Document new Emacs 24 faces in Lisp manual.
[bpt/emacs.git] / etc / NEWS
1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
2
3 Copyright (C) 2010-2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
5
6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
8
9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
10
11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
13
14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
16
17
18 Temporary note:
19 +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
20 --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
23
24 \f
25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
26
27 ** Configure links against libselinux if it is found.
28 You can disable this by using --without-selinux.
29
30 ---
31 ** By default, the installed Info and man pages are compressed.
32 You can disable this by configuring --without-compress-info.
33
34 ---
35 ** There are new configure options:
36 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
37 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
38 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
39
40 ---
41 ** Emacs can be compiled against Gtk+ 3.0 if you pass --with-x-toolkit=gtk3
42 to configure. Note that other libraries used by Emacs, RSVG and GConf,
43 also depend on Gtk+. You can disable them with --without-rsvg and
44 --without-gconf.
45
46 ---
47 ** There is a new configure option --enable-use-lisp-union-type.
48 This is only useful for Emacs developers to debug certain types of bugs.
49 This is not a new feature; only the configure flag is new.
50
51 ---
52 ** There is a new configure option --with-wide-int.
53 With it, Emacs integers typically have 62 bits, even on 32-bit machines.
54
55 ---
56 ** New translation of the Emacs Tutorial in Hebrew is available.
57 Type `C-u C-h t' to choose it in case your language setup doesn't
58 automatically select it.
59
60 ** Emacs can be compiled with ImageMagick support.
61 Emacs links to ImageMagick if version 6.2.8 or newer of the library is
62 present at build time. To inhibit ImageMagick, use the configure
63 option `--without-imagemagick' .
64
65 ---
66 ** The standalone programs digest-doc and sorted-doc are removed.
67 Emacs now uses Lisp commands `doc-file-to-man' and `doc-file-to-info'.
68
69 ---
70 ** The standalone program `fakemail' is removed.
71 If you need it, feedmail.el provides a superset of the functionality.
72
73 \f
74 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
75
76 ---
77 ** The --unibyte, --multibyte, --no-multibyte, and --no-unibyte
78 command line arguments, and the EMACS_UNIBYTE environment variable, no
79 longer have any effect. (They were declared obsolete in Emacs 23.)
80
81 +++
82 ** New command line option `--no-site-lisp' removes site-lisp directories
83 from load-path. -Q now implies this.
84
85 ---
86 ** On Windows, Emacs now warns when the obsolete _emacs init file is used,
87 and also when HOME is set to C:\ by default.
88
89 \f
90 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
91
92 +++
93 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
94
95 ** Completion
96
97 *** shell-mode uses pcomplete rules, with the standard completion UI.
98
99 *** Many packages have been changed to use completion-at-point rather than
100 their own completion code.
101
102 *** Completion in a non-minibuffer now tries to detect the end of completion
103 and pops down the *Completions* buffer accordingly.
104
105 *** Completion can cycle, depending on completion-cycle-threshold.
106
107 *** New completion style `substring'.
108
109 *** Completion style can be set per-category `completion-category-overrides'.
110
111 *** Completion of buffers now uses substring completion by default.
112
113 *** `completing-read' can be customized using the new variable
114 `completing-read-function'.
115
116 *** minibuffer-local-filename-must-match-map is not used any more.
117 Instead, the bindings in minibuffer-local-filename-completion-map are combined
118 with minibuffer-local-must-match-map.
119
120 ** Mail changes
121
122 The default of `send-mail-function' is now `sendmail-query-once',
123 which asks the user (once) whether to use the smtpmail package to send
124 email, or to use the old defaults that rely on external mail
125 facilities (`sendmail-send-it' on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like
126 systems, and `mailclient-send-it' on Windows).
127
128 *** smtpmail changes
129
130 **** smtpmail now uses encrypted connections (via STARTTLS) if the
131 mail server supports them. It also uses the auth-source framework for
132 getting credentials.
133
134 **** The variable `smtpmail-auth-credentials' has been removed.
135 That variable used to have the default value "~/.authinfo", in which
136 case you won't see any difference. But if you changed it to be a list
137 of user names and passwords, that setting is now ignored; you will be
138 prompted for the user name and the password, which will then be saved
139 to ~/.authinfo.
140
141 You can also manually copy the credentials to your ~/.authinfo file.
142 For example, if you had
143
144 (setq smtpmail-auth-credentials
145 '(("mail.example.org" 25 "jim" "s!cret")))
146
147 then the equivalent line in ~/.authinfo would be
148
149 machine mail.example.org port 25 login jim password s!cret
150
151 **** The variable `smtpmail-starttls-credentials' has been removed.
152
153 If you had that set, then then you need to put
154
155 machine smtp.whatever.foo port 25 key "~/.my_smtp_tls.key" cert "~/.my_smtp_tls.cert"
156
157 in your ~/.authinfo file instead.
158
159 ** Emacs server and client changes
160 +++
161 *** New option `server-port' specifies the port on which the Emacs
162 server should listen.
163 +++
164 *** New emacsclient argument -q/--quiet suppresses some status messages.
165 +++
166 *** New emacsclient argument --frame-parameters can be used to set the
167 frame parameters of a newly-created graphical frame.
168 +++
169 *** If emacsclient shuts down as a result of Emacs signalling an
170 error, its exit status is 1.
171 +++
172 *** New emacsclient argument --parent-id ID.
173 This opens a client frame in parent X window ID, via XEmbed, similar
174 to the --parent-id argument to Emacs.
175
176 ** Internationalization changes
177
178 +++
179 *** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
180
181 Text that includes characters from right-to-left (RTL) scripts, such
182 as Arabic, Farsi, or Hebrew, is displayed in the correct visual order
183 as expected by users of those scripts. This display reordering is a
184 "Full bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode
185 Bidirectional Algorithm. Buffers RTL text should look exactly the
186 same as before.
187
188 For more information, see the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the
189 Emacs Manual.
190
191 +++
192 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-display-reordering'.
193 To disable display reordering in any given buffer, change this to nil.
194
195 +++
196 **** New buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction'.
197 If nil (the default), Emacs determines the base direction of each
198 paragraph from its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional
199 Algorithm.
200
201 Setting this to `right-to-left' or `left-to-right' forces a particular
202 base direction on each paragraph in the buffer.
203
204 Paragraphs whose base direction is right-to-left are displayed
205 starting at the right margin of the window.
206
207 +++
208 *** Enhanced support for characters with no glyphs in available fonts.
209 If a character has no glyphs in any of the available fonts, Emacs
210 normally displays it either as a hexadecimal code in a box or as a
211 thin 1-pixel space. In addition to these two methods, Emacs can
212 display these characters as empty box, as an acronym, or not display
213 them at all. To change how these characters are displayed, customize
214 the variable `glyphless-char-display-control'.
215
216 On character terminals, these methods are used for characters that
217 cannot be encoded by the `terminal-coding-system'.
218
219 ---
220 *** New input methods for Farsi: farsi and farsi-translit.
221
222 ** Improved GTK integration
223
224 *** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
225 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
226
227 *** GTK tool bars can have just text, just images or images and text.
228 Customize `tool-bar-style' to choose style. On a Gnome desktop, the default
229 is taken from the desktop settings.
230
231 *** GTK tool bars can be placed on the left/right or top/bottom of the frame.
232 The frame-parameter tool-bar-position controls this. It takes the values
233 top, left, right or bottom. The Options => Show/Hide menu has entries
234 for this.
235
236 *** The colors for selected text (the region face) are taken from the GTK
237 theme when Emacs is built with GTK.
238
239 *** Emacs uses GTK tooltips by default if built with GTK. You can turn that
240 off by customizing x-gtk-use-system-tooltips.
241
242 +++
243 ** New basic faces `error', `warning', `success' are available to
244 highlight strings that indicate failure, caution or successful operation.
245
246 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
247 with Xft. To change font, use the X resource font, for example:
248 Emacs.pane.menubar.font: Courier-12
249
250 ** On graphical displays, the mode-line no longer ends in dashes.
251 Also, the first dash (which does not indicate anything) is just
252 displayed as a space.
253
254 ** Basic SELinux support has been added.
255 This requires Emacs to be linked with libselinux at build time.
256
257 *** Emacs preserves the SELinux file context when backing up, and
258 optionally when copying files. To this end, copy-file has an extra
259 optional argument, and backup-buffer and friends include the SELinux
260 context in their return values.
261
262 *** The new functions file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
263 get and set the SELinux context of a file.
264
265 *** Tramp offers handlers for file-selinux-context and set-file-selinux-context
266 for remote machines which support SELinux.
267
268 +++
269 ** The function format-time-string now supports the %N directive, for
270 higher-resolution time stamps.
271
272 ** Changes for exiting Emacs
273 +++
274 *** The function kill-emacs is now run upon receipt of the signals
275 SIGTERM and SIGHUP, and upon SIGINT in batch mode.
276 +++
277 *** kill-emacs-hook is now also run in batch mode.
278 If you have code that adds something to kill-emacs-hook, you should
279 consider if it is still appropriate to add it in the noninteractive case.
280
281 ** Scrolling changes
282
283 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
284 (bound to C-v/[next] and M-v/[prior]) do not signal errors at top/bottom
285 of buffer at first key-press (instead move to top/bottom of buffer)
286 when a new variable `scroll-error-top-bottom' is non-nil.
287
288 *** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
289 scroll a line instead of full screen.
290
291 *** New property `scroll-command' should be set on a command's symbol to
292 define it as a scroll command affected by `scroll-preserve-screen-position'.
293
294 +++
295 *** If you customize `scroll-conservatively' to a value greater than 100,
296 Emacs will never recenter point in the window when it scrolls due to
297 cursor motion commands or commands that move point (e.f., `M-g M-g').
298 Previously, you needed to use `most-positive-fixnum' as the value of
299 `scroll-conservatively' to achieve the same effect.
300
301 ---
302 *** ``Aggressive'' scrolling now honors the scroll margins.
303 If you customize `scroll-up-aggressively' or
304 `scroll-down-aggressively' and move point off the window, Emacs now
305 scrolls the window so as to avoid positioning point inside the scroll
306 margin.
307
308 ** Trash changes
309 +++
310 *** `delete-by-moving-to-trash' now only affects commands that specify
311 trashing. This avoids inadvertently trashing temporary files.
312 +++
313 *** Calling `delete-file' or `delete-directory' with a prefix argument
314 now forces true deletion, regardless of `delete-by-moving-to-trash'.
315
316 ** New option `list-colors-sort' defines the color sort order
317 for `list-colors-display'.
318
319 ** An Emacs Lisp package manager is now included.
320 This is a convenient way to download and install additional packages,
321 from a package repository at http://elpa.gnu.org.
322 +++
323 *** `M-x list-packages' shows a list of packages, which can be
324 selected for installation.
325 +++
326 *** New command `describe-package', bound to `C-h P'.
327 +++
328 *** By default, all installed packages are loaded and activated
329 automatically when Emacs starts up. To disable this, set
330 `package-enable-at-startup' to nil. To change which packages are
331 loaded, customize `package-load-list'.
332
333 ** Custom Themes
334
335 *** `M-x customize-themes' lists Custom themes which can be enabled.
336
337 *** New option `custom-theme-load-path' is the load path for themes.
338 Emacs no longer looks for custom themes in `load-path'. The default
339 is to search in `custom-theme-directory', followed by a built-in theme
340 directory named "themes/" in `data-directory'.
341
342 *** New option `custom-safe-themes' records known-safe theme files.
343 If a theme is not in this list, Emacs queries before loading it, and
344 offers to save the theme to `custom-safe-themes' automatically. By
345 default, all themes included in Emacs are treated as safe.
346
347 ** The user option `remote-file-name-inhibit-cache' controls whether
348 the remote file-name cache is used for read access.
349
350 ** File- and directory-local variable changes
351 +++
352 *** You can stop directory local vars from applying to subdirectories.
353 Add an element (subdirs . nil) to the alist portion of any variables
354 settings to indicate that the section should not apply to
355 subdirectories.
356
357 *** Directory local variables can apply to some file-less buffers.
358 Affected modes include dired, vc-dir, and log-edit. For example,
359 adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to .dir-locals.el will
360 turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff* buffers. Modes should call
361 `hack-dir-local-variables-non-file-buffer' to support this.
362
363 +++
364 *** Using "mode: MINOR-MODE" to enable a minor mode is deprecated.
365 Instead, use "eval: (minor-mode 1)".
366
367 +++
368 ** The variable `focus-follows-mouse' now always defaults to nil.
369
370 ** New primitive `secure-hash' that supports many secure hash algorithms
371 including md5, sha-1 and sha-2 (sha-224, sha-256, sha-384 and sha-512).
372 The elisp implementation sha1.el is removed. Feature sha1 is provided
373 by default.
374
375 ** Menu-bar changes
376
377 *** `menu-bar-select-buffer-function' lets you choose another operation
378 instead of `switch-to-buffer' when selecting an item in the Buffers menu.
379
380 ** The inactive minibuffer has its own major mode `minibuffer-inactive-mode'.
381 This is handy for minibuffer-only frames, and is also used for the "mouse-1
382 pops up *Messages*" feature, which can now easily be changed.
383
384 \f
385 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
386
387 ** Search changes
388 +++
389 *** C-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-kill, instead of
390 isearch-yank-line.
391 ---
392 *** M-y in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-pop, instead of
393 isearch-yank-kill.
394 +++
395 *** M-s C-e in Isearch is now bound to isearch-yank-line.
396
397 +++
398 ** New command `count-words-region'. This does what you expect.
399
400 ** completion-at-point now handles tags and semantic completion.
401
402 ** The default value of `backup-by-copying-when-mismatch' is now t.
403
404 ** The command `just-one-space' (C-SPC), if given a negative argument,
405 also deletes newlines around point.
406
407 ** Deletion changes
408
409 *** New option `delete-active-region'.
410 If non-nil, [delete] and DEL delete the region if it is active and no
411 prefix argument is given. If set to `kill', these commands kill
412 instead.
413
414 *** New command `delete-forward-char', bound to [delete].
415 This is meant for interactive use, and obeys `delete-active-region'.
416 The command `delete-char' does not obey `delete-active-region'.
417
418 *** `delete-backward-char' is now a Lisp function.
419 Apart from obeying `delete-active-region', its behavior is unchanged.
420 However, the byte compiler now warns if it is called from Lisp; you
421 should use delete-char with a negative argument instead.
422 ---
423 *** The option `mouse-region-delete-keys' has been deleted.
424
425 ** Selection changes.
426
427 The default handling of clipboard and primary selections was changed
428 to conform with modern X applications. In short, most commands for
429 killing and yanking text now use the clipboard, while mouse commands
430 use the primary selection.
431
432 In the following, we provide a list of these changes, followed by a
433 list of steps to get the old behavior back if you prefer that.
434
435 +++
436 *** `select-active-regions' now defaults to t.
437 Merely selecting text (e.g. with drag-mouse-1) no longer puts it in
438 the kill ring. The selected text is put in the primary selection, if
439 the system possesses a separate primary selection facility (e.g. X).
440
441 +++
442 **** `select-active-regions' also accepts a new value, `only'.
443 This means to only set the primary selection for temporarily active
444 regions (usually made by mouse-dragging or shift-selection);
445 "ordinary" active regions, such as those made with C-SPC followed by
446 point motion, do not alter the primary selection.
447
448 ---
449 **** `mouse-drag-copy-region' now defaults to nil.
450
451 +++
452 *** mouse-2 is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
453 This pastes from the primary selection, ignoring the kill-ring.
454 Previously, mouse-2 was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click'.
455
456 +++
457 *** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
458 +++
459 *** `x-select-enable-primary' now defaults to nil.
460 Thus, commands that kill text or copy it to the kill-ring (such as
461 M-w, C-w, and C-k) also use the clipboard---not the primary selection.
462
463 ---
464 **** The "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items in the "Edit" menu are now
465 exactly equivalent to, respectively M-w, C-w, and C-y.
466
467 ---
468 **** Note that on MS-Windows, `x-select-enable-clipboard' was already
469 non-nil by default, as Windows does not support the primary selection
470 between applications.
471
472 ---
473 *** To return to the previous behavior, do the following:
474 **** Change `select-active-regions' to nil.
475 **** Change `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t.
476 **** Change `x-select-enable-primary' to t (on X only).
477 **** Change `x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
478 **** Bind `mouse-yank-at-click' to mouse-2.
479
480 +++
481 *** Support for X cut buffers has been removed.
482
483 *** X clipboard managers are now supported.
484 To inhibit this, change `x-select-enable-clipboard-manager' to nil.
485
486 ** New command `rectangle-number-lines', bound to `C-x r N', numbers
487 the lines in the current rectangle. With an prefix argument, this
488 prompts for a number to count from and for a format string.
489
490 ** The command shell prompts for the shell path name, when the default
491 directory is a remote file name and neither environment variable
492 $ESHELL nor variable `explicit-shell-file-name' is set.
493
494 \f
495 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
496
497 ** Archive Mode has basic support for browsing and updating 7z archives.
498
499 ** browse-url has a new variable `browse-url-mailto-function'
500 specifies how mailto: URLs are handled. The default is `browse-url-mail'.
501
502 ** BibTeX mode
503
504 *** BibTeX mode now supports biblatex.
505 Use the variable bibtex-dialect to select support for different BibTeX
506 dialects. bibtex-entry-field-alist is now an obsolete alias for
507 bibtex-BibTeX-entry-alist.
508
509 *** New command `bibtex-search-entries' bound to C-c C-a.
510
511 *** New `bibtex-entry-format' option `sort-fields', disabled by default.
512
513 *** New variable `bibtex-search-entry-globally'.
514
515 ** Calendar, Diary, and Appt
516
517 +++
518 *** Diary entries can contain non-printing `comments'.
519 See the variable `diary-comment-start'.
520
521 +++
522 *** Appointments can specify their individual warning times.
523 See the variable `appt-warning-time-regexp'.
524
525 ---
526 *** The function specified by `appt-disp-window-function' may be passed
527 lists of arguments if multiple appointments are due at similar times.
528 If you are using a custom function for this, you should update it.
529
530 +++
531 *** New function `diary-hebrew-birthday'.
532
533 ---
534 *** Elements of `calendar-day-abbrev-array' and `calendar-month-abbrev-array'
535 may no longer be nil, but must all be strings.
536
537 ---
538 *** The obsolete (since Emacs 22.1) method of enabling the appt package
539 by adding appt-make-list to diary-hook has been removed. Use appt-activate.
540
541 ---
542 *** Some appt variables (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
543 appt-issue-message (use the function appt-activate)
544 appt-visible/appt-msg-window (use the variable appt-display-format)
545
546 ---
547 *** Some diary function aliases (obsolete since Emacs 22.1) have been removed:
548 view-diary-entries, list-diary-entries, show-all-diary-entries
549
550 ** CC Mode (C, C++, etc.)
551
552 *** New feature to "guess" the style in an existing buffer.
553
554 ** comint and modes derived from it use the generic completion code.
555
556 ** Compilation mode
557
558 *** Compilation mode can be used without font-lock-mode.
559 `compilation-parse-errors-function' is now obsolete.
560
561 *** `compilation-filter-start' is let-bound to the start of the text
562 inserted by the compilation filter function, when calling
563 compilation-filter-hook.
564
565 ** Customize
566
567 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
568 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
569 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil.
570
571 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
572 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
573
574 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
575
576 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
577 choose a color via list-colors-display.
578
579 ** D-Bus
580
581 *** It is possible now, to access alternative buses than the default
582 system or session bus.
583
584 *** dbus-register-{service,method,property}
585 The -method and -property functions do not automatically register
586 names anymore.
587
588 The new function dbus-register-service registers a service known name
589 on a D-Bus without simultaneously registering a property or a method.
590
591 ** Dired-x
592
593 *** dired-jump and dired-jump-other-window called with a prefix argument
594 read a file name from the minibuffer instead of using buffer-file-name.
595
596 +++
597 *** The `dired local variables' feature provided by Dired-x is obsolete.
598 The standard directory local variables feature replaces it.
599
600 ** ERC changes
601
602 *** New vars `erc-autojoin-timing' and `erc-autojoin-delay'.
603 If the value of `erc-autojoin-timing' is 'ident, ERC autojoins after a
604 successful NickServ identification, or after `erc-autojoin-delay'
605 seconds. The default value, 'ident, means to autojoin immediately
606 after connecting.
607
608 *** New variable `erc-coding-system-precedence': If we use `undecided'
609 as the server coding system, this variable will then be consulted.
610 The default is to decode strings that can be decoded as utf-8 as
611 utf-8, and do the normal `undecided' decoding for the rest.
612
613 ** Eshell changes
614
615 *** The default value of eshell-directory-name is a directory named
616 "eshell" in `user-emacs-directory'. If the old "~/.eshell/" directory
617 exists, that is used instead.
618
619 ** gdb-mi
620
621 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
622 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
623 threads simultaneously.
624
625 ** In ido-mode, C-v is no longer bound to ido-toggle-vc.
626 The reason is that this interferes with cua-mode.
627
628 ** Image mode
629
630 *** RET (`image-toggle-animation') toggles animation, if the displayed
631 image can be animated.
632
633 *** Option `image-animate-loop', if non-nil, loops the animation.
634 If nil, `image-toggle-animation' plays the animation once.
635
636 ** Info
637
638 *** New command `info-display-manual' displays an Info manual
639 specified by its name. If that manual is already visited in some Info
640 buffer within the current session, the command will display that
641 buffer. Otherwise, it will load the manual and display it. This is
642 handy if you have many manuals in many Info buffers, and don't
643 remember the name of the buffer visiting the manual you want to
644 consult.
645
646 ** The Landmark game is now invoked with `landmark', not `lm'.
647
648 ** MH-E has been upgraded to MH-E version 8.2.93.
649 See MH-E-NEWS for details.
650
651 ** Modula-2 mode provides auto-indentation.
652
653 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
654
655 ** Prolog mode has been completely revamped, with lots of additional
656 functionality such as more intelligent indentation, electricity, support for
657 more variants, including Mercury, and a lot more.
658
659 ** Rmail
660
661 *** The command `rmail-epa-decrypt' decrypts OpenPGP data
662 in the Rmail incoming message.
663
664 ** shell-mode can track your cwd by reading it from your prompt.
665 Just set shell-dir-cookie-re to an appropriate regexp.
666
667 ---
668 ** SQL Mode enhancements.
669
670 *** `sql-dialect' is an alias for `sql-product'.
671
672 *** New variable `sql-port' specifies the port number for connecting
673 to a MySQL or Postgres server.
674
675 *** The command `sql-product-interactive' now takes a prefix argument,
676 which causes it to prompt for an SQL product instead of the current
677 value of `sql-product'.
678
679 *** Product-specific SQL interactive commands now take prefix args.
680 These commands (`sql-sqlite', `sql-postgres', `sql-mysql', etc.),
681 given a prefix argument, prompt for a name for the SQL interactive
682 buffer. This reduces the need for calling `sql-rename-buffer'.
683
684 *** SQL interactive modes suppress command continuation prompts, and
685 replace tabs with spaces. The first change impacts multiple line SQL
686 statements entered with C-j between each line, statements yanked into
687 the buffer and statements sent with `sql-send-*' functions. The
688 second change prevents the MySQL and Postgres interpreters from
689 listing object name completions when sent text via `sql-send-*'
690 functions.
691
692 *** New custom variables control prompting for login parameters.
693 Each supported product has a custom variable `sql-*-login-params',
694 which is a list of the parameters to be prompted for before a
695 connection is established.
696
697 *** New variable `sql-connection-alist' for login parameter values.
698 This can be used to store different username, database and server
699 values. Connections defined in this variable appear in the submenu
700 SQL->Start... for making new SQLi sessions.
701
702 *** New command `sql-connect' starts a predefined SQLi session,
703 using the login parameters from `sql-connection-alist'.
704
705 *** New "Save Connection" menu item in SQLi buffers.
706 This gathers the login params specified for the SQLi session, if it
707 was not started by a connection, and saves them as a new connection.
708
709 *** Commands for listing database objects and details.
710 In an SQLi session, you can get a list of objects in the database.
711 The contents of these lists are product specific.
712
713 **** `C-c C-l a' or the "SQL->List all objects" menu item
714 lists all the objects in the database. With a prefix argument, it
715 displays additional details or extend the listing to include other
716 schemas objects.
717
718 **** `C-c C-l t' or the "SQL->List Table details" menu item
719 prompts for the name of a database table or view and displays the list
720 of columns in the relation. With a prefix argument, it displays
721 additional details about each column.
722
723 *** New options `sql-send-terminator' and `sql-oracle-scan-on'.
724
725 *** An API for manipulating SQL product definitions has been added.
726
727 ** TeX modes
728
729 *** latex-electric-env-pair-mode keeps \begin..\end matched on the fly.
730
731 ** Tramp
732
733 *** There exists a new inline access method "ksu" (kerberized su).
734
735 *** The following access methods are discontinued: "ssh1_old",
736 "ssh2_old", "scp1_old", "scp2_old", "imap", "imaps" and "fish".
737
738 *** The option `ange-ftp-binary-file-name-regexp' has changed its
739 default value to "".
740
741 ** `url-queue-retrieve' downloads web pages asynchronously, but allow
742 controlling the degree of parallelism.
743
744 ** VC and related modes
745
746 *** Support for pulling on distributed version control systems.
747 The vc-pull command runs a "pull" operation, if it is supported.
748 This updates the current branch from upstream. A prefix argument
749 means to prompt the user for specifics, e.g. a pull location.
750
751 **** `vc-update' is now an alias for `vc-pull'.
752
753 **** Currently supported by Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
754
755 *** Support for merging on distributed version control systems.
756 The vc-merge command now runs a "merge" operation, if it is supported.
757 This merges another branch into the current one. This command prompts
758 the user for specifics, e.g. a merge source.
759
760 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
761
762 *** New option `vc-revert-show-diff' controls whether `vc-revert'
763 shows a diff while querying the user. It defaults to t.
764
765 *** Log entries in some Log View buffers can be toggled to display a
766 longer description by typing RET (log-view-toggle-entry-display).
767 In the Log View buffers made by `C-x v L' (vc-print-root-log), you can
768 use this to display the full log entry for the revision at point.
769
770 **** Currently supported for Bzr, Git, and Mercurial.
771
772 **** Packages using Log View mode can enable this functionality by
773 binding `log-view-expanded-log-entry-function' to a suitable function.
774
775 *** New command `vc-ediff' allows visual comparison of two revisions
776 of a file similar to `vc-diff', but using ediff backend.
777
778 ** FIXME: xdg-open for browse-url and reportbug, 2010/08.
779
780 ** Obsolete modes
781
782 *** partial-completion-mode is obsolete.
783 You can get a comparable behavior with:
784 (setq completion-styles '(partial-completion initials))
785 (setq completion-pcm-complete-word-inserts-delimiters t)
786
787 *** pc-mode.el is obsolete.
788
789 *** sregex.el is obsolete, since rx.el is a strict superset.
790
791 *** s-region.el and pc-select are obsolete.
792 They are superseded by shift-select-mode enabled by default in 23.1.
793
794 ** Miscellaneous
795
796 +++
797 *** f90.el has some support for Fortran 2008 syntax.
798
799 ---
800 *** `copyright-fix-years' can optionally convert consecutive years to ranges.
801
802 *** New command `nato-region' converts text to NATO phonetic alphabet.
803
804 \f
805 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
806
807 ** Occur Edit mode applies edits made in *Occur* buffers to the
808 original buffers. It is bound to C-x C-q in Occur mode.
809
810 ** New global minor modes electric-pair-mode, electric-indent-mode,
811 and electric-layout-mode.
812
813 ** tabulated-list.el provides a generic major mode for tabulated data,
814 from which other modes can be derived.
815
816 ** pcase.el provides the ML-style pattern matching macro `pcase'.
817
818 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
819 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet. The
820 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication. The command
821 `secrets-show-secrets' offers a buffer with a visualization of the
822 secrets.
823
824 ** notifications.el provides an implementation of the Desktop
825 Notifications API. It requires D-Bus for communication.
826
827 ** soap-client.el supports access to SOAP web services from Emacs.
828 soap-inspect.el is an interactive inspector for SOAP WSDL structures.
829
830 ** xmodmap-generic-mode for xmodmap files.
831
832 ** New emacs-lock.el package.
833 (The pre-existing one has been renamed to old-emacs-lock.el and moved
834 to obsolete/.) Now, Emacs Lock is a proper minor mode
835 `emacs-lock-mode'. Protection against exiting Emacs and killing the
836 buffer can be set separately. The mechanism for auto turning off
837 protection for buffers with inferior processes has been generalized.
838
839 \f
840 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
841
842 ---
843 ** `char-direction-table' and the associated function `char-direction'
844 were deleted. They were buggy and inferior to the new support of
845 bidirectional editing introduced in Emacs 24. If you need the
846 bidirectional properties of a character, use `get-char-code-property'
847 with the last argument `bidi-class'.
848
849 +++
850 ** `copy-directory' now copies the source directory as a subdirectory
851 of the target directory, if the latter is an existing directory. The
852 new optional arg COPY-CONTENTS, if non-nil, makes the function copy
853 the contents directly into a pre-existing target directory.
854
855 ** `compose-mail' now accepts an optional 8th arg, RETURN-ACTION, and
856 passes it to the mail user agent function. This argument specifies an
857 action for returning to the caller after finishing with the mail.
858 This is currently used by Rmail to delete a mail window.
859
860 ** For mouse click input events in the text area, the Y pixel
861 coordinate in the POSITION list now counts from the top of the text
862 area, excluding any header line. Previously, it counted from the top
863 of the header line.
864
865 ** Removed obsolete name `e' (use `float-e' instead).
866
867 ** A backquote not followed by a space is now always treated as new-style.
868
869 ** Test for special mode-class was moved from view-file to view-buffer.
870 FIXME: This only says what was changed, but not what are the
871 programmer-visible consequences.
872
873 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
874 ON unconditionally.
875
876 +++
877 ** During startup, Emacs no longer adds entries for `menu-bar-lines'
878 and `tool-bar-lines' to `default-frame-alist' and `initial-frame-alist'.
879 With these alist entries omitted, `make-frame' checks the value of the
880 variable `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode' to determine whether to create
881 a menu-bar or tool-bar, respectively. If the alist entries are added,
882 they override the value of `menu-bar-mode'/`tool-bar-mode'.
883
884 ** Regions created by mouse dragging are now normal active regions,
885 similar to the ones created by shift-selection. In previous Emacs
886 versions, these regions were delineated by `mouse-drag-overlay', which
887 has now been removed.
888
889 ** cl.el no longer provides `cl-19'.
890
891 ** The following obsolete functions and aliases were removed:
892 comint-kill-output, decompose-composite-char, outline-visible,
893 internal-find-face, internal-get-face, frame-update-faces,
894 frame-update-face-colors, x-frob-font-weight, x-frob-font-slant,
895 x-make-font-bold, x-make-font-demibold, x-make-font-unbold
896 x-make-font-italic, x-make-font-oblique, x-make-font-unitalic
897 x-make-font-bold-italic, mldrag-drag-mode-line, mldrag-drag-vertical-line,
898 iswitchb-default-keybindings, char-bytes, isearch-return-char,
899 make-local-hook
900
901 ** The following obsolete variables and varaliases were removed:
902 checkdoc-minor-keymap, vc-header-alist, directory-sep-char, and
903 font-lock-defaults-alist.
904
905 ** The following obsolete files were removed:
906 sc.el, x-menu.el, rnews.el, rnewspost.el
907
908 ** FIXME finder-inf.el changes.
909
910 \f
911 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
912
913 ** Code can now use lexical scoping by default instead of dynamic scoping.
914 The `lexical-binding' variable lets code use lexical scoping for local
915 variables. It is typically set via file-local variables, in which case it
916 applies to all the code in that file.
917
918 *** `eval' takes a new optional argument `lexical' to choose the new lexical
919 binding instead of the old dynamic binding mode.
920
921 *** Lexically scoped interpreted functions are represented with a new form
922 of function value which looks like (closure ENV ARGS &rest BODY).
923
924 *** New macro `letrec' to define recursive local functions.
925
926 *** New function `special-variable-p' to check whether a variable is
927 declared as dynamically bound.
928
929 ** An Emacs Lisp testing tool is now included.
930 Emacs Lisp developers can use this tool to write automated tests for
931 their code. See the ERT info manual for details.
932
933 ** Changes for bidirectional display and editing
934
935 +++
936 *** New function `current-bidi-paragraph-direction'.
937 This returns the actual value of base direction of the paragraph at
938 point.
939
940 +++
941 *** New function `bidi-string-mark-left-to-right'.
942 Given a string containing characters from right-to-left (RTL) scripts,
943 this function returns another string which can be safely inserted into
944 a buffer, such that any following text will be always displayed to the
945 right of that string. (This works by appending the Unicode
946 "LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK" character when the argument string might need that.)
947
948 This is useful when the buffer has overall left-to-right (LTR)
949 paragraph direction and you need to insert a string whose contents and
950 directionality are not known in advance, without disrupting the layout
951 of the line.
952
953 ** Window changes
954
955 *** `switch-to-buffer' has a new optional argument FORCE-SAME-WINDOW,
956 which if non-nil requires the buffer to be displayed in the currently
957 selected window, signaling an error otherwise. If nil, another window
958 can be used, e.g. if the selected one is strongly dedicated.
959
960 *** FIXME: buffer-display-alist changes
961
962 ** Completion
963
964 *** New variable completion-extra-properties used to specify extra properties
965 of the current completion:
966 - :annotate-function, same as the old completion-annotate-function.
967 - :exit-function, function to call after completion took place.
968
969 *** Functions on completion-at-point-functions can return any of the properties
970 valid for completion-extra-properties.
971
972 *** completion-annotate-function is obsolete.
973
974 *** New `metadata' method for completion tables. The metadata thus returned
975 can specify various details of the data returned by `all-completions':
976 - `category' is the kind of objects returned (e.g., `buffer', `file', ...),
977 used to select a style in completion-category-overrides.
978 - `annotation-function' to add annotations in *Completions*.
979 - `display-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries in *Completions*.
980 - `cycle-sort-function' to specify how to sort entries when cycling.
981
982 ** `glyphless-char-display' can now distinguish between graphical and
983 text terminal display, via a char-table entry that is a cons cell.
984
985 ** `open-network-stream' can now be used to open an encrypted stream.
986 It now accepts an optional `:type' parameter for initiating a TLS
987 connection, directly or via STARTTLS. To do STARTTLS, additional
988 parameters (`:end-of-command', `:success', `:capabilities-command')
989 must also be supplied.
990
991 +++
992 ** pre/post-command-hook are not reset to nil upon error.
993 Instead, the offending function is removed.
994
995 ** New low-level function run-hook-wrapped.
996
997 ** `server-eval-at' is provided to allow evaluating forms on different
998 Emacs server instances.
999
1000 ** `call-process' allows a `(:file "file")' spec to redirect STDOUT to
1001 a file.
1002
1003 ---
1004 ** Variable `stack-trace-on-error' removed.
1005 Also the debugger can now "continue" from an error, which means it will jump
1006 to the error handler as if the debugger had not been invoked instead of
1007 jumping all the way to the top-level.
1008
1009 ** New function `read-char-choice' reads a restricted set of characters,
1010 discarding any inputs not inside the set.
1011
1012 ** `image-library-alist' is renamed to `dynamic-library-alist'.
1013 The variable is now used to load all kind of supported dynamic libraries,
1014 not just image libraries. The previous name is still available as an
1015 obsolete alias.
1016
1017 ** New variable `syntax-propertize-function'.
1018 This replaces `font-lock-syntactic-keywords' which is now obsolete.
1019 This allows syntax-table properties to be set independently from font-lock:
1020 just call syntax-propertize to make sure the text is propertized.
1021 Together with this new variable come a new hook
1022 syntax-propertize-extend-region-functions, as well as two helper functions:
1023 syntax-propertize-via-font-lock to reuse old font-lock-syntactic-keywords
1024 as-is; and syntax-propertize-rules which provides a new way to specify
1025 syntactic rules.
1026
1027 ** New hook post-self-insert-hook run at the end of self-insert-command.
1028
1029 +++
1030 ** Syntax tables support a new "comment style c" additionally to style b.
1031
1032 ** frame-local variables cannot be let-bound any more.
1033
1034 +++
1035 ** prog-mode is a new major-mode meant to be the parent of programming mode.
1036 The prog-mode-hook it defines can be used to enable features for
1037 programming modes. For example:
1038 (add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'flyspell-prog-mode)
1039 enables on the fly spell checking for comments and strings for
1040 programming modes.
1041
1042 ** define-minor-mode accepts a new keyword :variable.
1043
1044 +++
1045 ** `delete-file' and `delete-directory' now accept optional arg TRASH.
1046 Trashing is performed if TRASH and `delete-by-moving-to-trash' are
1047 both non-nil. Interactively, TRASH defaults to t, unless a prefix
1048 argument is supplied (see Trash changes, above).
1049
1050 ** `facemenu-read-color' is now an alias for `read-color'.
1051 The command `read-color' now requires a match for a color name or RGB
1052 triplet, instead of signalling an error if the user provides a invalid
1053 input.
1054
1055 ** Tool-bars can display separators.
1056 Tool-bar separators are handled like menu separators in menu-bar maps,
1057 i.e. via menu entries of the form `(menu-item "--")'.
1058
1059 ** Image API
1060
1061 *** Animated images support (currently animated gifs only).
1062
1063 **** `image-animated-p' returns non-nil if an image can be animated.
1064
1065 **** `image-animate' animates a supplied image spec.
1066
1067 **** `image-animate-timer' returns the timer object for an image that
1068 is being animated.
1069
1070 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
1071
1072 *** If Emacs is compiled with ImageMagick support (see Startup
1073 Changes), the function `imagemagick-types' returns a list of image
1074 file extensions that your installation of ImageMagick supports. The
1075 function `imagemagick-register-types' enables ImageMagick support for
1076 these image types, minus those listed in `imagemagick-types-inhibit'.
1077
1078 See the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual for more information.
1079
1080 ** XML and HTML parsing
1081
1082 *** If Emacs is compiled with libxml2 support (which is the default),
1083 two new Emacs Lisp-level functions are defined:
1084 `libxml-parse-html-region' (which will parse "real world" HTML)
1085 and `libxml-parse-xml-region' (which parses XML). Both return an
1086 Emacs Lisp parse tree.
1087
1088 FIXME: These should be front-ended by xml.el.
1089
1090 ** GnuTLS
1091
1092 *** Emacs can be compiled with libgnutls support
1093 This is the default. You will then be able to use the functionality
1094 in gnutls.el, namely the `open-gnutls-stream' and `gnutls-negotiate'
1095 functions. It's easiest to use these functions through
1096 `open-network-stream' because it can upgrade connections through
1097 STARTTLS opportunistically or use plain SSL, depending on your needs.
1098
1099 Only versions 2.8.x and higher or GnuTLS have been tested.
1100
1101 *** gnutls-log-level
1102 Set `gnutls-log-level' higher than 0 to get debug output. 1 is for
1103 important messages, 2 is for debug data, and higher numbers are as per
1104 the GnuTLS logging conventions. The output is in *Messages*.
1105
1106 ** Isearch
1107
1108 *** New hook `isearch-update-post-hook' that runs in `isearch-update'.
1109
1110 +++
1111 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
1112 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
1113 now be nil, or omitted. This makes a "non-numeric" reporter. Each
1114 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
1115 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
1116 displayed with a "spinning bar".
1117
1118 ** New variable `revert-buffer-in-progress-p' is true while a buffer is
1119 being reverted, even if the buffer has a local `revert-buffer-function'.
1120
1121 ** New variables `delayed-warnings-list' and `delayed-warnings-hook' allow
1122 deferring warnings until the main command loop is executed.
1123
1124 +++
1125 ** `set-auto-mode' now respects mode: local variables at the end of files,
1126 as well as those in the -*- line.
1127
1128 ---
1129 ** rx.el has a new `group-n' construct for explicitly numbered groups.
1130
1131 ** keymaps can inherit from multiple parents.
1132
1133 +++
1134 ** New reader macro ## which stands for the empty symbol.
1135 This means that the empty symbol can now be read back. Also, #: by itself
1136 (when not immediately followed by a possible symbol character) stands for
1137 an empty uninterned symbol.
1138
1139 ** Obsolete functions and variables
1140
1141 *** buffer-substring-filters is obsolete.
1142 Use `filter-buffer-substring-functions' instead.
1143
1144 *** `byte-compile-disable-print-circle' is obsolete.
1145
1146 *** `deferred-action-list' and `deferred-action-function' are obsolete.
1147
1148 \f
1149 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
1150
1151 ** New configure.bat option --enable-checking builds Emacs with extra
1152 runtime checks.
1153
1154 ** New configure.bat option --distfiles to specify files to be
1155 included in binary distribution.
1156
1157 ** New configure.bat option --without-gnutls to disable automatic
1158 GnuTLS detection.
1159
1160 ** New configure.bat option --lib for general library linkage, works
1161 with the USER_LIBS build variable.
1162
1163 ** New make target `dist' to create binary distribution for MS Windows.
1164
1165 ** On Nextstep/OSX, the menu bar can be hidden by customizing
1166 ns-auto-hide-menu-bar.
1167
1168 \f
1169 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
1170 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
1171
1172 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
1173 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
1174 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
1175 (at your option) any later version.
1176
1177 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
1178 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
1179 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
1180 GNU General Public License for more details.
1181
1182 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
1183 along with GNU Emacs. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
1184
1185 \f
1186 Local variables:
1187 mode: outline
1188 paragraph-separate: "[ \f]*$"
1189 end: