 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1800 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1801 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1802
1803 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1804 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1805 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1806
1807 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1808 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1809 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1810 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1811 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1812
1813 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1814 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1815 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1816 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1817 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1818
1819 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1820 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1821 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1822 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1823 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1824 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1825
1826 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1827 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1828 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1829 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1830 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1831 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1832 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1833 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1834 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1835
1836 \f
1837 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1838
1839 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1840
1841 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1842 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1843
1844 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1845 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1846 that range have the same value.
1847
1848 ** Process changes
1849
1850 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1851
1852 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1853 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1854 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1855 obsolete.
1856
1857 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1858 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1859 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1860 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1861 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1862 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1863 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1864
1865 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1866 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1867
1868 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1869 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1870
1871 ** Internationalization changes
1872
1873 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1874
1875 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1876 have been removed.
1877
1878 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1879 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1880 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1881
1882 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1883 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1884 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1885
1886 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1887 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1888
1889 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1890 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1891
1892 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1893 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1894
1895 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1896 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1897
1898 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1899 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1900 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1901
1902 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1903 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1904 default fontset.
1905
1906 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1907 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1908 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1909 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1910 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1911 of `kill-buffer'.
1912
1913 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1914 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1915 temporary-file-directory instead.
1916
1917 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1918 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1919 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1920
1921 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1922 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1923 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1924 whitespace after calling it.
1925
1926 \f
1927 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1928
1929 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1930 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1931 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1932 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1933 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1934 respectively.
1935
1936 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1937 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1938 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1939 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1940 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1941
1942 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1943 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1944
1945 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1946 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1947 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1948
1949 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1950 the selected frame.
1951
1952 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1953 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1954 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1955 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1956
1957 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1958
1959 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1960 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1961 strings on the kill ring.
1962
1963 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1964 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1965 like this:
1966
1967 (condition-case nil
1968 (foo bar)
1969 ((debug error) nil))
1970
1971 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1972
1973 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1974 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1975 arguments.)
1976
1977 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1978 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1979 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1980 remote connection has been established already.
1981
1982 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1983 undefined functions.
1984
1985 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1986
1987 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1988 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1989 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1990
1991 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1992 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1993 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1994
1995 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1996 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1997 interactive forms to subroutines.
1998
1999 ** Region changes
2000
2001 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
2002 an active region that they should operate on.
2003
2004 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
2005 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
2006 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
2007 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
2008 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
2009
2010 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
2011 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
2012 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
2013 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
2014 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
2015
2016 ** Emacs session information
2017
2018 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
2019 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
2020
2021 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
2022
2023 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
2024 Emacs initialization.
2025
2026 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
2027
2028 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
2029 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
2030 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
2031 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
2032 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
2033 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
2034 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
2035 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
2036 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
2037 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
2038 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
2039
2040 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
2041 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
2042
2043 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
2044 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
2045 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
2046
2047 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
2048 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
2049 individual windows.
2050
2051 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
2052 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
2053
2054 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
2055
2056 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
2057 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
2058 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
2059 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
2060 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
2061
2062 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
2063 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
2064 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
2065
2066 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
2067 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
2068
2069 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
2070 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
2071
2072 ** Search and replacement changes
2073
2074 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
2075
2076 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
2077 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
2078
2079 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
2080 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
2081 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
2082 argument is nil.
2083
2084 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
2085 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
2086 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
2087 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
2088 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
2089
2090 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
2091 for search related commands.
2092
2093 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
2094 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
2095
2096 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
2097 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
2098
2099 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
2100 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
2101 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
2102 unless it ends in whitespace.
2103
2104 ** File handling changes
2105
2106 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
2107 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
2108
2109 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
2110 variables defined in the current buffer.
2111
2112 ** Face-remapping
2113
2114 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
2115 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
2116 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
2117 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
2118 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
2119
2120 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
2121 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
2122 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
2123 Editing Changes, above).
2124
2125 *** New functions:
2126
2127 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
2128 current buffer.
2129
2130 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
2131 the current buffer.
2132
2133 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
2134
2135 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
2136
2137 ** Process changes
2138
2139 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
2140 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
2141 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
2142 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
2143 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
2144
2145 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
2146 returns its output as a list of lines.
2147
2148 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
2149
2150 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
2151 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
2152 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
2153 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
2154 bytes.
2155
2156 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
2157
2158 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
2159 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
2160 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
2161
2162 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
2163 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
2164
2165 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
2166 characters for display.
2167
2168 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
2169 positional codes instead of just 2.
2170
2171 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
2172
2173 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
2174 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
2175
2176 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
2177 priorities of charsets.
2178
2179 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
2180 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
2181 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
2182 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
2183 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
2184 `titlecase'.
2185
2186 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
2187 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
2188 entries in that range of characters.
2189
2190 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
2191 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
2192 internal representation of characters.
2193
2194 *** New functions:
2195
2196 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
2197 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
2198
2199 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
2200
2201 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
2202
2203 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
2204
2205 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
2206
2207 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
2208
2209 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
2210
2211 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
2212 a character code property.
2213
2214 *** New variables:
2215
2216 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
2217 search for a word boundary.
2218
2219 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
2220
2221 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
2222
2223 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
2224 property on printing a string.
2225
2226 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
2227
2228 ** Code conversion changes
2229
2230 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
2231 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
2232
2233 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
2234 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
2235 conversion should go.
2236
2237 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
2238 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
2239 of conversion.
2240
2241 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
2242 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
2243 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
2244 bytes.
2245
2246 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
2247
2248 *** New functions:
2249
2250 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
2251 coding system priority order.
2252
2253 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
2254 encodable by the specified coding systems.
2255
2256 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
2257
2258 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
2259 by a coding system.
2260
2261 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
2262 ordered by their priorities.
2263
2264 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
2265
2266 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
2267 the argument name.
2268
2269 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
2270 It has three functionalities:
2271 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
2272 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
2273 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
2274 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
2275
2276 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
2277
2278 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
2279
2280 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
2281 as an input method.
2282
2283 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
2284 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
2285 character.
2286
2287 ** Changes related to the new font backend
2288
2289 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
2290 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
2291
2292 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
2293
2294 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
2295 available on your graphic device.
2296
2297 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
2298 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
2299 currently `x' and `xft'.
2300
2301 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
2302 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
2303 set the font.
2304
2305 *** New functions:
2306
2307 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
2308
2309 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
2310
2311 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
2312
2313 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
2314
2315 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
2316
2317 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
2318
2319 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
2320
2321 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
2322
2323 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
2324 entity, or font object.
2325
2326 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
2327
2328 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
2329
2330 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
2331 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
2332
2333 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
2334
2335 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
2336 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
2337 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
2338 takes a frame argument.
2339
2340 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
2341 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
2342
2343 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
2344 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
2345
2346 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
2347 session.
2348
2349 *** A new `terminal' data type.
2350 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
2351 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
2352
2353 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
2354 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
2355 which is not used directly any more.
2356
2357 *** New hooks:
2358
2359 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
2360 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
2361 file-local variables.
2362
2363 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
2364 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
2365 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
2366 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
2367
2368 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
2369 deleting a terminal.
2370
2371 *** New functions:
2372
2373 **** `delete-terminal'
2374
2375 **** `suspend-tty'
2376
2377 **** `resume-tty'.
2378
2379 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
2380
2381 ** Redisplay changes
2382
2383 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
2384 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
2385
2386 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
2387 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
2388 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
2389 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
2390
2391 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
2392
2393 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
2394 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
2395 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
2396 times the default column width.
2397
2398 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
2399 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
2400 instead.
2401
2402 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
2403 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
2404 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
2405 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
2406 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
2407 name, but take precedence.
2408
2409 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
2410
2411 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2412
2413 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
2414
2415 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
2416 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
2417
2418 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
2419 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
2420 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
2421 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
2422
2423 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
2424 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
2425
2426 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
2427 attributes of a given face.
2428
2429 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
2430 string of days, hours, etc.
2431
2432 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
2433 specification.
2434
2435 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
2436 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
2437 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
2438
2439 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
2440
2441 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
2442 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
2443
2444 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
2445 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
2446 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
2447
2448 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2449 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2450 the match data.
2451
2452 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2453 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2454 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2455
2456 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2457
2458 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2459 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2460
2461 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2462 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2463
2464 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2465 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2466
2467 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2468 marker used for window-point.
2469
2470 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2471 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2472 relevant data.
2473
2474 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2475 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2476
2477 \f
2478 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2479
2480 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2481
2482 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2483 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2484
2485 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2486
2487 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2488 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2489 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2490 of multiple buffers. Top-level functions `multi-isearch-buffers',
2491 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2492 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2493 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2494
2495 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2496 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2497
2498 \f
2499 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2500 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2501
2502 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2503 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2504 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2505 (at your option) any later version.
2506
2507 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2508 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2509 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2510 GNU General Public License for more details.
2511
2512 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2513 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2514
2515 \f
2516 Local variables:
2517 mode: outline
2518 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2519 end:
2520