etc/NEWS

   1 GNU Emacs NEWS -- history of user-visible changes.
   2
   3 Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   4 See the end of the file for license conditions.
   5
   6 Please send Emacs bug reports to bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
   7 If possible, use M-x report-emacs-bug.
   8
   9 This file is about changes in Emacs version 24.
  10
  11 See files NEWS.23, NEWS.22, NEWS.21, NEWS.20, NEWS.19, NEWS.18,
  12 and NEWS.1-17 for changes in older Emacs versions.
  13
  14 You can narrow news to a specific version by calling `view-emacs-news'
  15 with a prefix argument or by typing C-u C-h C-n.
  16
  17
  18 Temporary note:
  19  +++ indicates that the appropriate manual has already been updated.
  20  --- means no change in the manuals is called for.
  21 When you add a new item, please add it without either +++ or ---
  22 so we will look at it and add it to the manual.
  23
  24 \f
  25 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.1
  26
  27 ---
  28 ** There are new configure options:
  29 --with-mmdf, --with-mail-unlink, --with-mailhost.
  30 These provide no new functionality, they just remove the need to edit
  31 lib-src/Makefile by hand in order to use the associated features.
  32
  33 \f
  34 * Startup Changes in Emacs 24.1
  35
  36 \f
  37 * Changes in Emacs 24.1
  38
  39 ** auto-mode-case-fold is now enabled by default.
  40
  41 +++
  42 ** Emacs now supports display and editing of bidirectional text.
  43 Warning: This is still very much experimental!  The existing support
  44 is minimal, and when it's turned on (see below), many features are
  45 likely to give unexpected results, or break, or even crash!  Use at
  46 your own risk!
  47
  48 See the node "Bidirectional Editing" in the Emacs Manual for some
  49 initial documentation.
  50
  51 To turn this on in any given buffer, set the buffer-local variable
  52 `bidi-display-reordering' to a non-nil value.  The default is nil.
  53
  54 The buffer-local variable `bidi-paragraph-direction', if non-nil,
  55 forces each paragraph in the buffer to have its base direction
  56 according to the value of this variable.  Possible values are
  57 `right-to-left' and `left-to-right'.  If the value is nil (the
  58 default), Emacs determines the base direction of each paragraph from
  59 its text, as specified by the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm.
  60
  61 Reordering of bidirectional text for display in Emacs is a "Full
  62 bidirectionality" class implementation of the Unicode Bidirectional
  63 Algorithm.
  64
  65 ** GTK scroll-bars are now placed on the right by default.
  66 Use `set-scroll-bar-mode' to change this.
  67
  68 ** Lucid menus and dialogs can display antialiased fonts if Emacs is built
  69 with Xft.
  70
  71 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-command' and `scroll-down-command'
  72 (bound to [next] and [prior]) does not signal errors at top/bottom
  73 of buffer at first key-press (instead moves to top/bottom of buffer).
  74
  75 ** New scrolling commands `scroll-up-line' and `scroll-down-line'
  76 scroll a line instead of full screen.
  77
  78 \f
  79 * Editing Changes in Emacs 24.1
  80
  81 \f
  82 * Changes in Specialized Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
  83
  84 ** mpc.el: Can use pseudo tags of the form tag1|tag2 as a union of two tags.
  85 ** Customize
  86
  87 *** Customize buffers now contain a search field.
  88 The search is performed using `customize-apropos'.
  89 To turn off the search field, set custom-search-field to nil .
  90
  91 *** Custom options now start out hidden if at their default values.
  92 Use the arrow to the left of the option name to toggle visibility.
  93
  94 *** custom-buffer-sort-alphabetically now defaults to t.
  95
  96 *** The color widget now has a "Choose" button, which allows you to
  97 choose a color via list-colors-display.
  98
  99 ** VC and related modes
 100
 101 *** New VC commands: vc-log-incoming and vc-log-outgoing.
 102
 103 *** vc-dir for Bzr supports viewing shelve contents and shelving snapshots.
 104
 105 *** Special markup can be added to log-edit buffers.
 106
 107 **** For Bzr, adding an
 108 Author: NAME
 109 line will add "--author NAME" to the "bzr commit" command.
 110
 111 **** For Git, adding an
 112 Author: NAME
 113 line will add "--author NAME" to the "git commit" command.
 114
 115 **** For Hg, adding an
 116 Author: NAME
 117 line will add "--user NAME" to the "hg commit" command.
 118
 119 ** Directory local variables can apply to file-less buffers.
 120 For example, adding "(diff-mode . ((mode . whitespace)))" to your
 121 .dir-locals.el file, will turn on `whitespace-mode' for *vc-diff*
 122 buffers.
 123
 124 ** s-region.el is now declared obsolete, superceded by shift-select-mode
 125 enabled by default in 23.1.
 126
 127 ** gdb-mi
 128
 129 *** GDB User Interface migrated to GDB Machine Interface and now
 130 supports multithread non-stop debugging and debugging of several
 131 threads simultaneously.
 132
 133 \f
 134 * New Modes and Packages in Emacs 24.1
 135
 136 ** secrets.el is an implementation of the Secret Service API, an
 137 interface to password managers like GNOME Keyring or KDE Wallet.  The
 138 Secret Service API requires D-Bus for communication.
 139
 140 \f
 141 * Incompatible Lisp Changes in Emacs 24.1
 142
 143 ** Passing a nil argument to a minor mode function now turns the mode
 144    ON unconditionally.
 145 \f
 146 * Lisp changes in Emacs 24.1
 147
 148 ** New completion style `substring'.
 149
 150 ** Image API
 151
 152 *** When the image type is one of listed in `image-animated-types'
 153 and the number of sub-images in the image is more than one, then the
 154 new function `create-animated-image' creates an animated image where
 155 sub-images are displayed successively with the duration defined by
 156 `image-animate-max-time' and the delay between sub-images defined
 157 by the Graphic Control Extension of the image.
 158
 159 *** `image-extension-data' is renamed to `image-metadata'.
 160
 161 ** Progress reporters can now "spin".
 162 The MIN-VALUE and MAX-VALUE arguments of `make-progress-reporter' can
 163 now be nil, or omitted.  This makes a "non-numeric" reporter.  Each
 164 time you call `progress-reporter-update' on that progress reporter,
 165 with a nil or omitted VALUE argument, the reporter message is
 166 displayed with a "spinning bar".
 167
 168 \f
 169 * Changes in Emacs 24.1 on non-free operating systems
 170
 171 \f
 172 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 173 This file is part of GNU Emacs.
 174
 175 GNU Emacs is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 176 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 177 the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 178 (at your option) any later version.
 179
 180 GNU Emacs is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 181 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 182 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 183 GNU General Public License for more details.
 184
 185 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 186 along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 187
 188 \f
 189 Local variables:
 190 mode: outline
 191 paragraph-separate: "[  \f]*$"
 192 end: