23b1b599e12f36ee15577413be6d7f2f0c5dcc96
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2007, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to emacs-pretest-bug@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
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 23.2
26
27 ** New configure options for Emacs developers
28 These are not new features; only the configure flags are new.
29
30 *** --enable-profiling builds Emacs with profiling enabled.
31 This might not work on all platforms.
32
33 *** --enable-checking[=OPTIONS] builds emacs with extra runtime checks.
34
35 ---
36 ** `make install' now consistently ignores umask, creating a
37 world-readable install.
38
39 ** Emacs compiles with Gconf support by default, if it is detected.
40 Use the configure option --without-gconf to disable this.
41
42 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.2
43
44 ** The command-line option -Q (--quick) also inhibits loading X resources.
45 However, if Emacs is compiled with the Lucid or Motif toolkit, X
46 resource settings for the graphical widgets are still applied.
47 On Windows, the -Q option causes Emacs to ignore Registry settings,
48 but environment variables set on the Registry are still honored.
49
50 *** The new variable `inhibit-x-resources' shows whether X resources
51 were loaded.
52
53 +++
54 ** New command-line option -mm (--maximized) maximizes the initial frame.
55
56 * Changes in Emacs 23.2
57
58 ** The maximum size of buffers (and the largest fixnum) is doubled.
59 On typical 32bit systems, buffers can now be up to 512MB.
60
61 ** The default value of `trash-directory' is now nil.
62 This means that `move-file-to-trash' trashes files according to
63 freedesktop.org specifications, the same method used by the Gnome,
64 KDE, and XFCE desktops. (This change has no effect on Windows, which
65 uses `system-move-file-to-trash' for trashing.)
66
67 ** The pointer now becomes invisible when typing.
68 Customize `make-pointer-invisible' to disable this feature.
69
70 ** Font changes
71
72 *** Emacs can use the system default monospaced font in Gnome.
73 To enable this feature, set `font-use-system-font' to non-nil (it is
74 nil by default). If the system default changes, Emacs changes also.
75 This feature requires Gconf support, which is automatically included
76 at compile-time if configure detects the gconf libraries (you can
77 disable this with the configure option --without-gconf).
78
79 *** On X11, Emacs reacts to Xft changes made by configuration tools,
80 via the XSETTINGS mechanism. This includes antialias, hinting,
81 hintstyle, RGBA, DPI and lcdfilter changes.
82
83 ** Killing a buffer with a running process now asks for confirmation.
84 To remove this query, remove `process-kill-buffer-query-function' from
85 `kill-buffer-query-functions', or set the appropriate process flag
86 with `set-process-query-on-exit-flag'.
87
88 ** File-local variable changes
89
90 *** Specifying a minor mode as a local variables enables that mode,
91 unconditionally. The previous behavior, toggling the mode, was
92 neither reliable nor generally desirable.
93
94 *** New commands for adding and removing file-local variables:
95 `add-file-local-variable', `delete-file-local-variable',
96 `add-file-local-variable-prop-line', and
97 `delete-file-local-variable-prop-line'.
98
99 *** New commands for adding and removing directory-local variables,
100 and copying them to and from file-local variable lists:
101 `add-dir-local-variable', `delete-dir-local-variable',
102 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals',
103 `copy-dir-locals-to-file-locals-prop-line' and
104 `copy-file-locals-to-dir-locals'.
105
106 ** Internationalization changes
107
108 *** Unibyte sessions are now considered obsolete.
109 This refers to the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable as well as the
110 --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte command line
111 arguments. Customizing enable-multibyte-characters and setting
112 default-enable-multibyte-characters are also deprecated.
113
114 *** New coding system `utf-8-hfs'.
115 This is suitable for default-file-name-coding-system on Mac OS X; see
116 international/ucs-normalize.el.
117
118 ** Function arguments in *Help* buffers are now shown in upper-case.
119 Customize `help-downcase-arguments' to t to show them in lower-case.
120
121 \f
122 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.2
123
124 ** Kill-ring and selection changes
125 +++
126 *** If `select-active-regions' is t, any active region automatically
127 becomes the primary selection (for interaction with other window
128 applications). If you enable this, you might want to bind
129 `mouse-yank-primary' to Mouse-2.
130
131 *** When `save-interprogram-paste-before-kill' is non-nil, the kill
132 commands save the interprogram-paste selection into the kill ring
133 before doing anything else. This avoids losing the selection.
134
135 *** When `kill-do-not-save-duplicates' is non-nil, identical
136 subsequent kills are not duplicated in the `kill-ring'.
137
138 ** Completion changes
139
140 *** The new command `completion-at-point' provides mode-sensitive completion.
141
142 *** tab-always-indent set to `complete' lets TAB do completion as well.
143
144 *** The new completion-style `initials' is available.
145 For instance, this can complete M-x lch to list-command-history.
146
147 *** The new variable `completions-format' determines how completions
148 are displayed in the *Completions* buffer. If you set it to
149 `vertical', completions are sorted vertically in columns.
150
151 +++
152 ** The default value of `blink-matching-paren-distance' is increased.
153
154 ** M-n provides more default values in the minibuffer for commands
155 that read file names. These include the file name at point (when ffap
156 is loaded without ffap-bindings), the file name on the current line
157 (in Dired buffers), and the directory names of adjacent Dired windows
158 (for Dired commands that operate on several directories, such as copy,
159 rename, or diff).
160
161 ** M-r is bound to the new `move-to-window-line-top-bottom'.
162 This moves point to the window center, top and bottom on successive
163 invocations, in the same spirit as the C-l (recenter-top-bottom)
164 command.
165
166 ** The new variable `recenter-positions' determines the default
167 cycling order of C-l (`recenter-top-bottom').
168
169 \f
170 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
171
172 ** The bookmark menu has a narrowing search via bookmark-bmenu-search.
173
174 ** LaTeX mode now provides completion via latex-complete and
175 latex-indent-or-complete.
176
177 ** sym-comp.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by completion-at-point.
178
179 ** lucid.el and levents.el are now declared obsolete.
180
181 ** pcomplete provides a new command `pcomplete-std-completion' which
182 is similar to `pcomplete' but using the standard completion UI code.
183
184 ** .calc.el and .abbrev_defs obey user-emacs-directory.
185
186 ** Calc graphing commands (`g f' etc.) now work on MS-Windows,
187 if you have the native Windows port of Gnuplot version 3.8 or later
188 installed.
189
190 ** Calendar and diary
191
192 +++
193 *** Fancy diary display is now the default.
194 If you prefer the simple display, customize `diary-display-function'.
195
196 +++
197 *** The diary's fancy display now enables view-mode.
198
199 ---
200 *** The command `calendar-current-date' accepts an optional argument
201 giving an offset from today.
202
203 ** Desktop
204 ---
205 *** The default value for `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is nil.
206 This means Desktop will try restoring all buffers, when you restart
207 your Emacs session. Also, `desktop-buffers-not-to-save' is only
208 effective for buffers that have no associated file. If you want to
209 exempt buffers that do correspond to files, customize the value of
210 `desktop-files-not-to-save' instead.
211
212 ** Dired
213
214 *** The new variable `dired-auto-revert-buffer' allows to revert
215 dired buffers automatically on revisiting.
216
217 ** DocView
218
219 *** When `doc-view-continuous' is non-nil, scrolling a line
220 on the page edge advances to the next/previous page.
221
222 ** FIXME gdb-mi
223
224 ** Grep
225
226 A new command `zrgrep' searches recursively in gzipped files.
227
228 ** Info
229
230 *** The new command `Info-virtual-index' bound to "I" displays a menu of
231 matched topics found in the index.
232
233 *** The new command `info-finder' replaces finder.el with a virtual Info
234 manual that generates an Info file which gives the same information
235 through a menu structure.
236
237 ** Message mode is now the default mode for composing mail.
238
239 The default for `mail-user-agent' is now message-user-agent, so the
240 C-x m (`compose-mail') command uses Message mode instead of Mail mode.
241
242 Message mode has been included in Emacs, as part of the Gnus package,
243 for several years. It provides several features that are absent in
244 Mail mode, such as MIME handling.
245
246 *** If the user has not customized mail-user-agent, `compose-mail'
247 checks for Mail mode customizations, and issues a warning if these
248 customizations are found. This alerts users who may otherwise be
249 unaware that their mail configuration has changed.
250
251 To disable this check, set compose-mail-user-agent-warnings to nil.
252
253 ** nXML mode is now the default for editing XML files.
254
255 ** Shell
256
257 *** ansi-color is now enabled by default.
258 To disable it, set ansi-color-for-comint-mode to nil.
259
260 +++
261 ** Tramp
262
263 *** New connection methods "rsyncc", "imap" and "imaps".
264 On systems which support GVFS-Fuse, Tramp offers also the new
265 connection methods "dav", "davs", "obex" and "synce".
266
267 ** VC and related modes
268
269 *** When using C-x v v or C-x v i on a unregistered file that is in a
270 directory not controlled by any VCS, ask the user what VC backend to
271 use to create a repository, create a new repository and register the
272 file.
273
274 *** FIXME: add info about the new VC functions: vc-root-diff and
275 vc-root-print-log once they stabilize.
276
277 *** The log functions (C-x v l and C-x v L) do not show the full log
278 by default anymore. The number of entries shown can be chosen
279 interactively with a prefix argument, by customizing
280 vc-log-show-limit. The log buffer display buttons that can be used
281 to change the number of entries shown.
282 RCS, SCCS, CVS do not support this feature.
283
284 *** vc-annotate supports annotations through file copies and renames,
285 it displays the old names for the files and it can show logs/diffs for
286 the corresponding lines. Currently only Git and Mercurial take
287 advantage of this feature.
288
289 *** The log command in vc-annotate can display a single log entry
290 instead of redisplaying the full log. The RCS, CVS and SCCS VC
291 backends do not support this.
292
293 *** When a file is not found, VC will not try to check it out of RCS anymore.
294
295 *** Diff and log operations can be used from dired buffers.
296
297 *** vc-git changes
298
299 **** The short log format for git makes use of the graph display, so
300 it's not supported on git versions earlier than 1.5.
301
302 **** The new variable vc-git-add-signoff can be used to add a
303 Signed-off-by line when committing.
304
305 **** Support for operating with stashes has been added to vc-dir: the stash list is
306 displayed in the *vc-dir* header, stashes can be created, removed, applied and
307 their content displayed.
308
309 **** vc-dir displays the stash status
310
311 *** vc-bzr supports operating with shelves: the shelve list is
312 displayed in the *vc-dir* header, shelves can be created, removed and applied.
313
314 *** log-edit-strip-single-file-name controls whether or not single filenames
315 are stripped when copying text from the ChangeLog to the *VC-Log* buffer.
316
317 ** Elint
318
319 ---
320 *** Elint now uses compilation-mode.
321
322 ---
323 *** Elint can now scan individual files and whole directories,
324 and can be run in batch mode.
325
326 ---
327 *** Elint does a more thorough initialization, and recognizes more built-in
328 functions and variables. Customize `elint-scan-preloaded' if you want
329 to sacrifice some accuracy for a faster startup.
330
331 ---
332 *** Elint attempts some basic understanding of featurep and (f)boundp tests.
333
334 ---
335 *** Customize `elint-ignored-warnings' to suppress some warnings.
336
337 ** Miscellaneous
338
339 *** The new command `async-shell-command' bound globally to `M-&' executes
340 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand to
341 the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
342 Command*'.
343
344 *** Isearch searches in the comint/shell input history when the new variable
345 `comint-history-isearch' is non-nil. New commands `comint-history-isearch-backward'
346 and `comint-history-isearch-backward-regexp' (bound to M-r) start Isearch
347 in the input history regardless of the value of `comint-history-isearch'.
348
349 *** Interactively `multi-isearch-buffers' and `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp'
350 read buffer names to search, one by one, ended with RET. With a prefix
351 argument, they ask for a regexp, and search in buffers whose names match
352 the specified regexp. Interactively `multi-isearch-files' and
353 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' read file names to search, one by one,
354 ended with RET. With a prefix argument, they ask for a wildcard, and
355 search in file buffers whose file names match the specified wildcard.
356
357 +++
358 *** Autorevert Tail mode now works also for remote files.
359
360 +++
361 *** The new built-in commands `su' and `sudo' support Tramp.
362 That means, they change `default-directory' to the new users value,
363 and let commands run under that user permissions. It works even when
364 `default-directory' is already remote. Calling the external commands
365 is possible by `*su' or `*sudo', repectively.
366
367 *** When running in a new enough xterm (newer than version 242), emacs
368 asks xterm what the background color is and it sets up faces
369 accordingly for a dark background if needed (the current default is to
370 consider the background light).
371
372 \f
373 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.2
374
375 ** CEDET (the Collection of Emacs Development Tools) is now in Emacs.
376 This is a collection of packages to aid with using Emacs as an IDE
377 (integrated development environment):
378
379 *** The Semantic package allows the use of parsers to intelligently
380 edit and navigate source code. Parsers for C/C++, Java, Javascript,
381 and several other languages are included by default, and Semantic can
382 also interface with external tools such as GNU Global and GNU Idutils.
383
384 To enable Semantic, use the global minor mode `semantic-mode'.
385 See the Semantic manual for details.
386
387 *** EDE (Emacs Development Environment) is a package for managing code
388 projects, including features such as automatic Makefile generation.
389
390 To enable EDE, use the minor mode `global-ede-mode'.
391 See the EDE manual for details.
392
393 *** SRecode is a library for recoding Semantic tags back into source
394 code. It is currently used by some parts of Semantic and EDE; in the
395 future, it may be used for code generation features.
396
397 *** The EIEIO library implements a subset of the Common Lisp Object
398 System (CLOS). It is used by the other CEDET packages.
399
400 ** mpc.el is a front end for the Music Player Daemon. Run it with M-x mpc.
401
402 ** htmlfontify.el turns a fontified Emacs buffer into an HTML page.
403
404 ** js.el is a new major mode for JavaScript files.
405
406 ** imap-hash.el is a new library to address IMAP mailboxes as hashtables.
407
408 \f
409 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.2
410
411 ** Several obsolete functions removed.
412 The functions have been obsolete since Emacs 19, and are unlikely to
413 be in use:
414
415 time-stamp-month-dd-yyyy, time-stamp-dd/mm/yyyy, time-stamp-mon-dd-yyyy
416 time-stamp-dd-mon-yy, time-stamp-yy/mm/dd, time-stamp-yyyy/mm/dd,
417 time-stamp-yyyy-mm-dd, time-stamp-yymmdd, time-stamp-hh:mm:ss,
418 time-stamp-hhmm, baud-rate
419
420 ---
421 ** Support for generating Emacs 18 compatible bytecode (by setting
422 the variable `byte-compile-compatibility') has been removed.
423
424 ** In image-mode.el `image-mode-maybe' is obsolete. Instead, you can
425 either use `image-mode' that displays an image file as the actual image
426 inititally, or `image-mode-as-text' when you want to display an image file
427 as text inititally. `image-mode-as-text' is a combination of a non-image
428 mode from `auto-mode-alist' (or Fundamental mode) and `image-minor-mode'.
429 `image-minor-mode' provides `C-c C-c' key binding to toggle image display.
430 `image-toggle-display-text' removes image properties.
431 `image-toggle-display-image' adds image properties.
432 `image-toggle-display' toggles between `image-mode-as-text' and
433 `image-mode'.
434
435 \f
436 * Lisp changes in Emacs 23.2
437
438 ** make-network-socket can now also create `seqpacket' Unix sockets.
439
440 ** New function `completion-in-region' to use the standard completion
441 facilities on a particular region of text.
442
443 ** The 4th arg to all-completions (aka hide-spaces) is declared obsolete.
444
445 ** read-file-name-predicate is obsolete. It was used to pass the predicate
446 to read-file-name-internal because read-file-name-internal abused its `pred'
447 argument to pass the current directory, but this hack is not needed
448 any more.
449
450 ** Frame parameter changes
451
452 *** You can give the `fullscreen' frame parameter the value `maximized'.
453 This maximizes the frame.
454
455 +++
456 *** The new frame parameter `sticky' makes Emacs frames sticky in
457 virtual desktops.
458
459 ** completion-base-size is obsoleted by completion-base-position.
460 This change causes a few backward incompatibilities, mostly with
461 choose-completion-string-functions where the `mini-p' argument has
462 been replaced by a `base-position' argument, and where the `base-size'
463 argument is now always nil.
464
465 ** called-interactively-p now takes one argument and replaces interactive-p
466 which is now marked obsolete.
467 ** New function set-advertised-calling-convention makes it possible
468 to obsolete arguments as well as make some arguments mandatory.
469 ** eval-next-after-load is obsolete.
470 ** New hook `after-load-functions' run after loading an Elisp file.
471
472 ** You can control which binding is preferentially shown in menus and
473 docstrings by adding a `:advertised-binding' property to the corresponding
474 command's symbol. That property can hold a single binding or a list
475 of bindings.
476
477 ** New macro with-silent-modifications to tweak text properties without
478 affecting the buffer's modification state.
479 ** All the default-FOO variables that hold the default value of the FOO
480 variable, are now declared obsolete.
481
482 ** read-key is a function halfway between read-event and read-key-sequence.
483 It reads a single key, but obeys input and escape sequence decoding.
484
485 ** start-process-shell-command and start-file-process-shell-command
486 now only take a single `command' argument.
487
488 ** The variable `process-file-side-effects' shall be bound to nil, if
489 a `process-file' call does not change a remote file. By this, file
490 name handlers like Tramp can apply optimizations.
491
492 ** Hash tables have a new printed representation that is readable.
493 The feature `hashtable-print-readable' identifies this new
494 functionality.
495
496 ** Functions performing Unicode normalization are added. They are:
497 ucs-normalize-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-NFD-string,
498 ucs-normalize-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-NFC-string,
499 ucs-normalize-NFKD-region, ucs-normalize-NFKD-string,
500 ucs-normalize-NFKC-region, ucs-normalize-NFKC-string,
501 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFD-string,
502 ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-region, ucs-normalize-HFS-NFC-string.
503
504 ** completion-annotate-function specifies how to compute annotations
505 for completions displayed in *Completions*.
506
507 +++
508 ** Face aliases can now be marked as obsolete, using the macro
509 `define-obsolete-face-alias'.
510
511 ---
512 ** Changing the file-names generated by byte-compilation by redefining
513 the function `byte-compile-dest-file' before loading bytecomp.el is obsolete.
514 Instead, customize byte-compile-dest-file-function.
515
516 ---
517 ** `byte-compile-warnings' has new members, `constants' and `suspicious'.
518
519 ** `delete-directory' has an optional parameter RECURSIVE.
520
521 ** New function `copy-directory', which copies a directory recursively.
522
523 +++
524 ** New function `window-full-height-p', analogous to the full-width version.
525
526 \f
527 * Changes in Emacs 23.2 on non-free operating systems
528
529 ---
530 ** On MS-Windows, `display-time' now displays the system load average
531 as well as the time, as it does on GNU and Unix.
532
533 \f
534 * Installation Changes in Emacs 23.1
535
536 ** The default X toolkit is now Gtk+, rather than Lucid.
537 The configure option `--with-gtk' has been removed. Gtk is now the
538 default toolkit, but you can use --with-x-toolkit=gtk if necessary.
539
540 ** New font code.
541 Fonts are handled by new code capable of dealing with multiple font
542 backends. This uses the freetype and fontconfig libraries.
543
544 *** Emacs now accepts font names supplied in the fontconfig format
545 (e.g. "monospace-12:bold") and GTK format (e.g. "Monospace Bold 12").
546
547 *** Added support for local fonts (fonts installed on the machine
548 where Emacs is running).
549
550 *** Added support for the Xft library for antialiasing.
551
552 *** Added support for the otf library for complex text layout by
553 OpenType fonts.
554
555 *** Added support for the m17n library for text shaping.
556
557 ** Changes to image support
558
559 *** configure now checks for libgif before libungif when searching for
560 a GIF library.
561
562 *** Emacs now supports the SVG image format through librsvg2.
563
564 *** Emacs now supports multi-page TIFF images.
565
566 ** New NeXTSTEP-based port
567 This provides support for GNUstep (via the GNUstep libraries) and Mac
568 OS X (via the Cocoa libraries).
569
570 Specify --with-ns to configure for this. By default, a self-contained
571 app will be built (containing all lisp). To install/share lisp with
572 other emacsen (e.g. X11 build) use --disable-ns-self-contained. See
573 nextstep/README and nextstep/INSTALL in the Emacs source directory.
574
575 ** Mac OS X is no longer supported via Carbon.
576 Use the NeXTSTEP port, described above.
577
578 ** The new configuration option "--with-dbus" enables D-Bus language
579 bindings for Emacs.
580
581 ** Support for many obsolete platforms has been removed.
582 See the list at the end of etc/MACHINES for details.
583
584 *** Support for systems without alloca has been removed.
585
586 *** Support for Sun windows has been removed.
587
588 *** The `emacstool' utility has been removed.
589
590 ** The following platforms will be removed in a future Emacs version:
591 If you are still using Emacs on one of these platforms, please email
592 emacs-devel@gnu.org to inform the Emacs developers.
593
594 *** Old GNU/Linux systems based on libc version 5.
595
596 *** Old FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD systems based on the COFF
597 executable format.
598
599 *** Solaris versions 2.6 and below.
600
601 *** Solaris on IBM RS6000 machines.
602
603 *** UNIX System V (the original SysV, not later platforms based on it).
604
605 *** Unixware on non-x86 machines.
606
607 *** Platforms not supporting shared libraries (i.e., requiring the
608 NO_SHARED_LIBS compilation flag).
609
610 ** The configure options `--with-gcc', `--without-gcc' have been removed.
611 Configure will use gcc by default. Set the CC environment variable if
612 you need control over which C compiler is used.
613
614 ** The refcards are now shipped as PDF files.
615
616 ** The manuals are now licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License v1.3,
617 or any later version.
618
619 ** Emacs 23 comes with a new set of default icons.
620 Various resolutions are available as etc/images/icons/hicolor/*/apps/emacs.png.
621 The Emacs 22 icon is available as `emacs22.png' in the same location.
622 \f
623 * Changes in Emacs 23.1
624
625 ** Improved X Window System support
626
627 *** Emacs now supports using both X displays and ttys in one session.
628 With an Emacs server active (M-x server-start), `emacsclient -t'
629 creates a tty frame connected to the running emacs server. You can
630 use any number of different ttys. `emacsclient -c' creates a new X11
631 frame on the current $DISPLAY (or a tty frame if $DISPLAY is not set).
632 There may be problems if a display exits unexpectedly and Emacs is compiled
633 with Gtk+, see etc/PROBLEMS.
634
635 You can test for the presence of this feature in your Lisp code by
636 testing for the `multi-tty' feature.
637
638 *** Emacs starts in the background, as a daemon, when given the
639 --daemon command line argument. It disconnects from the terminal and
640 starts the server. Clients can connect and create graphical or
641 terminal frames using emacsclient.
642
643 **** emacsclient starts emacs in daemon mode and connects to it when
644 --alternate-editor="" is used (or when the evironment variable
645 ALTERNATE_EDITOR is set to "") and emacsclient cannot connect to an
646 emacs server.
647
648 *** The new command close-display-connection closes a connection to a
649 remote display. There are some bugs for Gtk+. See etc/PROBLEMS.
650
651 *** Emacs now supports the XEmbed specification.
652 You can embed Emacs in another application on X11. The new command line
653 option --parent-id is used to pass the parent window id to Emacs. See
654 http://standards.freedesktop.org/xembed-spec/xembed-spec-latest.html
655 for details about XEmbed.
656
657 *** Emacs can now set the frame opacity.
658 The opacity of a frame can be controlled by setting the `alpha' frame
659 parameter. This only takes effect on a compositing window manager for
660 the X Window System, such as Compiz, Beryl and Compiz Fusion, on Mac
661 OS X, or on Windows 2000 and later versions of Windows.
662
663 The alpha parameter should be an integer between 0 (transparent) and
664 100 (opaque), or a float number between 0.0 and 1.0. It can also be a
665 cons cell (ACTIVE . INACTIVE), where ACTIVE is the opacity of an
666 active frame and INACTIVE is the opacity of non-active frames.
667
668 The variable `frame-alpha-lower-limit' defines a lower bound for the
669 opacity; the default is 20.
670
671 ** Internationalization changes
672
673 *** The Emacs character set is now a superset of Unicode.
674 (It has about four times the code space, which should be plenty).
675
676 The internal encoding used for buffers and strings is now
677 Unicode-based and called `utf-8-emacs' (`emacs-internal' is an alias
678 for this). This encoding is backward-compatible with Unicode's UTF-8
679 encoding. The internal encoding previously used by Emacs,
680 `emacs-mule', is still available for reading and writing files.
681
682 During byte-compilation, Emacs 23 uses `utf-8-emacs' to write files.
683 As a result, byte-compiled files containing non-ASCII characters can't
684 be read by earlier versions of Emacs. Files compiled by Emacs 20, 21,
685 or 22 are loaded correctly as `emacs-mule' (whether or not they
686 contain multibyte characters). This takes somewhat more time, so it
687 may be worth recompiling existing .elc files which don't need to be
688 shared with older Emacsen.
689
690 *** There are new coding systems/aliases; see M-x list-coding-systems.
691
692 *** There is a new charset implementation with many new charsets.
693 See M-x list-character-sets. New charsets can be defined conveniently
694 as tables of unicodes.
695
696 *** There are new language environments for Chinese-GBK,
697 Chinese-GB18030, Khmer, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu,
698 Sinhala, and TaiViet.
699
700 *** The minor modes unify-8859-on-encoding-mode and
701 unify-8859-on-decoding-mode are obsolete.
702
703 *** `ucs-insert' is bound to `C-x 8 RET' and in addition to hex numbers
704 accepts numbers in hash notation (e.g. #o21430 for octal, or #10r8984 for
705 decimal). It also accepts Unicode character names with completion.
706
707 *** The `cyrillic-translit' input method supports many new characters.
708 Common typographical characters available from Unicode were added to
709 `cyrillic-translit': punctuation marks, accented characters, fractions,
710 and others.
711
712 ** Emacs now supports serial port access on GNU/Linux, Unix, and
713 Windows. The new command `serial-term' starts an interactive terminal
714 on a serial port. The serial port can be configured at runtime with
715 the mode-line mouse menu.
716
717 ** Menu Bar changes
718
719 *** In the Options menu, the "Set Default Font" item applies the
720 selected font to the `default' face on all frames, not just the
721 current frame. Furthermore, if Emacs is compiled with both GTK and
722 Fontconfig support, the "Set Default Font" item uses the GTK font
723 selection dialog instead of an Emacs pop-up menu.
724
725 *** The font setting chosen by "Set Default Font" is saved if the
726 "Save Options" item is used.
727
728 *** The Tools menu contains a new Encryption/Decryption submenu.
729 This contains commands provided by EasyPG, the newly-included
730 interface to GnuPG (see New Modes and Packages).
731
732 *** In the Options menu, the "Truncate Long Lines in the Buffer" entry
733 has been replaced with a submenu offering three different ways to
734 handle long lines: truncation, continuation at the window edge, and
735 the new word wrapping behavior (see Editing Changes, below).
736
737 *** Improvements to menus for major and minor modes
738 More major and minor modes now have a mode specific menu, and existing
739 mode menus have been improved to include more functionality.
740
741 ** Mode-line changes
742
743 *** The mode-line displays a `@', instead of `-', if the
744 default-directory for the current buffer is on a remote machine.
745
746 *** The mode-line displays a mode menu when mouse-1 is clicked on a
747 minor mode, in the same way as it already did for major modes.
748
749 *** The `mode-line-emphasis' face is used to highlight certain
750 mode-line information (e.g. waiting for a VC command to finish).
751
752 *** The mode-line tooltips have been improved to provide more details.
753
754 *** The VC, line/colum number and minor mode indicators on the mode
755 line are now interactive: mouse-1 can be used on them to pop up a menu.
756
757 ** File deletion can make use of the Recycle Bin or system Trash folder.
758 Set `delete-by-moving-to-trash' non-nil to use this. Deleted files
759 and directories will then be sent to the Recycle Bin on Windows, and
760 to `trash-directory' on other systems.
761
762 ** Directory-local variables can now be defined.
763 By default, Emacs looks in .dir-locals.el for directory-local
764 variables. For more information, see `dir-locals-set-directory-class'
765 and `dir-locals-set-class-variables'.
766
767 ** Emacs can now use `auth-source' for authentication.
768 `smtpmail' and `url' (Tramp and Gnus also) use `auth-source' to obtain
769 login names and passwords. The match, if found, is reported
770 in *Messages* with the password blanked out.
771
772 ** `where-is-preferred-modifier' can specify your favorite modifier.
773
774 \f
775 * Startup Changes in Emacs 23.1
776
777 ** The option `inhibit-startup-screen' (with aliases to old names
778 `inhibit-splash-screen' and `inhibit-startup-message') doesn't inhibit
779 display of the initial message in the *scratch* buffer. If you don't
780 want to display the initial message in the *scratch* buffer at startup,
781 you can set the option `initial-scratch-message' to nil.
782
783 ** New user option `initial-buffer-choice' specifies what to display
784 after starting Emacs: startup screen, *scratch* buffer, visiting a
785 file or directory.
786
787 ** New alias `argv' for `command-line-args-left'
788 This is a convenience alias, so that one can write `(pop argv)'
789 inside of --eval command line arguments in order to access
790 following arguments.
791
792 ** The abbrev file is no longer read at startup in batch mode.
793
794 ** Emacs now supports invocation by an X session manager.
795 It can save a session and restore it later. See the documentation of
796 the functions `emacs-session-save' and `emacs-session-restore'.
797 (Actually, this feature was introduced with Emacs 22, but it was not
798 documented.)
799 \f
800 * Incompatible Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
801
802 ** In Dired, `dired-flag-garbage-files' is rebound from `&' to `%&'
803 on the regexp command prefix map.
804
805 ** In Dired-x, all command guesses for ! are now added to the default
806 list accessible by M-n instead of pushing all guesses temporarily into
807 the history list.
808
809 ** In Isearch mode, a special case of typing `C-w' at the beginning of
810 the minibuffer that toggles word search (i.e. using key sequences
811 `C-s RET C-w' or `C-s M-e C-w') is obsolete. You can use the global key
812 `M-s w' to start word search, or type `M-s w' in Isearch mode to
813 toggle word search. To start nonincremental word search you can now use
814 `M-s w RET' and `M-s w C-r RET' instead of `C-s RET C-w' and `C-r RET C-w'.
815
816 ** In Info, `Info-search' is unbound from `M-s' to allow using `M-s w'
817 for word search as well as other search commands from the global prefix
818 key `M-s'. `Info-search' is still bound to `s', and also incremental
819 search commands `C-s', `C-M-s', `C-r', `C-M-r' are available for searching
820 through multiple Info nodes, together with their nonincremental versions
821 `C-s RET', `C-r RET', `C-M-s RET', `C-M-r RET', `M-s w RET'.
822
823 ** In Text mode, `center-line' and `center-paragraph' are rebound from
824 `M-s' and `M-S' to global keys `M-o M-s' and `M-o M-S' on the global
825 prefix map `M-o', which is intended for such formatting commands.
826
827 ** The following input methods were removed in Emacs 22.2, but this was
828 not advertised: danish-alt-postfix, esperanto-alt-postfix,
829 finnish-alt-postfix, german-alt-postfix, icelandic-alt-postfix,
830 norwegian-alt-postfix, scandinavian-alt-postfix, spanish-alt-postfix,
831 and swedish-alt-postfix. Use the versions without "alt-", which are
832 identical.
833
834 \f
835 * Editing Changes in Emacs 23.1
836
837 ** The C-n and C-p line-motion commands now move by screen lines,
838 taking continued lines and variable-width characters into account.
839 Setting `line-move-visual' to nil reverts this to the previous
840 behavior (i.e., motion by logical lines based on buffer contents
841 alone).
842
843 ** C-x C-c now invokes `save-buffers-kill-terminal', and C-z now
844 invokes `suspend-frame'. These changes are for compatibility with the
845 new multi-tty support (see `Improved X Window System support' above).
846
847 ** Mark changes
848
849 *** Transient Mark mode is now on by default.
850
851 *** mark-even-if-inactive now defaults to t
852
853 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, C-SPC C-SPC pushes a mark without
854 activating it.
855
856 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-q now fills the region if the
857 region is active. Otherwise, it fills the current paragraph.
858
859 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, M-$ now checks spelling of the
860 region if the region is active. Otherwise, it checks spelling of the
861 word at point.
862
863 *** When Transient Mark mode is on, TAB now indents the region if the
864 region is active.
865
866 *** The variable `use-empty-active-region' controls whether an empty
867 active region in Transient Mark mode should make commands operate on
868 that empty region.
869
870 ** Temporarily active regions
871
872 *** The new variable shift-select-mode, non-nil by default, controls
873 shift-selection. When Shift Select mode is on, shift-translated
874 motion keys (e.g. S-left and S-down) activate and extend a temporary
875 region, similar to mouse-selection.
876
877 *** Temporarily active regions, created using shift-selection or
878 mouse-selection, are not necessarily deactivated in the next command.
879 They are only deactivated after point motion commands that are not
880 shift-translated, or after commands that would ordinarily deactivate
881 the mark in Transient Mark mode (e.g., any command that modifies the
882 buffer).
883
884 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
885
886 *** Emacs may ask for confirmation before opening a non-existent file
887 or buffer. By default, Emacs requests confirmation if you type RET
888 immediately after TAB, and the resulting input is not an existing file
889 or buffer; this usually happens when the minibuffer input did not
890 complete far enough and you entered RET by mistake. In that case,
891 Emacs puts the message "[Confirm]" in the minibuffer; type RET again
892 to create the file or buffer.
893
894 The new variable confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer determines whether
895 Emacs asks for confirmation. The default value is `after-completion'.
896 If you change it to t, Emacs always asks for confirmation; if you
897 change it to nil, Emacs never asks for confirmation.
898
899 *** The rules for performing completion have been changed.
900 When generating completion alternatives, Emacs now takes the
901 minibuffer text after point, if any, into account: this text is
902 treated as a substring of the remaining part of the completion
903 alternative (i.e., the part not matched by the minibuffer text before
904 point). If no completion alternatives are found this way, Emacs
905 attempts to perform partial-completion. If still no completion
906 alternatives are found, we fall back on the Emacs 22 rules for
907 performing completion.
908
909 The new variable `completion-styles' can be customized to choose your
910 favorite completion style.
911
912 *** When M-n in the minibuffer reaches the end of the list of defaults,
913 it adds the completion list to the end, so next M-n continues putting
914 completion items to the minibuffer. The same principle applies to
915 incremental search commands as well: C-s or C-M-s starts searching
916 the default values and after the end of defaults they continue
917 searching minibuffer completion items.
918
919 *** Minibuffer input of shell commands now comes with completion.
920
921 *** In the `C-x d' (Dired) prompt, typing M-n gives the visited file
922 name of the current buffer.
923
924 *** In the M-! (shell-command) prompt, M-n provides some default commands.
925 These are guessed using the file extension of the current file, based
926 on the file-handlers specified in the operating system's `mailcap'
927 file. The ! command in Dired (dired-do-shell-command) works
928 similarly, using the file displayed on the current line.
929
930 *** A list of regexp default values is available via M-n for `occur',
931 `keep-lines', `flush-lines' and `how-many'. This list includes the active
932 region in transient-mark-mode, the word under the cursor, the last Isearch
933 regexp, the last Isearch string and the last replacement regexp.
934
935 *** When enable-recursive-minibuffers is non-nil, operations which use
936 switch-to-buffer (such as C-x b and C-x C-f) do not fail any more when
937 used in a minibuffer or a dedicated window. Instead, they fallback on
938 using pop-to-buffer, which will use some other window. This change
939 has no effect when enable-recursive-minibuffers is nil (the default).
940
941 *** Isearch started in the minibuffer searches in the minibuffer history.
942 Reverse Isearch commands (C-r, C-M-r) search in previous minibuffer
943 history elements, and forward Isearch commands (C-s, C-M-s) search in
944 next history elements. When the reverse search reaches the first history
945 element, it wraps to the last history element, and the forward search
946 wraps to the first history element. When the search is terminated, the
947 history element containing the search string becomes the current.
948
949 *** The variable read-file-name-completion-ignore-case overrides
950 completion-ignore-case for file name completion.
951
952 *** The variable read-buffer-completion-ignore-case overrides
953 completion-ignore-case for buffer name completion.
954
955 *** The new command `minibuffer-force-complete' chooses one of the
956 possible completions, rather than stopping at the common prefix.
957
958 *** If `completion-auto-help' is `lazy', Emacs shows the completions
959 buffer only on the second attempt to complete. This was already
960 supported in `partial-completion-mode'.
961
962 ** Face changes
963
964 *** S-down-mouse-1 now pops up a menu for changing the font and text
965 size of the default face in the current buffer. The face is changed
966 via face remapping (see Lisp changes, below).
967
968 *** New commands to change the default face size in the current buffer.
969 To increase it, type `C-x C-+' or `C-x C-='. To decrease it, type
970 `C-x C--'. To restore the default (global) face size, type `C-x C-0'.
971 These work via Text Scale mode, a new minor mode.
972
973 The final key in the above commands may be repeated without the
974 leading `C-x', e.g. `C-x C-= C-= C-=' increases the face height by
975 three steps. Each step scales the height of the default face by the
976 value of the variable `text-scale-mode-step'.
977
978 *** The commands buffer-face-mode and buffer-face-set can be used to
979 remap the default face in the current buffer. See "Buffer Face mode",
980 under New Modes and Packages.
981
982 ** Primary selection changes
983
984 *** You can disable kill ring commands from accessing the primary
985 selection by setting `x-select-enable-primary' to nil.
986
987 ** Continuation lines can now be wrapped at word boundaries
988 (word-wrapping). This is controlled by the new per-buffer variable
989 `word-wrap'. Word wrapping does not take place if continuation lines
990 are not shown, e.g. if truncate-lines is non-nil. The most convenient
991 way to enable word-wrapping is using the new minor mode Visual Line
992 mode; in addition to setting `word-wrap' to t, this rebinds some
993 editing commands to work on screen lines rather than text lines. See
994 New Modes and Packages, below.
995
996 ** Window management changes
997
998 *** truncate-partial-width-windows now accepts integer values, which
999 specify a minimum window width for partial-width windows, below which
1000 lines are truncated. The default has been changed to 50.
1001
1002 *** The new command balance-windows-area balances windows both
1003 vertically and horizontally.
1004
1005 *** pop-to-buffer now always sets input focus when the popped-to window
1006 is on a different frame.
1007
1008 ** Miscellaneous changes:
1009
1010 *** C-l is bound to the new command recenter-top-bottom, rather than recenter.
1011 This moves the current line to window center, top and bottom on
1012 successive invocations.
1013
1014 *** scroll-preserve-screen-position also preserves the column position.
1015
1016 *** If `yank-pop-change-selection' is t, rotating the kill ring also
1017 updates the selection or clipboard to the current yank, just as M-w
1018 would do so with the text it copies to the kill ring.
1019
1020 *** C-M-% now shows replacement as it would look in the buffer, with
1021 `\N' and `\&' substituted according to the match. Old behavior can be
1022 restored by customizing `query-replace-show-replacement'.
1023
1024 *** The command shell prompts for the default directory, when it is
1025 called with a prefix and the default directory is a remote file name.
1026 This is because some file name handlers (like ange-ftp) are not able to
1027 run processes remotely.
1028
1029 *** The new command kill-matching-buffers kills buffers whose name
1030 matches a regexp.
1031
1032 *** The value of comment-style now defaults to `indent'.
1033 Thefore, comment-start markers are inserted at the current indentation
1034 of the region to comment, rather than the leftmost column.
1035
1036 *** The new commands `pp-macroexpand-expression' and
1037 `pp-macroexpand-last-sexp' pretty-print macro expansions.
1038
1039 *** The new command `set-file-modes' allows to set file's mode bits.
1040 The mode bits can be specified in symbolic notation, like with GNU
1041 Coreutils, in addition to an octal number. `chmod' is a new
1042 convenience alias for this function.
1043
1044 *** `next-error-recenter' specifies how next-error should recenter the
1045 visited source file. Its value can be a number (for example, 0 for
1046 top line, -1 for bottom line), or nil for no recentering.
1047
1048 *** When typing in a password in the echo area, C-y yanks the current
1049 kill into the password.
1050
1051 *** Tooltip frame parameters `font' and `color' in `tooltip-frame-parameters'
1052 are ignored. Customize the `tooltip' face instead.
1053
1054 *** `mkdir' is a new convenience alias for `make-directory'.
1055 \f
1056 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1057
1058 ** Auto Composition Mode is a minor mode that composes characters
1059 automatically when they are displayed. It is globally on by default.
1060 It uses `auto-composition-function' (default `auto-compose-chars').
1061
1062 ** Bubbles, a new game, is similar to SameGame.
1063
1064 ** Buffer Face mode is a minor mode for remapping the default face in
1065 the current buffer. The variable `buffer-face-mode-face' specifies
1066 the face to remap to. The command `buffer-face-set' prompts for a
1067 face name, sets `buffer-face-mode-face' to it, and enables
1068 buffer-face-mode. See "Face changes", under Editing Changes, for a
1069 description of face remapping.
1070
1071 ** butterfly flips the desired bit on the drive platter.
1072 See http://xkcd.com/378/
1073
1074 ** bug-reference.el provides clickable links to bug reports.
1075
1076 ** dbus.el provides D-Bus language bindings.
1077 D-Bus is an inter-process communication mechanism for applications
1078 residing on the same host. See the manual for details.
1079
1080 ** DocView mode allows viewing of PDF, PostScript and DVI documents.
1081 One can also search for a regular expression in the document. For
1082 details, see the commentary in doc-view.el.
1083
1084 PDF and DVI files are now opened in Doc View mode by default.
1085
1086 In Postcript mode, C-c C-c launches Doc View minor mode for viewing
1087 the postscript file.
1088
1089 ** EasyPG provides an interface to the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG).
1090 It includes a GnuPG keyring browser, cryptographic operations on
1091 regions and files, and automatic encryption of *.gpg files. For
1092 details, see the EasyPG Assistant User's Manual.
1093
1094 ** json.el is a library for parsing and generating JSON
1095 (JavaScript Object Notation), a lightweight data-interchange format.
1096
1097 ** linum.el is a new minor mode to display line numbers for the
1098 current buffer.
1099
1100 ** mairix.el is an interface to mairix, a free tool for indexing and
1101 searching locally stored mail. It allows you to query mairix and
1102 display the search results with Rmail, Gnus and VM. Note that there
1103 is an existing Gnus back end, nnmairix.el, which should be used with
1104 Maildir/MH setups.
1105
1106 ** minibuffer-depth-indicate-mode shows the minibuffer depth in the prompt.
1107
1108 ** nXML Mode
1109 This is a new mode for editing XML documents. It allows a schema to
1110 be associated with the XML document being edited, using Relax NG as
1111 the schema language. The schema is used to provide two key features:
1112
1113 *** Continuous validation. nXML validates as you type, highlighting
1114 any invalid parts of your document.
1115
1116 *** Completion. nXML can assist you in entering an element name,
1117 attribute name or data value by using information about what is
1118 allowed by the schema in that context.
1119
1120 ** proced.el provides a Dired-like interface for operating on
1121 processes. Proced makes an Emacs buffer containing a listing of the
1122 current processes. You can use the normal Emacs commands to move
1123 around in this buffer, and special Proced commands to operate on the
1124 processes listed. It is currently only functional on GNU/Linux,
1125 MS-Windows and Solaris.
1126
1127 ** Remember Mode is a mode for jotting down things to remember.
1128 Notes can be saved to a Diary file. For details, see the Remember
1129 Manual.
1130
1131 ** RST mode is a major mode for editing reStructuredText files.
1132
1133 ** Ruby mode is a major mode for Ruby files.
1134
1135 ** Visual Line mode provides support for editing by visual lines.
1136 It turns on word-wrapping in the current buffer, and rebinds C-a, C-e,
1137 and C-k to commands that operate by visual lines instead of logical
1138 lines. This is a more reliable replacement for longlines-mode.
1139 This can also be turned on using the menu bar, via
1140 Options -> Line Wrapping in this Buffer -> Word Wrap
1141
1142 ** xesam.el is an implementation of Xesam, an interface to (desktop)
1143 search engines like Beagle, Strigi, and Tracker. The Xesam API
1144 requires D-Bus for communication.
1145
1146 ** zeroconf.el offers service discovery and service publishing
1147 interfaces according to the zeroconf specification. It communicates
1148 with Avahi, a zeroconf implementation, via D-Bus messages on systems
1149 which have installed this software.
1150
1151 ** There is a new `whitespace' package.
1152 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to `old-whitespace'.)
1153 Now, besides reporting bogus blanks, the whitespace package has a
1154 minor mode and a global minor mode to visualize blanks (TAB, (HARD)
1155 SPACE and NEWLINE). The visualization is made via faces and/or display
1156 table. It can also indicate lines that extend beyond a given column,
1157 trailing blanks, and empty lines at the start or end of a buffer.
1158 See `whitespace-style' for more details. The `whitespace-action' option
1159 specifies what to do when a buffer is visited, killed, or written.
1160
1161 \f
1162 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 23.1
1163
1164 ** Abbrev has been rewritten in Elisp and extended with more flexibility.
1165
1166 *** New functions: abbrev-get, abbrev-put, abbrev-table-get, abbrev-table-put,
1167 abbrev-table-p, abbrev-insert, abbrev-table-menu.
1168
1169 *** Special hook `abbrev-expand-functions' obsoletes `pre-abbrev-expand-hook'.
1170
1171 *** `make-abbrev-table', `define-abbrev', `define-abbrev-table' all take
1172 extra arguments for arbitrary properties.
1173
1174 *** New variable `abbrev-minor-mode-table-alist'.
1175
1176 *** `local-abbrev-table' can hold a list of abbrev-tables.
1177
1178 *** Abbrevs have now the following special properties:
1179 `:count', `:system', `:enable-function', `:case-fixed'.
1180
1181 *** Abbrev-tables have now the following special properties:
1182 `:parents', `:case-fixed', `:enable-function', `:regexp',
1183 `abbrev-table-modiff'.
1184
1185 ** Apropos
1186
1187 *** `apropos-library' describes the elements defined in a given library.
1188
1189 *** Set `apropos-compact-layout' is you want a more compact (but wider) layout.
1190
1191 ** Archive Mode has basic support to browse Rar archives.
1192 Note, however, that the free version of the unrar command only handles
1193 versions 1 and 2 of the Rar format.
1194
1195 ** BibTeX mode
1196
1197 *** New command `bibtex-initialize' (re)initializes BibTeX buffers.
1198
1199 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' options `whitespace', `braces', and
1200 `string', disabled by default.
1201
1202 *** New variable `bibtex-cite-matcher-alist' contains rules to
1203 identify cited keys in BibTeX entries, used by `bibtex-find-crossref'.
1204
1205 *** Command `bibtex-url' allows multiple URLs per entry.
1206
1207 ** Bookmarks
1208
1209 *** bookmark.el saves bookmarks in a pre-Emacs-23-incompatible file format
1210 bookmark.el can read a .emacs.bmk file saved by an older Emacs, but an
1211 older Emacs cannot read one saved by Emacs 23.
1212
1213 ** Calendar and diary
1214
1215 *** There is a new date style, `iso', essentially year/month/day.
1216 The variable `european-calendar-style' is obsolete - use `calendar-date-style'.
1217 Similarly, the commands `american-calendar' and `european-calendar'
1218 should be replaced by `calendar-set-date-style'.
1219
1220 *** The calendar namespace has been rationalized.
1221 All functions and variables now begin with a `calendar-', `diary-', or
1222 `holiday-' prefix. The various calendar systems have secondary
1223 prefixes, eg `calendar-french-'. The old names you are likely to use
1224 directly still exist, for the time being, as aliases, but please start
1225 using the new names.
1226
1227 *** The whitespace in the calendar layout can be customized.
1228 See the variables:
1229 calendar-left-margin, calendar-intermonth-spacing, calendar-column-width,
1230 calendar-day-header-width, and calendar-day-digit-width.
1231
1232 *** Text (e.g. ISO weeks) can be displayed between the calendar months.
1233 See the variables calendar-intermonth-header and calendar-intermonth-text.
1234
1235 *** The function `holiday-chinese' computes holidays on the Chinese calendar.
1236 It has been used to add items to the list `holiday-oriental-holidays'.
1237
1238 *** `diary-remind' accepts a negative number -DAYS as a shorthand for
1239 the list (1 2 ... DAYS).
1240
1241 ** Change Log mode
1242
1243 *** The new command C-c C-f (change-log-find-file) finds the file
1244 associated with the current log entry.
1245
1246 *** The new command C-c C-c (change-log-goto-source) goes to the
1247 source code associated with a log entry.
1248
1249 ** Compile and grep modes
1250
1251 *** The mode-line entry for the *compilation* and *grep* buffer is color coded.
1252 It has different colors for to show that: (a) the command is still
1253 running, (b) successful completion, (c) error.
1254
1255 *** compilation-auto-jump-to-first-error tells `compile' to jump to
1256 the first error encountered during compilations.
1257
1258 *** compilation-scroll-output accepts a new value, `first-error', which
1259 says to stop auto scrolling at the first error that occurs.
1260
1261 *** The `cc' alias for C++ files in `grep-file-aliases' has been
1262 improved. `hh' can be used to match C++ header files and `cchh' both
1263 C++ sources and headers.
1264
1265 ** Copyright
1266
1267 *** You can specify your copyright holders' names.
1268 Only copyright lines with holders matching `copyright-names-regexp' are
1269 considered for update.
1270
1271 *** Copyrights can be at the end of the buffer.
1272 This is controlled by `copyright-at-end-flag' (used by, e.g., change-log-mode).
1273
1274 ** Custom
1275
1276 *** defcustom accepts new keyword arguments, `:safe' and `:risky', which
1277 set a variable's `safe-local-variable' and `risky-local-variable' property.
1278
1279 ** Diff mode
1280
1281 *** diff-refine-hunk highlights word-level details of changes in a diff hunk.
1282 It's used automatically as you move through hunks, see
1283 diff-auto-refine-mode. It is bound to `C-c C-b'.
1284
1285 *** diff-add-change-log-entries-other-window iterates through the diff
1286 buffer and tries to create ChangeLog entries for each change.
1287 It is bound to `C-x 4 A'.
1288
1289 *** Turning on `whitespace-mode' in a diff buffer will show trailing
1290 whitespace problems in the modified lines.
1291
1292 ** Dired
1293
1294 *** In Dired, C-x C-q now runs the command wdired-change-to-wdired-mode,
1295 and C-x C-q in wdired-mode exits it with asking a question about
1296 saving changes.
1297
1298 *** `&' runs the command `dired-do-async-shell-command' that executes
1299 the command asynchronously without the need to manually add ampersand
1300 to the end of the command. Its output appears in the buffer `*Async Shell
1301 Command*'.
1302
1303 *** `M-s f C-s' and `M-s f M-C-s' run Isearch that matches only at file names.
1304 When a new user option `dired-isearch-filenames' is t, then even ordinary
1305 Isearch started with `C-s' and `C-M-s' matches only at file names in the
1306 Dired buffer. When `dired-isearch-filenames' is `dwim' then activation of
1307 file name Isearch depends on the position of point - if point is on a file
1308 name initially, then Isearch matches only file names, otherwise it matches
1309 everywhere in the Dired buffer. You can toggle file names matching on or
1310 off by typing `M-s f' in Isearch mode.
1311
1312 *** `M-s a C-s' and `M-s a M-C-s' run multi-file Isearch on the marked files.
1313 They visit the first marked file in the sequence and display the usual Isearch
1314 prompt for a string or a regexp where all Isearch commands are available.
1315
1316 *** `Q' in Dired provides two new keys for multi-file replacement.
1317 The upper case key `Y' replaces all remaining matches in all remaining files
1318 with no more questions. The upper case key `N' stops doing replacements
1319 in the current file and skips to the next file. These multi-file keys
1320 are available for all commands that use `tags-query-replace'
1321 including `dired-do-query-replace-regexp', `vc-dir-query-replace-regexp',
1322 `reftex-query-replace-document'.
1323
1324 ** Fortran
1325
1326 *** The line length of fixed-form Fortran is not fixed at 72 any more.
1327 Customize the variable `fortran-line-length' to change it.
1328
1329 *** In Fortran mode, M-; is now bound to the standard comment-dwim,
1330 rather than fortran-indent-comment.
1331
1332 *** (The increasingly misnamed) F90 mode supports Fortran 2003 syntax.
1333
1334 ** Gnus
1335
1336 *** The Gnus package has been updated
1337 There are many news features, bug fixes and improvements; see the file
1338 GNUS-NEWS or the node "No Gnus" in the Gnus manual for details.
1339
1340 *** In Emacs 23, Gnus uses Emacs' new internal coding system `utf-8-emacs' for
1341 saving articles drafts and ~/.newsrc.eld. These file may not be read
1342 correctly in Emacs 22 and below. If you want to Gnus across different Emacs
1343 versions, you may set `mm-auto-save-coding-system' to `emacs-mule'.
1344
1345 *** Passwords are consistently loaded through `auth-source'
1346 Gnus can use `auth-source' for POP and IMAP passwords. Also see that
1347 `smtpmail' and `url' support `auth-source' for SMTP and HTTP/HTTPS/RSS
1348 authentication respectively.
1349
1350 ** Help mode
1351
1352 *** New macro `with-help-window' should set up help windows better
1353 than `with-output-to-temp-buffer' with `print-help-return-message'.
1354
1355 *** New option `help-window-select' permits to customize whether help
1356 window shall be automatically selected when invoking help.
1357
1358 *** New variable `help-window-point-marker' permits one to specify a new
1359 position for point in help window (for example in `view-lossage').
1360
1361 ** Isearch
1362
1363 *** New command `isearch-forward-word' bound globally to `M-s w' starts
1364 incremental word search. New command `isearch-toggle-word' bound to the
1365 same key `M-s w' in Isearch mode toggles word searching on or off
1366 while Isearch is active.
1367
1368 *** New command `isearch-highlight-regexp' bound to `M-s h r' in Isearch
1369 mode runs `highlight-regexp' (`hi-lock-face-buffer') with the current
1370 search string as its regexp argument. The same key `M-s h r' and
1371 other keys on the `M-s h' prefix are bound globally to the command
1372 `highlight-regexp' and other hi-lock commands.
1373
1374 *** New command `isearch-occur' bound to `M-s o' in Isearch mode
1375 runs `occur' with the current search string. The same key `M-s o'
1376 is bound globally to the command `occur'.
1377
1378 *** Isearch can now search through multiple ChangeLog files.
1379 When running Isearch in a ChangeLog file, if the search fails,
1380 then another C-s tries searching the previous ChangeLog,
1381 if there is one (e.g. going from ChangeLog to ChangeLog.12).
1382 This is enabled if multi-isearch-search is non-nil.
1383
1384 *** Two new commands to start Isearch on a list of marked buffers
1385 for buff-menu.el and ibuffer.el are bound to the keys `M-s a C-s' and
1386 `M-s a M-C-s'.
1387
1388 *** The part of an Isearch that failed to match is highlighted in
1389 `isearch-fail' face.
1390
1391 *** `C-h C-h' in Isearch mode displays isearch-specific Help screen,
1392 `C-h b' displays all Isearch key bindings, `C-h k' displays the full
1393 documentation of the given Isearch key sequence, `C-h m' displays
1394 documentation of Isearch mode. All the rest Help commands exit Isearch mode
1395 and execute their global definitions.
1396
1397 *** When started in the minibuffer, Isearch searches in the minibuffer
1398 history. See `Minibuffer changes', above.
1399
1400 ** MH-E
1401
1402 *** Upgraded to MH-E version 8.2. See MH-E-NEWS for details.
1403
1404 ** Python
1405 *** The file etc/emacs.py now supports both Python 2 and 3, meaning
1406 that either version can be used as inferior Python by python.el.
1407
1408 *** Python mode now has `pdbtrack' functionality. When using pdb to
1409 debug a Python program, pdbtrack notices the pdb prompt and displays
1410 the source file and line that the program is stopped at, much the same
1411 way as gud-mode does for debugging C programs with gdb.
1412
1413 ** Recentf
1414
1415 *** The default value of `recentf-keep' prevents from checking of
1416 remote files, if there is no established connection to the
1417 corresponding remote host.
1418
1419 ** Rmail
1420
1421 *** Rmail no longer converts the messages to Babyl format.
1422 Instead, it uses UNIX mbox format, both on disk and in Rmail buffers,
1423 and does conversion and decoding when a message is displayed.
1424
1425 The first time you visit an Rmail file in Babyl format, Rmail
1426 automatically converts it to mbox format. This is a one-time
1427 conversion, but it can take a few minutes, depending on how fast is
1428 your machine and on the size of the file. You should find the rest of
1429 Rmail usage unaltered.
1430
1431 However, M-x set-rmail-inbox-list now lasts only for one session
1432 because there is no way to save the list of inbox files in an
1433 mbox-format file.
1434
1435 Also, whereas with Babyl format M-x find-file would switch to Rmail
1436 mode, with mbox format this is no longer the case (there being no way
1437 to add an "-*- rmail-*-" cookie to an mbox file). Use C-u M-x rmail
1438 instead.
1439
1440 If you have written any extensions to Rmail, they are likely to need
1441 updating. Conceptually, the Rmail buffer that you see is no longer
1442 just a narrowed portion of the whole. So you cannot access the whole
1443 of a message (or message collection) by a simple save-restriction and
1444 widen. Instead, there are two buffers: the rmail-buffer, and the
1445 rmail-view-buffer. The former is the buffer that you see, the latter
1446 is invisible. Most of the time, the invisible `view' buffer contains
1447 the full contents of the Rmail file, and the Rmail buffer contains a
1448 decoded copy of the current message (with only a subset of the
1449 headers). In this state, Rmail is said to be `swapped'.
1450
1451 You may find the following functions useful:
1452
1453 `rmail-get-header' and `rmail-set-header' get or set the value of a
1454 message header, whether or not it is currently visible.
1455
1456 `rmail-apply-in-message' is a general purpose function that calls a
1457 function (with arguments) which you specify on the full text of a given
1458 message. To further narrow to just the headers, search forward for "\n\n".
1459
1460 *** The new command `rmail-mime' displays MIME messages.
1461 It is bound to `v' in Rmail buffers and summaries. It displays plain
1462 text and multipart messages in a temporary buffer, and offers buttons
1463 to save attachments.
1464
1465 *** The command `rmail-redecode-body' no longer accepts the optional arg RAW.
1466 Since Rmail now holds messages in their original undecoded form in a
1467 separate buffer, `rmail-redecode-body' no longer encodes the original
1468 message, and therefore there should be no need to avoid encoding it.
1469
1470 *** The o command is now `rmail-output'. It is an all-purpose command
1471 for copying messages from Rmail and appending them to files. It
1472 handles Babyl-format files as well as mbox-format files, and it
1473 handles both kinds properly when they are visited in Emacs. It always
1474 copies the full headers of the message.
1475
1476 *** The C-o command is now `rmail-output-as-seen'. It uses
1477 the message as displayed, appending it to an mbox file.
1478
1479 *** The modified status of the Rmail buffer is reported in the mode-line.
1480 Previously, this information was hidden.
1481
1482 ** TeX modes
1483
1484 *** New option latex-indent-within-escaped-parens
1485 permits to customize indentation of LaTeX environments delimited
1486 by escaped parens.
1487
1488 ** T-mouse Mode
1489
1490 *** If the gpm mouse server is running and t-mouse-mode is enabled,
1491 Emacs uses a Unix socket in a GNU/Linux console to talk to server,
1492 rather than faking events using the client program mev. This C level
1493 approach provides mouse highlighting and help echoing in the
1494 minibuffer.
1495
1496 ** Tramp
1497
1498 *** New connection methods.
1499 The new methods "plinkx", "plink2", "psftp", "sftp" and "fish" have
1500 been introduced. There are also new so-called gateway methods
1501 "tunnel" and "socks".
1502
1503 *** IPv6 addresses.
1504 IPv6 addresses are supported now as host names. They must be embedded
1505 in square brackets, like in "/ssh:[::1]:".
1506
1507 *** Multihop syntax has been removed.
1508 The pseudo-method "multi" has been removed. Instead, multi hops
1509 can be specified by the new variable `tramp-default-proxies-alist'.
1510
1511 *** More default settings.
1512 Default values can be set via the variables `tramp-default-user',
1513 `tramp-default-user-alist' and `tramp-default-host'.
1514
1515 *** Connection information is cached.
1516 In order to reduce connection setup, information about used
1517 connections is kept persistently in a file. The name of this file is
1518 defined in the variable `tramp-persistency-file-name'.
1519
1520 *** Control of remote processes.
1521 Running processes on a remote host can be controlled by settings in
1522 `tramp-remote-path' and `tramp-remote-process-environment'.
1523
1524 *** Success of remote copy is checked.
1525 When the variable `file-precious-flag' is set, the success of a remote
1526 file copy is checked via the file's checksum.
1527
1528 *** Passwords can be read from an authentification file.
1529 Tramp uses the package `auth-source' to read passwords from a file, if
1530 necessary.
1531
1532 ** VC and related modes
1533
1534 *** VC now supports applying VC operations to a set of files at a time.
1535 This enables VC to work much more effectively with changeset-oriented
1536 version-control systems such as Subversion, GNU Arch, Mercurial, Git
1537 and Bzr. VC will now pass a multiple-file commit to these systems as
1538 a single changeset.
1539
1540 *** vc-dir is a new command that displays file names and their VC
1541 status. It allows to apply various VC operations to a file, a
1542 directory or a set of files/directories.
1543
1544 *** VC switches are no longer appended, rather the first non-nil value is used.
1545 (This was for the most part true in Emacs 22, but was not advertised).
1546 This is because there is an increasing variety of VC systems, and they
1547 do not all accept the same "common" options. For example, a CVS diff
1548 command used to append the values of `vc-cvs-diff-switches',
1549 `vc-diff-switches', and `diff-switches'. Now the first non-nil value
1550 from that sequence is used. The special value `t' means "no switches".
1551
1552 *** Clicking on the VC mode-line entry now pops the VC menu.
1553
1554 *** The VC mode-line entry now has a tooltip that explains the VC file status.
1555
1556 *** In VC Annotate mode, the key bindings have changed to use lower
1557 case keys instead of the upper case keys used in the past.
1558
1559 *** In VC Annotate mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1560 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1561 by typing the D key. Using the "Show changeset diff of revision at
1562 line" menu entry does the same thing.
1563
1564 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type v to toggle the annotation visibility.
1565
1566 *** In VC Annotate mode, you can type f to show the file revision on
1567 the current line.
1568
1569 *** Asynchronous VC commands display [Waiting...] in the mode-line
1570 of the corresponding buffer as long as the asynchronous process is
1571 active.
1572
1573 *** Log entries can be modified using the key "e" in log-view.
1574 For now only CVS, RCS, SCCS and SVN support this functionality.
1575 This is done by the `modify-change-comment' backend function.
1576
1577 *** In log-view-mode, for VC systems that support changesets, you can
1578 see the diff for the whole changeset (not only for the current file)
1579 by typing the D key or using the "Changeset Diff" menu entry.
1580
1581 *** In Log Edit mode, C-c C-d now shows the diff for the files involved.
1582
1583 *** vc-git supports the "git grep" command.
1584
1585 *** VC Support for Meta-CVS has been removed for lack of a maintainer able
1586 to update it to the new VC.
1587
1588 ** Miscellaneous
1589
1590 *** comint-mode uses `start-file-process' now (see Lisp Changes).
1591 If `default-directory' is a remote file name, subprocesses are started
1592 on the corresponding remote system.
1593
1594 *** Eldoc highlights the function argument under point
1595 with the face `eldoc-highlight-function-argument'.
1596
1597 *** In Etags, the --members option is now the default.
1598 Use --no-members if you want the old default behavior of not tagging
1599 struct members in C, members variables in C++ and variables in PHP.
1600
1601 *** The `gdb' command only works with the graphical interface now.
1602 Use `gud-gdb' if you want the (old) text command mode.
1603
1604 *** goto-address.el provides two new minor modes, goto-address-mode and
1605 goto-address-prog-mode, which buttonize URLS and email addresses.
1606
1607 *** The new command `eshell/info' runs info in an eshell buffer.
1608
1609 *** The new variable `ffap-rfc-directories' specifies a list of local
1610 directories in which `ffap-rfc' will first search for RFCs.
1611
1612 *** hide-ifdef-mode allows shadowing ifdef-blocks instead of hiding them.
1613 See option `hide-ifdef-shadow' and function `hide-ifdef-toggle-shadowing'.
1614
1615 *** `icomplete-prospects-height' now supercedes `icomplete-prospects-length'.
1616
1617 *** Info displays breadcrumbs in the header of the page.
1618 See Info-breadcrumbs-depth to control it.
1619
1620 *** net-utils has an `iwconfig' command, similar to the existing `ifconfig'.
1621 It is used to configure wireless interfaces.
1622
1623 *** The pcmpl-unix package supports hostname completion for ssh and scp.
1624
1625 *** sgml-electric-tag-pair-mode lets you simultaneously edit matched tag pairs.
1626
1627 *** smerge-refine highlights word-level details of changes in conflict.
1628 It's used automatically as you move through conflicts, see
1629 smerge-auto-refine-mode.
1630
1631 *** talk.el has been extended for multiple tty support.
1632
1633 *** A new command `display-time-world' has been added to the Time
1634 package. It creates a buffer with an updating time display using
1635 several time zones.
1636
1637 *** The appearance of superscript and subscript in TeX is more customizable.
1638 See the documentation of the variables: tex-fontify-script,
1639 tex-font-script-display, tex-suscript-height-ratio, and
1640 tex-suscript-height-minimum.
1641
1642 *** view-remove-frame-by-deleting is now by default t
1643 since users found iconification of view-mode frames distracting.
1644
1645 *** WoMan tries to add locale-specific manual page directories to the
1646 search path. This can be disabled by setting `woman-locale' to nil.
1647
1648 \f
1649 * Changes in Emacs 23.1 on non-free operating systems
1650
1651 ** Case is now considered significant in completion on MS-Windows.
1652 The default value of `completion-ignore-case' is now nil on
1653 MS-Windows, the same as it is for other operating systems. The
1654 variable doesn't apply to reading a file name -- in that case Emacs
1655 heeds `read-file-name-completion-ignore-case' instead.
1656
1657 ** IPv6 is supported on MS-Windows.
1658 Emacs now supports IPv6 on Windows XP and later, and earlier versions
1659 of Windows with third party IPv6 stacks installed. In Emacs 22, IPv6 was
1660 supported on other platforms, but not on Windows due to using the winsock
1661 1.1 header file, even though Emacs was linking to the winsock 2 library.
1662
1663 ** Busy cursor (hourglass) now displays on MS-Windows.
1664 When Emacs is busy, an hourglass mouse cursor is displayed on Windows.
1665 In Emacs 22 only X supported the busy cursor.
1666
1667 ** Battery status is available on MS-Windows
1668 Emacs can now display the battery status in the mode-line when enabled with
1669 display-battery-mode or from the Options menu. More verbose battery
1670 information is also available with the command `battery'. In Emacs 22
1671 battery status was supported only on GNU/Linux and Mac.
1672
1673 ** More keys available on MS-Windows.
1674 Keys normally associated with IMEs, and some exotic keys not normally found
1675 on standard keyboards have been given names so they can be bound to functions
1676 inside Emacs. If there are keys on your keyboard that have not been exposed
1677 to Emacs in the past, try C-h k to see if they are available now.
1678
1679 Emacs can now bind functions to the extra buttons for media player and
1680 browser control present on some keyboards. These buttons are disabled
1681 by default, since enabling them prevents their system-wide use when
1682 Emacs has focus. To enable them, set the variable
1683 w32-pass-multimedia-buttons to nil. See the doc string of that variable
1684 for the list of extra keys that are available.
1685
1686 ** BDF fonts no longer supported on MS-Windows.
1687 The font backend was completely rewritten for this release. The focus
1688 on Windows has been getting acceptable performance and full unicode
1689 support, including complex script shaping for native Windows fonts. A
1690 rewrite of the BDF font support has not happened due to lack of time
1691 and developers. If demand still exists for such a backend even with
1692 the improved language support for native Windows fonts, future
1693 development in this direction will most likely be based on the
1694 freetype library, giving access to a wider range of font formats.
1695
1696 \f
1697 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1698
1699 ** Variables cannot be both buffer-local and frame-local any more.
1700
1701 ** `functionp' returns nil for special forms.
1702 I.e., it only returns t for objects that can be passed to `funcall'.
1703
1704 ** The behavior of map-char-table has changed. It may call the
1705 specified function with a cons (FROM . TO) as a key if characters in
1706 that range have the same value.
1707
1708 ** Process changes
1709
1710 *** The function `dired-call-process' has been removed.
1711
1712 *** The multibyteness of process filters is now determined by the
1713 coding-system used for decoding. The functions
1714 `process-filter-multibyte-p' and `set-process-filter-multibyte' are
1715 obsolete.
1716
1717 ** The variable `byte-compile-warnings' can now be a list starting with `not',
1718 meaning to disable the specified warnings. The meaning of this list
1719 may therefore be the reverse of what you expect (of course, this is
1720 only an issue if you make use of the new `not' syntax). Rather than
1721 checking/manipulating elements directly, use the new functions
1722 `byte-compile-warning-enabled-p', `byte-compile-disable-warning', and
1723 `byte-compile-enable-warning.'
1724
1725 ** `mode-name' is no longer guaranteed to be a string.
1726 Use `(format-mode-line mode-name)' to ensure a string value.
1727
1728 ** The function x-font-family-list has been removed.
1729 Use the new function font-family-list (see Lisp Changes, below).
1730
1731 ** Internationalization changes
1732
1733 *** The value of the function `charset-id' is now always 0.
1734
1735 *** The functions `register-char-codings' and `coding-system-spec'
1736 have been removed.
1737
1738 *** The cpXXX coding systems are now supported automatically.
1739 The functions cp-...-codepage, which you had to use in Emacs 22 to
1740 enable support for these coding systems, have been deleted.
1741
1742 *** The following features have been removed. They were used for
1743 displaying various scripts with specific fonts, and are no longer
1744 needed now that OpenType font support is available:
1745
1746 **** `devanagari' and `devan-util', and all associated devanagari-* and
1747 dev-* functions and variables (formerly used for Devanagari script).
1748
1749 **** `kannada' and `knd-util', and all associated kannada-* and knd-*
1750 functions and variables (formerly used for Kannada script).
1751
1752 **** `malayalam' and `mlm-util', and all associated malayalam-* and
1753 mlm-* functions and variables (formerly used for Malayalam script).
1754
1755 **** `tamil' and `tml-util, and all associated tamil-* and tml-*
1756 functions and variables (formerly used for Tamil script).
1757
1758 *** The meaning of NAME argument of `set-fontset-font' is changed.
1759 Previously nil is accepted as the default fontset. Now, nil is for
1760 the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the default fontset.
1761
1762 *** The meaning of FONTSET argument of `print-fontset' is changed.
1763 Now, nil is for the fontset of the selected frame and t is for the
1764 default fontset.
1765
1766 ** If a function in write-region-annotate-functions returns with a
1767 different buffer current, Emacs no longer kills that buffer
1768 automatically. This behavior existed in previous versions of Emacs,
1769 but was undocumented. To kill a buffer after write-region, give the
1770 variable `write-region-post-annotation-function' a buffer-local value
1771 of `kill-buffer'.
1772
1773 ** The variable temp-file-name-pattern has been removed.
1774 This variable was only used by call-process-region, which now uses
1775 temporary-file-directory instead.
1776
1777 ** The COUNT and SYSTEM-FLAG arguments to define-abbrev have been
1778 removed. The function now takes extra arguments for specifying
1779 arbitrary abbrev properties.
1780
1781 ** end-of-defun-function is now guaranteed to work only when called
1782 from the start of a defun. It must now leave point exactly at the end
1783 of defun, since `end-of-defun' now itself moves forward over
1784 whitespace after calling it.
1785
1786 \f
1787 * Lisp Changes in Emacs 23.1
1788
1789 ** The new variable `generate-autoload-cookie' controls the magic comment
1790 string used by `update-file-autoloads' to find autoloaded forms. The
1791 variable `generated-autoload-file' similarly controls the name of the
1792 file where `update-file-autoloads' writes the calls to `autoload'.
1793 The default values are ";;;###autoload" and `loaddefs.el',
1794 respectively.
1795
1796 ** New primitives `list-system-processes' and `process-attributes'
1797 let Lisp programs access the processes that are running on the local
1798 machine. See the doc strings of these functions for more details.
1799 Not all platforms support accessing this information; on those that
1800 don't, these primitives will return nil.
1801
1802 ** New variable `user-emacs-directory'.
1803 Use this instead of "~/.emacs.d".
1804
1805 ** If a local hook function has a non-nil `permanent-local-hook'
1806 property, `kill-all-local-variables' does not remove it from the local
1807 value of the hook variable; it remains even if you change major modes.
1808
1809 ** `frame-inherited-parameters' lets new frames inherit parameters from
1810 the selected frame.
1811
1812 ** New keymap `input-decode-map' overrides like key-translation-map, but
1813 applies before function-key-map. Also it is terminal-local contrary to
1814 key-translation-map. Terminal-specific key-sequences are generally added to
1815 this map rather than to function-key-map now.
1816
1817 ** `ignore-errors' is now a standard macro (does not require the CL package).
1818
1819 ** `interprogram-paste-function' can now return one string or a list
1820 of strings. In the latter case, Emacs puts the second and following
1821 strings on the kill ring.
1822
1823 ** In `condition-case', a handler can specify "let the debugger run first".
1824 You do this by writing `debug' in the list of conditions to be handled,
1825 like this:
1826
1827 (condition-case nil
1828 (foo bar)
1829 ((debug error) nil))
1830
1831 ** clone-indirect-buffer now runs the clone-indirect-buffer-hook.
1832
1833 ** `beginning-of-defun-function' now takes one argument, the count given to
1834 `beginning-of-defun'. (N.B. `end-of-defun-function' doesn't take any
1835 arguments.)
1836
1837 ** `file-remote-p' has new optional parameters IDENTIFICATION and CONNECTED.
1838 IDENTIFICATION specifies which part of the remote identifier has to be
1839 returned. With CONNECTED passed non-nil, it is checked whether a
1840 remote connection has been established already.
1841
1842 ** The new macro `declare-function' suppresses compiler warnings about
1843 undefined functions.
1844
1845 ** Changes to interactive function handling
1846
1847 *** The new interactive spec code ^ says to first call
1848 handle-shift-selection if shift-select-mode is non-nil, before reading
1849 the command arguments. This is used for shift-selection (see above).
1850
1851 *** Built-in functions can now have an interactive specification that
1852 is not a prompt string. If the `intspec' parameter of a `DEFUN'
1853 starts with a `(', the string is evaluated as a Lisp form.
1854
1855 *** The interactive-form of a function can be added post-facto via the
1856 `interactive-form' symbol property. Mostly useful to add complex
1857 interactive forms to subroutines.
1858
1859 ** Region changes
1860
1861 *** Commands should use `use-region-p' to test whether there is
1862 an active region that they should operate on.
1863
1864 *** `region-active-p' returns non-nil when Transient Mark mode is
1865 enabled and the mark is active. Most commands that act specially on
1866 the active region in Transient Mark mode should use `use-region-p'
1867 instead of `region-active-p', because `use-region-p' obeys the new
1868 user option `use-empty-active-region' (see Editing Changes, above).
1869
1870 *** If a command sets `transient-mark-mode' to (only . OLDVAL), that
1871 means to activate transient-mark-mode temporarily, until the next
1872 unshifted point motion command or mark deactivation. Afterwards,
1873 reset transient-mark-mode to the value OLDVAL. The values `only' and
1874 `identity', introduced in Emacs 22, are now deprecated.
1875
1876 ** Emacs session information
1877
1878 *** The new variables `before-init-time' and `after-init-time' record the
1879 value of `current-time' before and after Emacs loads the init files.
1880
1881 *** The new function `emacs-uptime' returns the uptime of an Emacs instance.
1882
1883 *** The new function `emacs-init-time' returns the duration of the
1884 Emacs initialization.
1885
1886 ** Changes affecting display-buffer
1887
1888 *** display-buffer tries to be smarter when splitting windows.
1889 The new option split-window-preferred-function lets you specify your own
1890 function to pop up new windows. Its default value split-window-sensibly
1891 can split a window either vertically or horizontally, whichever seems
1892 more suitable in the current configuration. You can tune the behavior
1893 of split-window-sensibly by customizing split-height-threshold and the
1894 new option split-width-threshold. Both options now take the value nil
1895 to inhibit splitting in one direction. Setting split-width-threshold to
1896 nil inhibits horizontal splitting and gets you the behavior of Emacs 22
1897 in this respect. In any case, display-buffer may now split the largest
1898 window vertically even when it is not as wide as the containing frame.
1899
1900 *** If pop-up-frames has the value `graphic-only', display-buffer only
1901 makes a separate frame on graphic displays.
1902
1903 *** select-frame and set-frame-selected-window have a new optional
1904 argument NORECORD. If non-nil, this will avoid messing with the order
1905 of recently selected windows and the buffer list.
1906
1907 ** Window parameters can now be defined.
1908 These are analogous to frame parameters, but are associated with
1909 individual windows.
1910
1911 *** The new functions window-parameters, window-parameter, and
1912 set-window-parameter are used to query and set window parameters.
1913
1914 ** Minibuffer and completion changes
1915
1916 *** A list of default values can be specified for the DEFAULT argument of
1917 functions `read-from-minibuffer', `read-string', `read-command',
1918 `read-variable', `read-buffer', `completing-read'. Elements of this list
1919 are available for inserting into the minibuffer by typing `M-n'.
1920 For empty input these functions return the first element of this list.
1921
1922 *** New function `read-regexp' uses the regexp history and some useful
1923 regexp defaults (string at point, last Isearch/replacement regexp/string)
1924 via M-n when reading a regexp in the minibuffer.
1925
1926 *** minibuffer-local-must-match-filename-map is now named
1927 minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map.
1928
1929 *** The `require-match' argument to `completing-read' accepts the new
1930 values `confirm-only' and `confirm-after-completion'.
1931
1932 ** Search and replacement changes
1933
1934 *** The regexp form \(?<num>:<regexp>\) specifies the group number explicitly.
1935
1936 *** New function `match-substitute-replacement' returns the result of
1937 `replace-match' without actually using it in the buffer.
1938
1939 *** The new variable `replace-search-function' determines the function
1940 to use for searching in query-replace and replace-string. The
1941 function it specifies is called by `perform-replace' when its 4th
1942 argument is nil.
1943
1944 *** The new variable `replace-re-search-function' determines the
1945 function to use for searching in `query-replace-regexp',
1946 `replace-regexp', `query-replace-regexp-eval', and
1947 `map-query-replace-regexp'. The function it specifies is called by
1948 `perform-replace' when its 4th argument is non-nil.
1949
1950 *** New keymap `search-map' bound to `M-s' provides global bindings
1951 for search related commands.
1952
1953 *** New keymap `multi-query-replace-map' contains additonal keys bound
1954 to `automatic-all' and `exit-current' for multi-buffer interactive replacement.
1955
1956 *** The variable `inhibit-changing-match-data', if non-nil, prevents
1957 the search and match primitives from changing the match data.
1958
1959 *** New functions `word-search-forward-lax' and `word-search-backward-lax'.
1960 These are like `word-search-forward and `word-search-backward', except
1961 that the end of the search string need not match a word boundary,
1962 unless it ends in whitespace.
1963
1964 ** File handling changes
1965
1966 *** set-file-modes is now interactive and can take the mode value in
1967 symbolic notation thanks to auxiliary functions.
1968
1969 *** file-local-variables-alist stores an alist of file-local
1970 variables defined in the current buffer.
1971
1972 ** Face-remapping
1973
1974 *** Each face can be remapped to a different face definition using the
1975 variable `face-remapping-alist'. This is an alist that maps faces to
1976 replacement definitions (which can be face names, lists of face names,
1977 or attribute/value plists. If this variable is buffer-local, the
1978 remapping occurs only in that buffer.
1979
1980 *** text-scale-mode remaps the default face to a larger or smaller
1981 size in the current buffer. This feature is used by the Buffer Face
1982 menu and the new `C-x C-+', `C-x C--', and `C-x C-0' commands (see
1983 Editing Changes, above).
1984
1985 *** New functions:
1986
1987 **** `face-remap-add-relative' adds a face remapping entry to the
1988 current buffer.
1989
1990 **** ``face-remap-remove-relative' removes a face remapping entry from
1991 the current buffer.
1992
1993 **** `face-remap-reset-base' restores a face to its global definition.
1994
1995 **** `face-remap-set-base' sets the base remapping of a face.
1996
1997 ** Process changes
1998
1999 *** The new function `start-file-process' is similar to `start-process',
2000 but obeys file handlers. The file handler is chosen based on
2001 `default-directory'. The functions `start-file-process-shell-command'
2002 and `process-file-shell-command' are also new; they call internally
2003 `start-file-process' and `process-file', respectively.
2004
2005 *** The new function `process-lines' executes an external program and
2006 returns its output as a list of lines.
2007
2008 ** Character code, representation, and charset changes.
2009
2010 *** In multibyte buffers and strings, characters are represented by
2011 UTF-8 byte sequences. The character code space is now 0x0..0x3FFFFF
2012 with no gap; code points 0x0..0x10FFFF are Unicode characters of the
2013 same code points, while code points 0x3FFF80..0x3FFFFF are raw 8-bit
2014 bytes.
2015
2016 *** Generic characters no longer exist.
2017
2018 *** The concept of a charset has changed. A single character may
2019 belong to multiple charsets (e.g. a-grave, U+00E0, belongs to charsets
2020 unicode, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-3, etc).
2021
2022 **** The dimension of a charset is now 1, 2, 3, or 4, and the size of
2023 each dimension is no longer limited to 94 or 96.
2024
2025 **** A dynamic charset priority list is used to infer the charset of
2026 characters for display.
2027
2028 *** The functions `split-char' and `make-char' now accept up to 4
2029 positional codes instead of just 2.
2030
2031 *** The functions `encode-char' and `decode-char' now accept any character sets.
2032
2033 *** The function `define-charset' now accepts a completely different
2034 form of arguments (old-style arguments still work).
2035
2036 *** The value of the function `char-charset' depends on the current
2037 priorities of charsets.
2038
2039 *** The function get-char-code-property now accepts many Unicode base
2040 character properties. They are `name', `general-category',
2041 `canonical-combining-class', `bidi-class', `decomposition',
2042 `decimal-digit-value', `digit-value', `numeric-value', `mirrored',
2043 `old-name', `iso-10646-comment', `uppercase', `lowercase', and
2044 `titlecase'.
2045
2046 *** The functions `modify-syntax-entry' and `modify-category-entry' now
2047 accept a cons of characters as the first argument, and modify all
2048 entries in that range of characters.
2049
2050 *** Use of `translation-table-for-input' for character code unification
2051 is now obsolete, since Emacs 23.1 and later uses Unicode as basis for
2052 internal representation of characters.
2053
2054 *** New functions:
2055
2056 **** `characterp' returns t if and only if the argument is a character.
2057 This replaces `char-valid-p', which is now obsolete.
2058
2059 **** `max-char' returns the maximum character code (currently #x3FFFFF).
2060
2061 **** `define-charset-alias' defines an alias of a charset.
2062
2063 **** `set-charset-priority' sets priorities of charsets.
2064
2065 **** `charset-priority-list' returns a prioritized list of charsets.
2066
2067 **** `unibyte-string' makes a unibyte string from bytes.
2068
2069 **** `define-char-code-property' defines a character code property.
2070
2071 **** `char-code-property-description' returns the description string of
2072 a character code property.
2073
2074 *** New variables:
2075
2076 **** `find-word-boundary-function-table' is a char-table of functions to
2077 search for a word boundary.
2078
2079 **** `char-script-table' is a char-table of script names.
2080
2081 **** `char-width-table' is a char-table of character widths.
2082
2083 **** `print-charset-text-property' controls how to handle `charset' text
2084 property on printing a string.
2085
2086 **** `printable-chars' is a char-table of printable characters.
2087
2088 ** Code conversion changes
2089
2090 *** The new function `define-coding-system' should be used to define a
2091 coding system instead of `make-coding-system' (which is now obsolete).
2092
2093 *** The functions `encode-coding-region' and `decode-coding-region'
2094 have an optional 4th argument to specify where the result of
2095 conversion should go.
2096
2097 *** The functions `encode-coding-string' and `decode-coding-string'
2098 have an optional 4th argument specifying a buffer to store the result
2099 of conversion.
2100
2101 *** The new variable `inhibit-null-byte-detection' controls whether to
2102 consider text with null bytes as binary data. By default, it is
2103 `nil', and Emacs uses `no-conversion' for any text containing null
2104 bytes.
2105
2106 *** The functions `set-coding-priority' and `make-coding-system' are obsolete.
2107
2108 *** New functions:
2109
2110 **** `with-coding-priority' executes Lisp code using the specified
2111 coding system priority order.
2112
2113 **** `check-coding-systems-region' checks if the text in the region is
2114 encodable by the specified coding systems.
2115
2116 **** `coding-system-aliases' returns a list of aliases of a coding system.
2117
2118 **** `coding-system-charset-list' returns a list of charsets supported
2119 by a coding system.
2120
2121 **** `coding-system-priority-list' returns a list of coding systems
2122 ordered by their priorities.
2123
2124 **** `set-coding-system-priority' sets priorities of coding systems.
2125
2126 **** `coding-system-from-name' returns a coding system matching with
2127 the argument name.
2128
2129
2130 ** There is a new input method, Robin, different from Quail.
2131 It has three functionalities:
2132 i) a simple input method (converts an ASCII sequence into a string).
2133 ii) converts an existing buffer substring into another string
2134 iii) reverse conversion (each character produced by a
2135 robin rule can hold the original ASCII sequence as a char-code-property)
2136
2137 *** The new function `robin-define-package' defines a Robin package.
2138
2139 *** The new function `robin-modify-package' modifies an existing Robin package.
2140
2141 *** The new function `robin-use-package' starts using a Robin package
2142 as an input method.
2143
2144 *** The new function `string-to-unibyte' is like `string-as-unibyte'
2145 but signals an error if STRING contains a non-ASCII, non-eight-bit
2146 character.
2147
2148 ** Changes related to the new font backend
2149
2150 *** Which font backends to use can be specified by the X resource
2151 "FontBackend". For instance, to use both X core fonts and Xft fonts:
2152
2153 Emacs.FontBackend: x,xft
2154
2155 If this resource is not set, Emacs tries to use all font backends
2156 available on your graphic device.
2157
2158 *** New frame parameter `font-backend' specifies a list of
2159 font-backends supported by the frame's graphic device. On X, they are
2160 currently `x' and `xft'.
2161
2162 *** The function `set-fontset-font' now accepts a script name as the
2163 second argument, and has an optional 5th argument to control how to
2164 set the font.
2165
2166 *** New functions:
2167
2168 **** `fontp' checks if the argument is a font-spec or font-entity.
2169
2170 **** `font-spec' creates a new font-spec object.
2171
2172 **** `font-get' returns a font property value.
2173
2174 **** `font-put' sets a font property value.
2175
2176 **** `font-face-attributes' returns a plist of face attributes set by a font.
2177
2178 **** `list-fonts' returns a list of font-entities matching a font spec.
2179
2180 **** `find-font' returns the font-entity best matching the given font spec.
2181
2182 **** `font-family-list' returns a list of family names of available fonts.
2183
2184 **** `font-xlfd-name' returns an XLFD name of a given font spec, font
2185 entity, or font object.
2186
2187 **** `clear-font-cache' clears all font caches.
2188
2189 ** Changes related to multiple-terminal (multi-tty) support
2190
2191 *** $TERM is now set to `dumb' for subprocesses. If you want to know the
2192 $TERM inherited by Emacs you will have to look inside initial-environment.
2193
2194 *** $DISPLAY is now dynamically inherited from the frame's `display'.
2195
2196 *** The `window-system' variable is now frame-local. The new
2197 `initial-window-system' variable contains the `window-system' value
2198 for the first frame. `window-system' is also now a function that
2199 takes a frame argument.
2200
2201 *** The `keyboard-translate-table' variable and the terminal and
2202 keyboard coding systems are now terminal-local.
2203
2204 *** You can specify a terminal device (`tty' parameter) and a terminal
2205 type (`tty-type' parameter) to `make-terminal-frame'.
2206
2207 *** The function `make-frame-on-display' now works during a tty
2208 session.
2209
2210 *** A new `terminal' data type.
2211 The functions `get-device-terminal', `terminal-parameters',
2212 `terminal-parameter', `set-terminal-parameter' use this data type.
2213
2214 *** Function key sequences are now mapped using `local-function-key-map',
2215 a new variable. This inherits from the global variable function-key-map,
2216 which is not used directly any more.
2217
2218 *** New hooks:
2219
2220 **** before-hack-local-variables-hook is called after setting new
2221 variable file-local-variables-alist, and before actually applying the
2222 file-local variables.
2223
2224 **** `suspend-tty-functions' and `resume-tty-functions' are called
2225 after a tty frame has been suspended or resumed, respectively. The
2226 functions are called with the terminal id of the frame being
2227 suspended/resumed as a parameter.
2228
2229 **** The special hook `delete-terminal-functions' is called before
2230 deleting a terminal.
2231
2232 *** New functions:
2233
2234 **** `delete-terminal'
2235
2236 **** `suspend-tty'
2237
2238 **** `resume-tty'.
2239
2240 *** `initial-environment' holds the environment inherited from Emacs's parent.
2241
2242 ** Redisplay changes
2243
2244 *** For underlined characters, the distance between the underline and
2245 the baseline is controlled by a new variable, `underline-minimum-offset'.
2246
2247 *** You can now pass the value of the `invisible' property to
2248 invisible-p to check whether it would cause the text to be invisible.
2249 This is convenient when checking invisibility of text with no buffer
2250 position (e.g. in before/after-strings).
2251
2252 *** `clear-image-cache' can be told to flush only images of a specific file.
2253
2254 *** `vertical-motion' can now be given a goal column.
2255 It now accepts a cons cell (COLS . LINES) in its first argument, which
2256 says to stop, where possible, at a pixel x-position equal to COLS
2257 times the default column width.
2258
2259 *** redisplay-end-trigger-functions, set-window-redisplay-end-trigger,
2260 and window-redisplay-end-trigger are obsolete. Use `jit-lock-register'
2261 instead.
2262
2263 *** The new variables `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' specify display
2264 specs which are appended at display-time to every continuation line
2265 and non-continuation line, respectively. In addition, Emacs
2266 recognizes the `wrap-prefix' and `line-prefix' text or overlay
2267 properties; these have the same effects as the variables of the same
2268 name, but take precedence.
2269
2270 ** The Lisp interpreter now treats non-breaking space as whitespace.
2271
2272 ** Miscellaneous new functions
2273
2274 *** `apply-partially' performs a "curried" application of a function.
2275
2276 *** `buffer-swap-text' swaps text between two buffers. This can be
2277 useful for modes such as tar-mode, archive-mode, RMAIL.
2278
2279 *** `combine-and-quote-strings' produces a single string from a list of strings
2280 sticking a separator string in between each pair, and quoting those
2281 strings that include the separator as their substring. Useful for
2282 consing shell command lines from the individual arguments.
2283
2284 *** `custom-note-var-changed' tells Custom to treat the change in a
2285 certain variable as having been made within Custom.
2286
2287 *** `face-all-attributes' returns an alist describing all the basic
2288 attributes of a given face.
2289
2290 *** `format-seconds' converts a number of seconds into a readable
2291 string of days, hours, etc.
2292
2293 *** `image-refresh' refreshes all images associated with a given image
2294 specification.
2295
2296 *** `locate-user-emacs-file' helps packages to select the appropriate
2297 place to save user-specific files. It defaults to `user-emacs-directory'
2298 unless the file already exists at $HOME.
2299
2300 *** `read-color' reads a color name using the minibuffer.
2301
2302 *** `read-shell-command' does what its name says, with completion. It
2303 uses the minibuffer-local-shell-command-map for that.
2304
2305 *** `split-string-and-unquote' splits a string into a list of substrings
2306 on the boundaries of a given delimiter, and unquotes the substrings that
2307 are quoted. Useful for taking apart shell commands.
2308
2309 *** The two new functions `looking-at-p' and `string-match-p' can do
2310 the same matching as `looking-at' and `string-match' without changing
2311 the match data.
2312
2313 *** The two new functions `make-serial-process' and
2314 `serial-process-configure' provide a Lisp interface to the new serial
2315 port support (see Emacs changes, above).
2316
2317 ** Miscellaneous new variables
2318
2319 *** `auto-save-include-big-deletions', if non-nil, means auto-save is
2320 not turned off automatically after a big deletion.
2321
2322 *** `read-circle', if nil, disables the reading of recursive Lisp
2323 structures using the #N= and #N# syntax.
2324
2325 *** `this-command-keys-shift-translated' is non-nil if the key
2326 sequence invoking the current command was found by shift-translation.
2327
2328 *** `window-point-insertion-type' determines the insertion-type of the
2329 marker used for window-point.
2330
2331 *** bookmark provides `bookmark-make-record-function' so special major
2332 modes like Info can teach bookmark.el how to save and restore the
2333 relevant data.
2334
2335 *** `fill-forward-paragraph-function' specifies which function the
2336 filling code should use to find paragraph boundaries.
2337
2338 \f
2339 * New Packages for Lisp Programming in Emacs 23.1
2340
2341 ** The new package avl-tree.el deals with the AVL tree data structure.
2342
2343 ** The new package check-declare.el verifies the accuracy of
2344 declare-function macros (see Lisp Changes, above).
2345
2346 ** find-cmd.el can build `find' commands using lisp syntax.
2347
2348 ** The package misearch.el has been added. It allows Isearch to search
2349 through multiple buffers. A variable `multi-isearch-next-buffer-function'
2350 defines the function to call to get the next buffer to search in the series
2351 of multiple buffers. Top-level functions `multi-isearch-buffers',
2352 `multi-isearch-buffers-regexp', `multi-isearch-files' and
2353 `multi-isearch-files-regexp' accept a single argument that specifies
2354 a list of buffers/files to search for a string/regexp.
2355
2356 ** The new major mode `special-mode' is intended as a parent for
2357 major modes such as those that set the "'mode-class 'special" property.
2358
2359 \f
2360 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
2361 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
2362
2363 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
2364 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
2365 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
2366 (at your option) any later version.
2367
2368 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
2369 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
2370 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
2371 GNU General Public License for more details.
2372
2373 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
2374 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
2375
2376 \f
2377 Local variables:
2378 mode: outline
2379 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
2380 end:
2381
2382 arch-tag: e759449d-88b3-4de4-9900-3a6c3dfa23e2