etc/NEWS

   1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
   2
   3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   5
   6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
   7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
   8
   9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
  10
  11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
  12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
  13
  14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
  15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
  16
  17
  18 Temporary note:
  19  +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
  20  --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
  21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
  22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
  23
  24 \f
  25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
  26
  27 ---
  28 ** There are new configure options:
  29 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
  30 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
  31 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
  32
  33 \f
  34 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
  35
  36 \f
  37 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
  38
  39 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
  40
  41 +++
  42 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
  43 Warning: This is still very much experimental!  The existing support
  44 is minimal, and when it's turned on (see below), many features are
  45 likely to give unexpected results, or break, or even crash!  Use at
  46 your own risk!
  47
  48 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
  49 initial documentation.
  50
  51 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
  52 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value.  The default is nil.
  53
  54 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
  55 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
  56 according to the value of this variable.  Possible values are
  57 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'.  If the value is nil (the
  58 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
  59 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
  60
  61 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
  62 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
  63 Algorithm.
  64
  65 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
  66 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
  67
  68 \f
  69 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
  70
  71 \f
  72 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
  73
  74 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
  75 ** Customize
  76
  77 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
  78 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
  79 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
  80
  81 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
  82 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
  83
  84 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
  85
  86 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
  87 choose a color via list-colors-display.
  88
  89 ** VC and related modes
  90
  91 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
  92
  93 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
  94
  95 **** For Bzr, adding an
  96 Author: NAME
  97 line will add "--author NAME" to the "bzr commit" command.
  98
  99 **** For Hg, adding an
 100 Author: NAME
 101 line will add "--user NAME" to the "hg commit" command.
 102
 103 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
 104 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
 105 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff*
 106 buffers.
 107
 108 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
 109 enabled by default in 23.1.
 110
 111 ** gdb-mi
 112
 113 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
 114 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
 115 threads simultaneously.
 116
 117 \f
 118 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
 119
 120 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
 121 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet.  The
 122 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication.
 123
 124 \f
 125 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
 126
 127 \f
 128 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
 129
 130 ** New completion style `substring'.
 131
 132 ** Image API
 133
 134 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
 135 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
 136 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
 137 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
 138 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
 139 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
 140
 141 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
 142
 143 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
 144 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
 145 now be nil, or omitted.  This makes a "non-numeric" reporter.  Each
 146 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
 147 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
 148 displayed with a "spinning bar".
 149
 150 \f
 151 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
 152
 153 \f
 154 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 155 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 156
 157 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 158 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 159 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 160 (at your option) any later version.
 161
 162 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 163 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 164 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 165 GNU General Public License for more details.
 166
 167 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 168 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 169
 170 \f
 171 Local variables:
 172 mode: outline
 173 paragraph-separate: "[  \f]*$"
 174 end: